Time for a Timely Demise
As a young journalist, I was taught never to refer to someone’s “untimely” death: those words carry the implication that someone else’s death might well be timely. But perhaps there are some deaths that truly are timely. One might be that of Sears Holdings, the company that owns Sears and Kmart.
A few days ago the company announced that there is “substantial doubt” that it can survive. That news surprised the many Americans who were unaware that Sears was still in existence. Anyone who has been in a Sears store in the last 10 or 15 years wasn’t surprised at all. Everything about the store, from the dim lighting to the hodgepodge of merchandise on display, screamed “going out of business.” It was hard to tell who they thought they were selling to.
Sears has been struggling for decades. Its encyclopedic catalog, offering everything from undershirts to mechanic’s tools, was last published in 1993, and many commentators have observed that competitors such as Home Depot, Target, Costco, and Bed, Bath and Beyond have been nibbling away at pieces of its business since the 1980s. Amazon’s transformation from a mere bookseller to an on-line emporium left Sears in the dust. Eddie Lampert, the hedge fund genius who took over Kmart in 2003 and used it to take control of Sears two years later, has had more success disassembling the two retailers–often in ways that benefit his hedge fund–than making them attractive places to shop. When a retailer tells its shareholders that “Affiliates of our Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, whose interests may be different than your interests, exert substantial influence over our Company,” it’s a good bet that the story won’t end well.
Why might Sears’ demise be timely? Like The Great Atlantic and Pacific, which I wrote a book about several years ago, Sears used to have some of the most powerful brands in the world. A&P’s brands–Ann Page, Jane Parker, Eight O’Clock Coffee, and the A&P brand itself–went from world-beating to down-at-the-heels over the decades as the stores declined; by the early years of this century, A&P ran many of its stores under other names and went to great lengths to hide their connection with A&P. Sears is now in a similar situation. While its Kenmore appliances were once a safe choice for middle-class homeowners, the brand has been tarnished by its association with a failing chain. Much the same is true of Die Hard car batteries. The Sears name itself is likely a negative when it comes to attracting shoppers, save for a handful who still remember the chain’s glory days. The longer Sears hangs on before giving up the ghost, the less its storied brands are likely to be worth.
Tags: chain stores, retailing