Sears Demise

[Brown Bear]

From everything I've heard, Sears did not treat their long time employees with much respect while going out of business and very much took care of their head office only. For that I refused to give them any business in their final days.
And yes, here in Canada Walmart is awesome and Target sucked. But the Target I visited in Minnesota and in Boston were much nicer. Clearly a different culture on each side of the boarder in these box stores.

[ODBJBG]

Walmart is the worst. There are some exceptions, there is a nice Walmart here or there, they do pretty good in rural communities as well... But the vast majority in the US are dumps. The worst of the worst. Even the bad K-Marts seem to be a "loving" mess. Walmarts are designed to be a mess from the top down.

Target in the US mocked their system on Disney's parks, which is why for the longest time their stores looked so clean and were so organized. Say what you want about Disney, but their amusement parks always look top notch. Target did their best to replicate that on a larger scale. But that seems to be slowly fading away.

Target has started putting those giant obnoxious red "carts" in the aisles, which they would NEVER do in the past. It was a cardinal sin to have anything blocking the aisle way, but now they have those big plastic carts that not only take up 3/4s of the aisle, but also can't hold more than a dozen items anyway, making it not only clutter, but ineffective. Seems they've started to change their philosphy some which could spell trouble in the long run.

[Mikey]

It always amuses me to hear Americans say that Walmart is terrible and go to Target instead, because in Canada, Walmarts are nice, clean stores that are always very busy, while Target Canada was a huge boondoggle that crashed and burned in less than two years. But man, the K-marts still existing in the US are dark, depressing, dirty and disorganized stores, I haven't been to one in years, I'd be almost scared to set foot in one now!

Round these parts Target is top notch --- They remind me of Kmart in the early 80's

Super-Walmart, on the other hand is a vomit smelling ghetto ------ The store is a dump and every night there's stabbings and fights in the parking lot ....

[Hector]

The Sears in my city of Oakland closed a few years ago, but the one in nearby Hayward (18 miles away), is not one of the ones slated to be closed. So I’ll still have a Sears in my area for the time being...

[palitoy]

Yeah, that's what i called it "much cleaner Zellers"

A lot of talent and buyers I worked with got hired away to work at Target, i feel bad for them.

Target didn't bring any new brands to Canada, huge mistake.

[cjefferys]

It was the inventory system that they had to use in Canada, it crushed them. I knew a lot of people behind the scenes on that one, it's fascinating.

Yeah, I've heard that and it would likely explain all the reports of empty store shelves there that I often heard about. When Walmart started in Canada, they learned how the distribution system worked here, adapted to it and had much success. Meanwhile, Target just arrogantly tried to use the same system they had in the US, thinking they knew what they were doing and didn't take any advice from people familiar with how things work differently in Canada. And then failed spectacularly.

I live in a border town so everyone here was very familiar with the US Targets, so the comparisons between the US and Canada ones were very damning. The Canadian ones were basically Zellers stores with a new coat of paint but a lot less stock, much less selection than US Targets and much higher prices. I'm not the only one around here who visited one when they first opened and never went back again.

[jacoblb]

In Tucson, we've only had one K-Mart store in existence. I had to drive on the other side of town just to buy the jumbo sized Godzilla movie toy when it came out for $39. Cheaper than TRU who wanted $50-ish for it and never stocked the toy well. I probably hadn't stepped inside a then, former Super K-Mart store, since sometime in the early 90's.


We've two malls in Tucson that have a Sears inside them. I've no idea how long they'll last, but neither aren't long for the world.
My father and grandfather both worked for Sears up through their retirement. Sears was better back in the era of my WW2 Grandfather. He had started up and ran the automotive repair division when that got introduced in the Park Mall. He had a 4 year college degree and was management level. Then as he aged and was old he became a retail worker in the hardware area. He said the managers were mad because workers like him made more money than management on account of commission bonus.
My father started his journey at Sears post Vietnam era first as a furniture delivery person but then moved into mobile appliance repair, where he'd drive a van to customer's homes, he recently retired and had nothing kind to say about Sears as a corporation. He had lost so much of his retirement savings based on how badly the company and Wallstreet performed. My father was one of the oldest and longest working Sears workers of his generation. There aren't those kinds of jobs anymore where people loyally work for a single employer up through to age of retirement. I was always discouraged for working for Sears as the writing has been on the wall for several decades.

My teenage daughter's best friend started a seasonal job at Sears and they've kept her on and at least her location will stay around who know how much longer. But don't worry the Kardashians have everyone's back and will save the company along with the CEO.

[palitoy]

It always amuses me to hear Americans say that Walmart is terrible and go to Target instead, because in Canada, Walmarts are nice, clean stores that are always very busy, while Target Canada was a huge boondoggle that crashed and burned in less than two years.

It was the inventory system that they had to use in Canada, it crushed them. I knew a lot of people behind the scenes on that one, it's fascinating.

[cjefferys]

K-Mart and Sears getting into bed together always seemed like an odd choice and doom for both.

Yeah, I agree. So lets have two crappy outdated store chains that can't adapt with the times combine forces, yeah that will work!

It always amuses me to hear Americans say that Walmart is terrible and go to Target instead, because in Canada, Walmarts are nice, clean stores that are always very busy, while Target Canada was a huge boondoggle that crashed and burned in less than two years. But man, the K-marts still existing in the US are dark, depressing, dirty and disorganized stores, I haven't been to one in years, I'd be almost scared to set foot in one now!

[Werewolf]

Sad to see it go like this. The Sears wish book was a big part of my childhood and my Dad loved their Craftsman tools.

[Nostalgiabuff]

we still buy our appliances at Sears but that is about it. maybe occasionally a tool. I hate Best Buy and WalMart, we do shop at Target fairly often

[PNGwynne]

Yep...I forgot to mention Nichols too. Another little department store gone.

Nichols was a huge store and had a kick-butt seasonal toy department. I recall a large Eagle Force display one year.

I gave up on Sears years ago, ugh. I'm still a devoted JCP shopper. Walmart I hate with a passion.

[ODBJBG]

K-Mart and Sears getting into bed together always seemed like an odd choice and doom for both. I had tons of memories at K-Mart and a few at Sears, but Sears was always a "name you could trust". The sort of place you'd go make expensive hardware purchases because you knew Sears would back it forever. But as they slowly disappear so too goes that trust.

[Bravestarr]

To bad for Sears liked it but I really miss KMart

[Hector]

Walmart is horrible, I hate that store too.

But we go to Target once a week, much better than Walmart.