That group held on to the company through the economic downturn. In 2013, the group sold it to Ares Management L.P., another private equity firm, and the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board in a $6 billion leveraged buyout that saddled the company with debt.

By that time, Neiman Marcus had largely stopped expanding into new markets and was focused on developing its e-commerce business.

But the deal did not do enough to help the company stave off threats from online and low-cost competition. Neiman Marcus abandoned its plans to go public in January, a month before the ratings agency Standard & Poor’s downgraded it to a CCC+.

Troubles across the industry have forced department stores, including Neiman, to re-evaluate their relationships with their lower-priced affiliates. Not long ago, for example, department stores banished their outlets miles away from their full-priced locations. Now, those same chains rely much more heavily on their discounted cousins, and it is not uncommon to find them within striking distance of each other.

Neiman Marcus operates 42 stores in the United States, and two Bergdorf Goodman stores in Manhattan, according to its website. There is one Last Call, Neiman Marcus’s cheaper option, in Brooklyn.

The move to lower-cost stores, and lower prices over all through promotions, has eaten into department stores’ bottom lines. E-commerce has been a particular focus of Richard A. Baker, the chief executive of Hudson’s Bay, in recent years. In addition to investing about $1 billion into renovating Hudson’s Bay stores, Mr. Baker has infused money into expanding the company’s online business. In November, the company opened a highly automated warehouse for shipping online orders at a cost of 60 million Canadian dollars, about $45 million.

Mr. Baker has had success with the Bay, as it is commonly known in Canada. But the company has been weighed down by a parallel project, which has made the chain a holding company for its assets in the United States, Saks Fifth Avenue and Lord & Taylor, as well as European holdings that include Galeria Kaufhof.