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Originally posted by 220-9er:

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Originally posted by Rey HRH:

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Originally posted by zoom6zoom:
What's sorta sad is that if Sears had leveraged what they used to do better than anyone, and what built their brand, they could have been Amazon before Amazon existed.

Woulda, coulda, shoulda. I know because that's my song, too.

They were the Amazon of their times with their catalog going to millions of homes before going to the outhouses.

Montgomery Ward too. They were Sears big competitor in catalog sales back in the day.

They both had those big catalogs that were the size of the New York City phone book. a paper version of shopping on the internet back before anyone even heard of the internet.

That was their peak, the golden-age of the business. Wards, LLBean, Sears, Penny's, Spiegal's...they all had a solid 30+ year run of being the constant in the mail box. These were the business' that allowed small town residents to connect with the latest trends and not be limited to what the general store had in-stock. Today, the internet has over-taken and exceeded what the print world left behind. Some survived, most didn't, bad institutional inertia, and competition has made them an anachronism.

sears,kresge's, woolworth's, monkey wards.
when I was 6y.o.
I thought that we had the universe at out finger tips.

this was when they all had wooden , sometimes creaky floors and the isles were 48 inchs wide.

you didn't need to ask anyone where stuff was, because you already knew

the cash registrar's were the size of a car motor

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Originally posted by jhe888:
Sears isn't keeping up with Target, Wal-Mart, and Amazon. I bet the whole company is bankrupt and closed within 10 years. Maybe 5.

I agree......all from a store that initially took over the entire market from selling goods from a catalog and shipping them to your home, was one of the latest to join the internet sales frenzy and has one of the worst internet sales presences in the market.

Yeah. Today a child can't follow his father down the isles of Sears. Something most of us have done many times when suddenly the father stops and pulls a BB gun off the rack. Time stops between that point and the trip to the cash register.
Miss you Dad.

quote:

Originally posted by jimmy123x:

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Originally posted by jhe888:
Sears isn't keeping up with Target, Wal-Mart, and Amazon. I bet the whole company is bankrupt and closed within 10 years. Maybe 5.

I agree......all from a store that initially took over the entire market from selling goods from a catalog and shipping them to your home, was one of the latest to join the internet sales frenzy and has one of the worst internet sales presences in the market.

5 years ?! I give them to the end of this decade and that’s because I’m a softy and don’t want to see them die.

Was on vacation last week and had some Macy/Nordstrom gift cards to burn to I took the wife and she bought herself some new makeup at Nords and then we got new silverware at Macy’s to upgrade the stuff we got 15 years ago that she was never happy with. Whatever. Gift cards. Didn’t really cost me anything. Point is that on a weekday evening we had to walk from one anchor store to the other on a major mall in my area. I could have started shooting a gun off and not worried about hitting any customers. The place was dead. I’m sure weekends are a bit better and from thanksgiving through Christmas the place is a zoo but they can’t possibly be surviving on weekends and 1 month.

Sears is the other anchor of this mall. That place has been dead for a long time. What will happen to all these many acre mall properties when BIG anchor stores shut down. The tiny shops in the middle of the mall rely on the anchors to attract people. Big mall retail is in bad shape

I doubt they will last for the rest of this decade at the rate they're closing stores and losing money at.

I worked for Sears from 2007-2009. What a mess that company is.

Them going with Chinese made Craftsman tools while charging American prices turned me away from Craftsman. I refuse to buy it.

When we go to the mall, we park at Sears because that's where we get the closest spot to the door.

I remember my grandfather coming to pick me up from school and bringing me to the cafeteria at Sears for a hotdog.

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“It’s a loss in terms of the nostalgia and for families who grew up shopping there, but in terms of what the next generation of shoppers is looking for, it’s not going to be a Sears,” Stern said.

Which is why Sears won't be around in another 5-10 years. Hard to believe that a business who once had their Mail Order catalog in nearly every single American Home didn't recognize the the potential of the Internet and the 21st century version of mail order sales.

It really is sad, our Sears Auto Center was my go to, knew everyone there, went to school with some, and always got SERVICE!!

Now they're gone, and I'm sure the store is not far behind (dwindling stock big time). They are a ICON I will definitely miss, but, as they all say "they missed the boat"

Sad to see another giant going down. I remember Jefferson Ward closing and it was sad. Pretty soon there won't be any buildings/places to go to in order to show off your products you bought from other places.