Sears

Exactly 40 years ago, in millions of homes, maybe yours, entire families were eagerly looking through t So what happened? And what's in store for the store that used to set the pace for American retailing? Our cover story is reported by David Pogue. Dear Mr. Sears and Robuck, I've been sitting here a-f At its peak, Sears Robuck was the biggest retailer in the world. Its headquarters was the tallest building in the world. One of America's great merchant companies is Sears Robuck. It was the biggest employer in America, and was even America's biggest publisher, thanks to its famous catalog. Then. . . Sears has officially filed for bankruptcy. The company has struggled for years after it dominated the department store business for much of the 20th century. Today, many of the Sears stores you grew up with look Did you ever know t Were you ever here? Yeah, I was here. I used to shop in here. T Stu Leonard Jr. is the CEO. I've always looked at Sears as a great retailer, and now to see us taking over a Sears. I will sit there and say, boy, we have to keep changing to Sears was founded 125 years ago by a railroad man named Richard Sears. With Sears sold everyt No greater anti-communist propaganda could be disseminated in Russia or elsewhere than a few thousand of the 40 million copies of Sears catalogs put out each year. They took elite artifacts that only wealthy people had, made them accessible to people who were rising up through t Don Katz is the author of The Big Store, an inside look at Sears written in 1986. He says Sears didn't invent the future only once. In 1925, the company's then Vice President Robert Wood launched Sears' second act, opening physical stores. He decided that the automobile was the key to what was going to happen to commerce in America. And he began to buy the crossroads outside of cities and towns all over the country. Those crossroads eventually became the suburbs. And when Americans moved in, Sears was waiting. You make it sound Completely innovative. They were inventing consistently. Sears people will tell you that the real satisfaction comes from building into a job a part of yourself. In its heyday, Sears offered job benefits No wonder so many employees stayed with the company for decades. T Bobby Jones worked at Sears for 35 years and filled The drapes came from Sears. From my very first memory as a c The majority of the clothes, shoes was ordered from Sears. My mother even ordered her fruitcake each Christmas from Sears. But over the years, innovations slowed and t Sears became increasingly inwardly focused as many businesses that become very successful and very large due to their peril. Mark Cohen was once the CEO of Sears Canada. Today, he teaches retail studies at Col He says that Sears could have survived the competition from Walmart, Home Depot and even Amazon. What ultimately doomed Sears, he says, was bad leaders. Especially billionaire investor Edward Lampert, who bought Sears in 2004 and merged it with Kmart. Today, Kmart went shopping and came home with Sears. Lampert has sold off Sears brands and real estate and closed hundreds of stores. Of the 2,300 Sears locations eight years ago, only about 500 remain open today. Lampert has publicly defended And in an email to Sears employees, he blamed the bankruptcy in part on today's, quote, difficult retail environment. After declining our repeated requests to interview Lampert, Sears yesterday provided a statement that reads in part, protecting the interests of Sears associates and all stakeholders has and will continue to be a priority for the management. Is it possible that Sears was already be Well, I believe in 2005 when Lampert took over, the company could have been resurrected. Amazon still was in a very nascent position. Sears still had a tremendous reputation, especially in brands And so there was no reason to believe the company had to, quote, unquote, fail. Many retirees at t Get the orders in, get the merchandise out and get it out fast. Sears could have had control of that just And t Well, good point. After predicting the impact of the railroad and then the Well, it didn't. Connect Prodigy to your computer and get stock quotes almost as fast as a broker. Remember the early online service called Prodigy? It was a joint venture between Sears, IBM, and CBS. Get sports scores faster than on TV. Shop at home. 11 years before Jeff Bezos founded Amazon. com. It was just a little ahead of its time. What happens when you lose your way is you don't even know what you have anymore. Twenty years after writing He says all companies, even They needed to reinvent themselves in a really disruptive way. It just didn't happen. The remaining Sears stores are still open for the holidays. And just last week, Edward Lampert's hedge fund offered to buy the company out of bankruptcy for $4. 6 billion, saying they believed in Sears' quote, potential to evolve. Retail professor Mark Cohen isn't optimistic. The company has zero chance of success. I hate to say that because there'still quite a few people in the U. S. at least who look to Sears for their employment, but there's no chance for the future there, in my opinion. You walk in, you And at that Stu Leonard's grocery store in New Jersey, the only bit of Sears that will remain is a lesson. It's just a message to all businesses in America. Just as a good reminder for us, we have to change every day.