Why did Sears go broke?... Two words: Walmart,.. Amazon.

[Stuart G]

That is what I have read.

[MineralMan]

1. Failure to adapt to a changing retail environment.

That's what it was. Sears was once this country's largest retailer. It got that way by offering more goods at lower prices and shipping them anywhere. It hurt small retail businesses everywhere in the early 20th century.

When Walmart and Target and K-Mart moved in, Sears didn't pay enough attention. When the Internet arrived, Sears scoffed. When Amazon grew huge, Sears failed entirely to fit in any longer.

It died of its own weight and unwillingness to adapt to change. Its business model no longer made sense, and it didn't change that model in time, or couldn't.

[calguy]

2. If Sears management was on the ball, they could have beat Amazon easily

All the infrastructure Amazon had to build from scratch, Sears already had it in place for years. They could have made Amazon irrelevant before they even got off the ground. But they were complacent, didn't see or seize the new opportunity before them, and unfortunately, they're as good as dead. Bury them next to Montgomery Ward in the cemetery of once great businesses.

[bearsfootball516]

8. It's amazing how management can underestimate coming change.

Blockbuster did the same thing. In the mid 2000's, Netflix, which was a mail-DVD service at the time, was planning on going online soon and asked Blockbuster to merge with them. BB laughed in their face and said online streaming would never work, and that the BB crowd will never leave.

10 years later...

[muntrv]

12. Sears should have kept the catalog and put it online. That would have made them leaders

in online shopping.

[marybourg]

3. No. Bad management decisions going back to the late

60’s, early 70’s and snowballing from there.

[displacedtexan]

11. Exactly. Brown double knit clothing was a Sears joke.

The tools and automotive sections were really good, but everything else was disastrous.

[Sherman A1]

19. Precisely

Amazon and Walmart would never be where they are if Sears Management had been paying attention.

[Wiseman32218]

20. I agree, my step-mother worked for them up until the late 80's,

They took all the full time dedicated people and replaced them with part-time kids who did not care about customer service.

[marylandblue]

4. Also the CEO/Owner Lambert dismembered it

They still could have turned around when he bought it. But instead he used as a cash cow to enrich himself at the expense of employees and all other shareholders.

[TheCowsCameHome]

5. Resisting the call to enter the 21st century didn't help.

They were like a throwback in time.

[jmowreader]

6. I have a different two words for you

Eddie Lampert.

Stuart, when you make a vulture capitalist who faithfully attends the Church of Ayn Rand your CEO, and the first thing the fucker does is to steal the two brands that brought people to Sears so he could sell them in every store in America, your company is not long for this world.

[Wellstone ruled]

7. Your discription of events

is spot on. Met Lampert at a Retail show in Mpls. years ago,one just knew this day was to come. I thought it would have happened ten years ago.

[Stuart G]

9. I would agree..and I had forgotten about "Eddie." Got to add that one too.

[Salviati]

14. Exactly. Right when pressure from online competitors started heating up...

... they decided to pound a heat treated craftsman screwdriver right through their temple with one of those you know... ball peen hammers...

https://www.pbs.org/newshour/economy/column-this-is-what-happens-when-you-take-ayn-rand-seriously

[GoCubsGo]

17. Yep. And, with everythi9ng else they offered,

they offered mostly crap. A lot of the clothing was stuff nobody would want to wear. Or, it was over-priced. It's sad and disgusting what he did to company.

[procon]

10. I disliked dealing with their aggressive sales staff that worked

on commissions. Even when they were the only the largest retailer in town and offered the best selection of big ticket items, I shopped local stores rather than deal with getting mobbed by a pack of cutthroat sales people... remember older ladies with shellacked, bouffant hairdos and with sales pads clutched in their tobacco stained fingers. It was worse than a used car lot.

When they moved to the mall, I stopped going there completely because it was just so time consuming. Drive twice as far, can't find a convenient parking place, then schlepping through the concourse and dodging the damned perfume spritzers, the tofu samples, the pollsters and survey takers... no thanks, it was Big Al's Appliance Emporium for me.

[JHB]

13. Two other words: Ayn Rand

The Randoid CEO that was supposed to help them get out of the ditch wasted years by implementing an internal organizational structure that had departments sabotaging each other instead of working together. Hard to develop a long-term strategy in a gladiator arena.

[benld74]

16. THIS is what did it to them

https://www.democraticunderground.com/10142179552

[Doremus]

18. One word: PIRATE

CEO has been selling off and filling his pockets with profitable chunks of the company for years.

All that's left is the rusted hulk that he's declaring bankruptcy on, his final fuck you to a 130yo iconic brand, loyal employees and anybody else in front of his tank treads.