Sears

I've mentioned before how I'm fascinated by dying retail stores, and watching the slow decline of Sears has been amazing. I went into a Sears a few days ago, just to see if it was as bad as the media portrays it. It was creepy. The store was filthy-it looked like it was five minutes away from appearing in a Fallout game. It was empty and the rest of the mall was actually sort of busy. People were walking in the mall but they seemed to avoid Sears.

Even the employees seemed to avoid it. One of the many pains in the ass about Sears was that you could never seem to find a cashier when you needed one. This time, it was even worse. Sure I didn't want to buy anything but in the rare case someone else did there was no one there behind the cash registers.

Sears did everything wrong. They did everything wrong on a micro level, they did everything wrong on a macro level. On the micro level, they pestered you about opening up their credit card or buying a warranty plan whenever you bought anything there. I must admit that I don't buy a lot in retail stores anymore. Like everyone else, I go online. When I do go to retail though, the biggest annoyance to me is Best Buy asking if I want magazines or Sears trying to get me to buy this or that product. Having worked in retail (one of my first jobs was working for the women's clothing catalog, J. Jill) I know the employees have to ask the questions and offer you other products. I don't blame them, I blame the company.

On the macro level, Sears never competed with Wal Mart. They never opened up grocery store/other goods store combinations. They never removed commission based pay from their employees. They had terrible leadership. They tried to merge without another dead store, Kmart. In the future, Sears will be a case study of what not to do for people who study business.