Could This Be The Last Year For Sears?
The pre-holiday season always bought a wonderful treat to my country home. Early fall the "Sears Wish Book" (1933-2005) would arrive. This was a special edition for gift-giving, toys, and holiday fashion. I wrote about this beautiful treasured tradition in 2016, "Wish Book Shopping". Over the years, as a budding woman of fashion, much style knowledge was derived from the Sears catalog. I treasured each delivery with the big Spring / Summer edition being my favorite. Hours were spent studying the "Woman's Section". There were dresses, sports clothes and lingerie. In the shoe section, I always looked to see how high are the heels. Sears was my true shopping, "Wish Book".
Just this past week I went into my local mall's Sears. Are you surprised that one still exist? The reason was to get a watch battery and found that even this little jewelry repair shop has abandoned the store. My mall's Sears is one of the few remaining and my visit only brought sadness. Much of the two-level store is closed off. Long gone is the auto center, the tools section and even the appliance section had only a few items left. The brands, DieHard, Craftsman, and Kenmore were synonymous with the items marketed; now no more. CNN Business asked recently: Is this the last Christmas for Sears?
Sears was once a powerhouse. It has been a slow, quiet death for an iconic chain, whose groundbreaking catalog and anchor position at many malls nationwide once made Sears both the Amazon (AMZN) and the Walmart of its day...
At its peak, Sears, Roebuck was the world's largest retailer, with nearly 3,500 stores and outlets. About 100 stores closed earlier this year, leaving no more than 100 open today.
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Sears Craftsman
Radial Arm Saw |
Sears was poised to move into the 21 century and could have moved its catalog business online. The "I do not need to innovate" is a sad lesson that many have bitterly learned. Thus the demise of Kodak, Blockbuster, WordPerfect, IBM, Compaq, Blackberry, NetWare, Xerox and more. Will Apple soon be joining that group due to a lack of innovation?
So thank you and goodbye to my old friend, "Sears". You taught me so much about fashion and tools.
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I can so relate to this post. I loved the Sears and Montgomery Wards catalogs. Definite dream books. It was wonderful to take the catalog to my room and dream away on what it would be like to wear those forbidden items. Later, my first womans winter coat came from Sears. Some of their brand names are still around. I installed a new garage door opener yesterday and it is a Craftsman. Lowes now carries that brand name.
ReplyDeleteElizabeth Marie