How Sears lost the American shopper

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

It was the 1970s and Sears was at its peak. It dominated American retailing. Its corporate headquarters was the tallest building in the world. A job at Sears was a ticket to a long and lucrative career.

But rivals like Walmart were bearing down, shopping patterns were changing and Sears started making a series of wrong bets.

Over the last four decades, a succession of CEOs have tried to reinvent, reimagine and, finally, save Sears. One discussed merging with rivals Best Buy and Home Depot, talks not previously reported. Another opened the door to hedge-fund billionaire Eddie Lampert, who went on to slash spending with little investment in stores. Amid changing shopping patterns, technology shifts and Sears’s own missteps, customers fled.

What were the turning points when it lost its grip on the American shopper? Here is the story, told by eight people who lived it (edited from interviews). Mr. Lampert, who is poised to steer a vastly shrunken Sears out of bankruptcy, declined to be interviewed.

-more-

https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/companies/how-sears-lost-the-american-shopper/ar-BBUO2bk?li=BBnbfcN

[TheBlackAdder]

1. They lost me when they started to fuck over their employees, then I stopped using them.

[Sanity Claws]

2. Sears was an expert in mail order

You would think that would put it at an advantage for online sales but apparently not.

[The Genealogist]

7. I think you are quite right

Of course there are differences between catalog sales and online sales, but see a lot of similarity, as the grandson of an avid catalog user. Sears could have been a formidable force in internet sales.

[fescuerescue]

13. The catalog was ended in 1993

After years of losing money for Sears. They really just missed it by a few years. Amazon sold it's first book 1995 and general merchandise in 1998.

But those 2 years were far far more than enough time for sears to lose all it's mail order expertise as certainly all those folks were laid off.

Heck I wouldn't be surprised if Amazon picked up more than a few ex-sears mail order experts.

It's really kind of weird imo. There was only a period of about 10 years where people didn't want to order, but preferred the malls. Arguably the 1990's was probably the peak for malls.

[Doremus]

3. They lost the shoppers when someone who didn't have the foggiest idea of retail took charge

A hedge fund manager of all things. With one purpose: to divest of the popular, profitable portions of the company to line his pockets and leave the unprofitable stores behind. He's probably only buying it now so he can sell the remaining profitable real estate and then totally chuck the empty shell away for good.

Not a mystery that if you want to run a profitable retail operation you should probably have experienced retail managers in charge. But that never was the objective.

[dixiegrrrrl]

8. Bingo.

Sears is one of the biggest targets being destroyed by vulture funds, there are so many more lesser businesses that have lost too.

[sinkingfeeling]

9. +100 The same story for many departed retail corporations.

[Blue_Tires]

10. +1000

That's our "thing" as Americans for some reason... And that's why we now have a batshit insane reality TV celeb as our leader.

[Leith]

4. That was interesting

and blaringly obvious to everyone who was not running the company.

Management decisions were so bad that it looked like they were trying to run Sears into the ground.

[No Vested Interest]

5. I used to love the Sears catalogue. Items were available there that could not be found elsewhere.

In particular, I recall ordering the bottom half - pants- of children's sleepers.
The bottom half always wore out sooner than the tops, due to children learning to crawl while wearing their sleepers.
So I had many tops by bottoms with holes in them.
Sears came through with bottoms from their catalogues.

The good old days......

[obamanut2012]

6. They axed their catalog and catalog cenyers just as online shopping was taking off

They had a built-in consumer base and distribution centers, and threw it away! They could have been an online powerhouse, they could have been Amazon.

Then, they started screwing over employees.

THEN, started cheapening their main brands like Kenmore and Craftsman, and also didn't update their clothes -- it was all "old ladies" stuff. I am a semi old, and do not dress like an "old lady." Even their Levis, etc. were odd models. They didn't update their stores at all, either.

It was their fault they tanked. It made me sad at first, because I grew up with them, and I tried to at least still buy appliances from them, but Kenmore started sucking. I buy my appliances from Lowe's or IKEA now. AS cheap or cheaper, and better quality.

[Codeine]

11. About three years ago or so

I wandered in to my local Sears and it was straight the fuck out of 1983; I seriously felt like I had just time travelled back to junior high school clothes shopping.

[crazycatlady]

12. For younger shoppers, they were a punchline in a movie

In the now classic movie "Mean Girls' the character gains a few pounds and is too fat to shop at the cool prom dress store. The clerk condescendingly tells her to go to Sears.