Sears

[Matthew Hajicek]

https://www.salon.com/2013/12/10/ayn_rand_loving_ceo_destroys_his_empire_partner/

[BrianP.]

You do realize this is 9 years old right?

The point you're trying to make is?

[Smit]

I remember Kmart and Sears going away pretty fast but didn't know that story.

[BrianP.]

I remember Kmart and Sears going away pretty fast but didn't know that story.

Sears is still around.

https://www.sears.com/

So isn't Kmart.

https://www.kmart.com/

I think they are shells of their former selves though.

[JParis]

Typical Salon article...more "hit piece" than journalism....

Sears biggest problem? They became a victim of their own past success and missed the train when it was time to pivot their business model. Several people had the opportunity to miss that train and they ALL did....

They still pushed a "brick & mortar" and "catalog" mentailty when the world was quickly going online.

[svnmlkdmf]

Sears is still around.

https://www.sears.com/

So isn't Kmart.

https://www.kmart.com/

I think they are shells of their former selves though.

the same thing happened the hudson bay company in canada, mostly just an online store

[gcode]

I remember when I was a boy living overseas, the Sears catalog was a treasure
We'd spend hours looking through it at all the cool stuff..
You could buy go-karts, rifles, shotguns pistols, just about anything you could think off.

My mom would buy all our clothes from Sears.
She'd have to plan (guess) our sizes because it took 6 to 12 months to get the order.

When we lived in Sumatra, one leg of the trip was on a river barge,
The big day came and the truck arrived with a big steel box on the back.
A shipment arriving from the US was a really really big day !!!

I noticed all the lettering on the box was upside down about the time they got the door open
and a flood of water ran out of the box.

Apparently they had dropped the box into the river when loading it onto the river barge
It took them several days to retrieve it from the bottom of the river and everything inside
was ruined...  My mom cried for a week over that.

[JParis]

Back in the late-80's we were doing some kitchen remodeling in a friends, mother's home....when we pull out the sheet rock, inside was a tag nailed onto one of the timbers, the home was Oringinally sold and installed by Sears & Roebuck...

[Leehound]

A farmHouse in Michigan I lived until the age of 4 was a Sears kit house.

[Shazam/TPP]

there is a house around the corner that was a Sears kit as well, probably 60 years old, give or take a few

[YoDoug]

The internet killed the sears catalog in more ways than most people consider.......

[gcode]

The internet killed the sears catalog in more ways than most people consider.......

You laugh, but in Saudi Arabia in the late 60's Sears catalogs were forbidden because of the women's clothing sections
People would bring them into the country in their suitcases and most would get through customs, but catalogs mailed from the US never made it though customs.

[rob@fain]

My Great uncle had a Sears Craftsman house, it's still occupied today.

[mowens]

Legend has it that the catalogs were common in the external human waste disposal units of the past.

[MIL-TFP-41]

Funny how if Sears went back to their original business plan (mail order, but updated) 10 or so years ago they would be giving Amazon a run for their money. I am not sure if any Sears box stores exist.

K-Mart was fucked long before Sears. For whatever reason they couldn't keep up with Walmart. Few years back I was in a K-Mart. It kinda look like a store for stuff you would buy if you wanted to open a store. Empty shelving & such. 

That being said, I miss both stores. They were one of the few places I would go...because no one else went there.