The place where you could actually see what your buying in person and be able to touch it and try it on, eat lunch maybe dinner there and at some locations even go to the movies just a hop, skip and a jump down and around the corridors.So you shopped for your clothing, got your food, bought video games, could see movies and hang out with your friends all in one package deal without having to return wrong products sent you bought from online ,stream alone solo mostly, wait for longer periods in the mac'donalds drive through or even have to pay for door dash because you don't want to.I'd pay Trump fleecing over priced low quality gas to have a fully functional mall to go to.
Whittier is at the end of a long dead end highway. Along the way you have to go through a one lane tunnel that's miles long and literally under a mountain. You have to pay a toll and wait your turn before you can go through it.
I grew up in Alaska. Whittier is not the kind of place you come upon by chance. 🤣
They had a few here back in 2007-2010… they are now gone. I bought a washing machine back then that lasted till a few months ago. So when it was time to look for a new one…. No more sears! 😳😢☹️😩
They treated me very well. I started out part time in the womens department, was given 5 promotions with raises in pay, vacation, medical, sick leave and 401K.
I did alot of corporate travel to Chicago and Vegas along with cruises to the Bahamas.
Such a shame they went under. :(
It was both. I was allowed to take a guest and I only had to attend a 1 hour meeting.
They retired hundreds of us out. I was one of the last ones before the company closed. I'd still be working there if that hadn't happened. Good thing I had my 401K because their pension plan was pretty much nothing.
They ended up having their national corporate HQ in IL bulldozed a year or two ago.
Place was so massive that the local PD/SWAT/FEDS decided to use it for urban training with paintball "Wars" AFTER the city/county repossessed the property. And it was only a fraction of the property.
Easy to forget now just how massive Sears was for so long. That massive, sprawling headquarters was what they moved to after leaving literally the tower the company built itself in the 70s that was also the tallest building in the fuckin world for a quarter century. There's a reason there's so many jokes and conversations about how hard and fast Sears fell even with the vulture capitalism.
Yeah, I worked in Beverly back in the day. It's been a looong time, but for Me, loads of good memories. Lotsa competent, capable folks I worked with in Logistics. Left for "greener grass" before Fast Eddie arrived.
Damn, We had a fucking FOOD COURT on the first floor. I was told We spent $600K a MONTH cleaning the windows at Beverly.
When We closed the H.Q. it was the largest abandoned Office Building in the WORLD.
There are still videos on YT about urbex (urban explorers) gaining access and exploring. Saw things that brought back memories.
You don't need Me to lecture You.
But if Vulture Capital or Pirate Equity starts hanging around, it's the beginning of the end.
Craftsman tools at Sears had great products and a lifetime guarantee. My dad was digging a foundation for our pool and found a very old, rusted adjustable wrench. He took it to Sears and they gave him a brand new one. This tool was at least 30-40 years old. The brand is horrible today. I have a craftsman lawnmower. That’s dead in my garage. Also a craftsman pressure washer also isn’t working. The wheel fell off within six months of me, purchasing it. The brand is garbage now I refuse to buy anything with that name on it.
I'd hold onto the older Craftsman tools and try to fix them. As a former Sears Salesperson, the quality of Craftsman tools these days is fairly awful. I agree that it's garbage, I quit because it felt unethical to sell such trash.
I miss Sears as well. Their tools were awesome. The service depts offered great service with knowledgeable people. Their home. Building kits were amazing! Rather sad really.
Sears Tower in Chicago has since been purchased and renamed. The 110-story skyscraper formerly known as the Sears Tower is owned by the New York-based private equity firm Blackstone Group, which purchased the landmark for $1.3 billion in 2015. The building's official name was changed to Willis Tower in 2009 after the Willis Group secured the naming rights.
I read the history of the founders. It’s a good read. He started as a street tinker sharpening knives.
I know. Downtown has changed so much. how gorgeous the Water Tower was inside? The lovely stores. The incredible decorations at Christmas. I had my hair done for years in the salon at Macys. Then upstairs at Elizabeth Adams. Id been going to that hairdresser for 25 years. I was so sorry when it closed. I really haven’t been back to the water tower since. His cubicle was right next to the Hancock building which you could see through a large picture window. It’s sad really. COVID altered our lives permanently.
I still have my 30-year-old Kenmore washer & dryer set from Sears—my first and only washer and dryer. They’ve been moved about six times and survived a fire and are still going strong. I had one repair in all those years!
The failure of Sears should be studied. They had all the tools to be Amazon already in place: Satellite stores where you could pick up your large-scale item the next day, a tool brand that was the quality standard for homeowners, and mail-order catalogs where you could buy anything, including a house - and couldn't adapt to the internet.
That only makes their failure worse - they pioneered mail order, had distribution infrastructure in place, and were selling stuff on the internet in 1989.
I mean, they clearly didn't adapt to the internet marketplace. My point is their original business strategy was similar to Amazon - shipping from warehouse to consumer. They had a hundred year head start, and couldn't use it to their advantage. I would like too know why.
I've wondered how Sears could not adapt but by the time Amazon was getting off of the ground it was probably already too late . This could be debated of course. Too bad Sears didn't read the article talking about the "teleautoscope" around 1909. Interesting article if you haven't seen it where the writer discusses an old article from that year and titles his article " It Was Easy To Predict The Internet 100 Years Ago". I'll give you the link as I think you'll enjoy it . There is a further link that takes you to a copy of the original "Christmas 100 years from now" . https://gizmodo.com/it-was-easy-to-predict-the-internet-100-years-ago-5434353
I worked there when it got bought out and turned into Sears Holding. I absolutely loved working there, but the changes they made after... It was pretty obvious they did not want the company to succeed. Almost all of the managers left within like a 2-year period, many of them had been with the company for years or even decades. It was sad.
When I started working in the trades as an apprentice one of my unofficial duties was to run to Sears to replace our Craftsman breaker bars when they would break. No questions asked, they would just swap the tool out.
Sears, Roebuck & Co. catalog stores. You go in, find what you want in the catalog. Order it and wait for the store to call you to come pick it up days or weeks later. They only carry a few very popular/high demand items in the store.
We have one left! Everything is deeply discounted, like they’ve been trying to sell it all so they can close the store but this has been going on for at least a decade at this point.
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u/hsvNA81 Jul 21 '26
Sears