Just curious as to when the demise started. I would like a factual well thought out response. I worked there in 2007 up until 3 years ago. I don’t ever recall the store being busy but people promise me it was once the go to store.
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IMO the decline of Sears started when Alan Lacy took over as CEO. He sold off the Sears credit card to a 3rd party. I believe this was in the early 2000's. Sears Credit was very profitable and helped support the company. Then Lacy over-paid for Land's End and IT ended up losing more than half of what Sears paid for it about 10 - 15 years later. Then Lacy took his golden parachute and left, paving the way for 'Special Ed' Lampert to ruin the company. Lampert's expertise is in finance, but he made a number of missteps as a retailer. For example, cutting ties with Martha Stewart and her profitable K-Mart merchandise, (he didn't want to pay her 'royalties'). Another example was dropping Liz Claiborne 'Special Issue" in the women's apparel dept. My final thought is his disaster of having the Kardashian's sell their clothing line at Sears. I could go on and on, but I don't have enough room here.
I think the 72 timeframe is right in the ballpark.
Somewhere around World War 1. I wish they closed back then so we wouldn't have to read these nonsensical discussions over 100 Years later.
and Best Buy also took a big bite out of their appliance sales.
Walmart, Target, Home Depot and Lowes. More recently, Amazon.
And EL, of course. But mostly the above
It was when Sears purchased Pinstripe Petites.
I’d say that it was really obvious to me that they had really started going downhill when they got rid of the sit-down “restaurant” that used to be inside the K-Marts.
Subjective question. Nothing lasts forever.
1988 or 89 is when Sears decline began to accelerate....That was the timeframe when Walmart took over as the #1 retailer in America and as time went on, other retailers began to knock Sears further down the list.
Adjusted for inflation, Sears stock peaked in 1972.
They had some good years after that - the mid 1980's were good for most and covered up many inefficiencies - but arguably it was all downhill after that.
Eddie was fully in charge after the merger. He didn't seem to need the title of CEO to ensure all decisions were approve by him. He just took the CEO title because a publicly traded company must have one and he didn't want to pay anyone for it any longer.
April 22, 1974 2:32 pm
It started going downhill right after Arthur Martinez departed. As for Eddie, his biggest mistake was making himself CEO. You know the saying, the one who hires himself as a lawyer has a fool for a client.
I think the introduction of the BankAmerica Card( VISA) was the beginning of the end Sears. Sears was the first company to offer credit to a family after WWII to purchase appliances and such. That made them and Kenmore special. Come the 60's other retailers had access to credit cards and Sears lost its competitive edge. The catalogue was great but credit to working people was the big deal, IMO.