The death of department stores

[MillCreek]

https://www.vox.com/21725247/department-stores-retail-death

I have seen this locally, with the death of the two large Sears stores and one of the two Macy's stores in the county.  All of these stores in the aggregate employed hundreds of people.  My wife and I were discussing this last night, and we were trying to remember the last time either of us have been in a local mall.  The majority of our face-to-face shopping now is groceries, Lowe's/Home Depot, Target and Costco.  Everything else is online or a specialty store. 

[Hawkmoon]

The Sears at the mall I was most likely to frequent closed two or three years ago. I wasn't surprised. Like probably many men, I usually went there for the hardware and tools department. For a couple or three years before they closed, that department was constantly shrinking, and migrating around the lower level of the store, such that even if they still carried what I was looking for, it was next to impossible to find. Upstairs, in the men's and women's clothing departments, was a wasteland. VERY few customers and, since there wasn't much stock to choose from, that wasn't a surprise.

It was probably inevitable but, IMHO, Sears hastened their demise by forgetting that Sears was Sears because of their house brands. If I wanted to buy a Maytag washer, I would go to a Maytag store, not Sears.

It's all a cycle. The malls and the big box stores in the 'burbs killed off downtown stores and the mom-and-pop stores. Now Amazon is killing off the mall and the big box stores.

[HankB]

Hawkmoon pretty much nailed why men abandoned Sears. I'll also note that Sears' house brands really went downhill. As a kid, I grew up in a household full of Kenmore appliances - they worked long and well back then. As an adult, I used to get a trade journal (Design News) at work that had a regular column Made By Monkeys which featured reader's first hand experience with poorly made and designed products; Sears Kenmore appliances were featured regularly. I personally had problems with latter day Sears products right out of the box ranging from a Kenmore toaster to a Craftsman pressure washer that prompted their return and soured me on Sears products.

Aside from hardware, appliances, and tools, department stores are also floundering because their idiot buyers are struggling to satisfy their idiot (or in some cases, corrupt) executive management and loading up the store shelves with low quality, tasteless, and often downright ugly clothing that a very large portion of the buying public that has a sense of style (e.g., women) wants no part of.

Once you lose both men and women as customers, you're in real trouble.

I'll just close this post by noting that with its established national catalog sales organization (and all that entails) Sears could have been Amazon. But their own leadership prevented it.

[MillCreek]

^^^There was a time, when I was younger, that my first thought for tools, mowers, etc. was Craftsman at Sears.  That went away a while ago, albeit I still have a number of Craftsman hand and power tools.

[MillCreek]

^^^Also in regards to Sears, I have read a lot of articles in the business press about how Eddie Lempert and his hedge fund essentially killed Sears by loading it up with debt, selling off the assets to Eddie and his companies at fire-sale prices, and screwing the Sears creditors.  There is certainly an argument that he merely hastened a process brought on by decades of bad merchandising decisions.

https://www.investopedia.com/news/downfall-of-sears/

https://www.businessinsider.com/how-eddie-lampert-set-sears-up-to-fail-2017-5

[Andiron]

^^^There was a time, when I was younger, that my first thought for tools, mowers, etc. was Craftsman at Sears.  That went away a while ago, albeit I still have a number of Craftsman hand and power tools.

Craftsman tools quality went off a cliff, IMO.   Wasn't a gradual thing.

We had a relatively close Sears hardware, and the lifetime warranty went from being this great feature to an annoying, regular occurrence on tools.

[Hawkmoon]

When I was a kid, our summer vacations were spent at my maternal grandparents' house on the coast of Maine, near Penobscot Bay. Our choices of towns that had real food stores (what would have been called the "supermarkets" of the day, which were probably about a quarter of the size of a modest supermarket today) were Bucksport or Ellsworth. Bucksport was a bit closer, but Maine (at least then) only allowed liquor sales at "state stores," and Bucksport didn't have a state store. Ellsworth did. So the general routine was going to Bucksport for two or three weekly shopping trips, and then a trip to Ellsworth to replenish the grog ration.

Ellsworth also happens to be the gateway off U.S. Route 1 to Acadia National Park, and Acadia happens to be one of my favorite places on the planet so until a few years ago I went there almost every summer. And that allowed me to witness the death of Ellsworth. When I was a kid, Ellsworth had a thriving downtown. Granted, it was only a few blocks in any direction, but it was alive and vibrant. But then the big (or at least "bigger") box stores and small malls came along and they built along Route 1 between downtown and the point where Route 3 to Bar Harbor split off from U.S. Route 1 to points farther east on the coast. Then came the outlet stores. Even L.L Bean opened an outlet store on Route 1/3 outside of Ellsworth. McDonald's is on Route 1/3 outside of Ellsworth, just before the two routes split.

Downtown Ellsworth is a ghost town, a dim memory.

I haven't been back since before my wife died, so maybe 8 or 9 years? I have no idea how that horrible commercial strip is doing, but my guess is that it's probably seeing some decline, even discounting the effects of COVID-19 on tourist traffic.

[Ron]

I remember the smells of the Sears that anchored a local mall.

The smell of the hand tool aisles was very distinct. 

Our Sears also had a counter where you could buy nuts and cashews out of the enclosed glass cabinet with heat lamps. I loved getting a bag of warm cashews.

[kgbsquirrel]

Hawkmoon pretty much nailed why men abandoned Sears. I'll also note that Sears' house brands really went downhill. As a kid, I grew up in a household full of Kenmore appliances - they worked long and well back then. As an adult, I used to get a trade journal (Design News) at work that had a regular column Made By Monkeys which featured reader's first hand experience with poorly made and designed products; Sears Kenmore appliances were featured regularly. I personally had problems with latter day Sears products right out of the box ranging from a Kenmore toaster to a Craftsman pressure washer that prompted their return and soured me on Sears products.

Aside from hardware, appliances, and tools, department stores are also floundering because their idiot buyers are struggling to satisfy their idiot (or in some cases, corrupt) executive management and loading up the store shelves with low quality, tasteless, and often downright ugly clothing that a very large portion of the buying public that has a sense of style (e.g., women) wants no part of.

Once you lose both men and women as customers, you're in real trouble.

I'll just close this post by noting that with its established national catalog sales organization (and all that entails) Sears could have been Amazon. But their own leadership prevented it.

Did Jack Welch spend some time at Sears between screwing up General Electric and Boeing? 

[K Frame]

My Grandfather bought my Grandmother's engagement ring at Sears.

And, when they set up house keeping, they bought an "apartment kit" that had pretty much everything needed to furnish a small apartment from a bed to linens to kitchen utensils.

I, too, grew up in a home loaded with Kenmore appliances and Craftsman tools. I bought my Kenmore microwave in 1989 when I got my first job/apartment. It was a turntable model by Sharpe. It's still working fine. I had to replace one fuse in it about 20 years ago, but that's it. No problems with it.

Depending on when a Kenmore appliance was made it could have come from any of the major manufacturers. Parents had a Kenmore deep freeze that came into the house around 1968... I remember it being delivered. It finally crapped out in 2006 when the defrost timer mechanism went bad. That's when I discovered it was a Kenmore-branded Coldspot, most likely manufactured by Seeger-Sunbeam in Indiana.

[K Frame]

"When I was a kid, our summer vacations were spent at my maternal grandparents' house on the coast of Maine, near Penobscot Bay. Our choices of towns that had real food stores (what would have been called the "supermarkets" of the day, which were probably about a quarter of the size of a modest supermarket today) were Bucksport or Ellsworth."

My ex-wife's aunt had a house on Penobscot Bay near Ellsworth, IIRC somewhere around West Castine.

I don't remember much of it, but I do remember that I found Ellsworth to be a rather charming town.

We were there for Christmas 1989. At that time the downtown was still a going concern.

[HankB]

Did Jack Welch spend some time at Sears between screwing up General Electric and Boeing? 

I don't think Welch messed up Boeing, I think it was Jim McNerney, a GE executive who was passed over for Welch's GE position, spent a few years at 3M laying people off and giving lip service to a Six Sigma program (lampooned pretty obviously to those in the know in Dilbert), and then moving to Boeing.

[Angel Eyes]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5087isMudEs

[Jim147]

Remember when you could walk into a nice department store and pick up a rifle or shotgun for a nice price?

[Hawkmoon]

Remember when you could walk into a nice department store and pick up a rifle or shotgun for a nice price?

FIFY

[kgbsquirrel]

Remember when you could walk into a nice department store and pick up a rifle or shotgun for a nice price?

I have an unserialized exposed hammer SxS 16 gauge, made by Henry Arms, the house brand for Sears.  That's right kiddies, Sears sold their own guns without serial numbers before 1968.

[TommyGunn]

I have an unserialized exposed hammer SxS 16 gauge, made by Henry Arms, the house brand for Sears.  That's right kiddies, Sears sold their own guns without serial numbers before 1968.

The GCA  of 1968 required serial numbers.   They were not required prior to 1968.  I have a Remington 550-1 that was my father's and it has no serial number,  though barrel markings do allow one to determine manufacture date.

Some firearms were numbered anyway.   People with old rifles like, say,  Winchester 1873s can date their year of manufacture from the serial number. 

[WLJ]

I have an unserialized exposed hammer SxS 16 gauge, made by Henry Arms, the house brand for Sears.  That's right kiddies, Sears sold their own guns without serial numbers before 1968.

So did J.C. Penny's and Western Auto

[kgbsquirrel]

So did J.C. Penny's and Western Auto

Do you recall the names of their house brands?

[WLJ]

Do you recall the names of their house brands?

JCP and Western Auto guns were sold under the JC Pennys and Western Auto brand names respectably. Not uncommon to still find both and Sears guns on used gun racks. Almost bought a WA lever action 30-30 that was obviously made by Marlin

[RoadKingLarry]

I've got a Remington 572 Fieldmaster pump action .22 that dad bought new in 1960, it has no serial number.

[HeroHog]

I remember a store, forget the name, but I remember they had a big box of 8mm Mausers with a stripper clip of ammo for like $15 back then.

[K Frame]

Boscov's in Central Pennsylvania (Selinsgrove and Camp Hill) was still selling handguns into the late 1980s.