There’s a Sears in a nearby mall that was built in the late nineties and even when it was new it already looked outdated and cheap. It slowly became a place that no one thought about when it came time to shop for something and then they made a terrible website that no one wanted to look at. I used to love looking at the tool section back in the day, what a shame.

As others have said, I am not surprised but it still is a sad thing to see. As a kid, their catalog was a sight to behold.

quote:

Originally posted by darthfuster:
Sears could have saved itself were it willing to abandon the old business model sooner and more completely. One need only to look at Amazon for an example. Was it stubbornness? Pride? Shortsightedness? Sloth? Indifference that sunk this ship? Who knows, but they've been planning and bleeding this for a looooooooong time.

Sears was THE mail order company in America for almost a century. Yet, they couldn't get on the Internet bandwagon and become the Internet mail order company...…


Lambert already pulled most of the money out by buying it's assets for pennies on the dollar over the years......the real estate......etc. etc.....

I just saw they are closing one of the last K-Mart's in my area, I drive past this one all the time and rarely see more than 5-6 cars in the lot even during prime time hours. I'm shocked they lasted as long as they did.

Meanwhile, go to the Walmart a few miles down the road in the middle of the day and you can't find a parking space.

I was a Sears kid in the 60s and 70s and remained a Sears customer for most of my adult life to date. Most of our appliances and tools, family photos, etc., came from Sears over the years. We slowly drifted away as the selection dwindled and the prices didn't stay competitive. The appliance department was the last to lose us. Our last few replacements, instead of being Kenmores, have been from elsewhere.

I hope their reorganization works and they can find a way to once again become relevant and profitable with the (rumored) 400 to 500* stores they hope to keep open. However, I'm not holding my breath.

*Edit: According to Business Insider, there were 866 Sears & K-Mart stores left on 9/13/18. They were already closing 46 stores (leaving 820 after this liquidation) before the announcement and 142 more closures were announced with it (leaving 678). The business guy on the radio expected that they would trim at least one more batch to get down to their "profitable core group" that he estimated to be the 400 to 500.