30 years ago, no one would have ever imagined that Sears could ever even be touched.
Further back, at some point, Sears was probably one of the richest companies in the world.
Funny how a startup mail-order catalog became huge by becoming a huge retail presence... and, now that technological advancements have altered retail - back to the mail ordering days of yore -- if only Sears had nurtured their mail order business, and had been the first to take it online... they would still be dominant, instead of Amazon.
But, Sears definitely left its mark. It started Allstate, and Discover; and, to this day, Discover is known for its, "no annual fee," credit cards.
Personally, my last major Sears purchase was at The Great Indoors, about 10 years ago. Those stores were gorgeous, but Sears had just guessed dead-wrong on which way the climate of retail was headed.
With Great Indoors, and then Sears Grand... Sears was doubling-down on retail, hoping to boost business by catering to the upscale market. But, they should have been going back to their mail order business, instead... only this time, online; and capturing the entire rest of the marketplace, in the process.
The year after Sears introduced Sears Grand, they sold to K-Mart for $11 billion. Which, in hindsight, was indicadive of knowningly putting lipstic on a pig, to pass it off to someone else.
Ultimately, Sears got out before they were worthless, which they probably would have been, had they not sold prior to 2007 or 2008. Hindsight is always 20/20, but Sears definitely saw the writing on the wall. K-Mart was too stupid to pass up the chance to finally pawn themselves off as a legitimate brand... and were clearly blinded by that, when purchasing Sears, a good 10 years past Sears' prime.
It's really sad that these longstanding institutions are being relegated to the dustbins of history. But, capitalism only works when things are going well. No one could really care any less about keeping our longstanding childhood brands intact, unless they could make some money behind it. Maybe that's how it should be. Or, perhaps Sears was just a victim of a changing retail climate. Either way, it's still sad, nonetheless.
