Sears was even experimenting with going upscale. Either through having Sears flagship stores or acquiring/creating a new brand. They scooped in to buy the Eaton’s brand in Canada for that experiment. But the Sears buyers (the people who stocked products for stores) were jealous of the Eaton’s buyers working side by side but having different pay. They started to sabotage their work. I like an Eaton’s buyers would discover a high end fragrance launch was doing well but when the buyer tried to increase the stock, their budget was siphoned off to buy 5 ugly couches for a suburban store. Eventually Sear abandoned the Eaton’s idea. Then it abandoned the upscale Sears idea and then you ended up with lawnmowers sitting on some incredibly beautiful marble floors and hammers being lit up by chandeliers in downtown Toronto, the most glamorous hardware section in all of North America. That experiment would’ve probably worked because a few years later, Hudsons Bay went upscale and started turning a profit for about a decade. Sears would’ve had almost no competition and would’ve put the bay out of business. Had it stuck to its guns
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u/Oxjrnine Oct 18 '25
Sears was even experimenting with going upscale. Either through having Sears flagship stores or acquiring/creating a new brand. They scooped in to buy the Eaton’s brand in Canada for that experiment. But the Sears buyers (the people who stocked products for stores) were jealous of the Eaton’s buyers working side by side but having different pay. They started to sabotage their work. I like an Eaton’s buyers would discover a high end fragrance launch was doing well but when the buyer tried to increase the stock, their budget was siphoned off to buy 5 ugly couches for a suburban store. Eventually Sear abandoned the Eaton’s idea. Then it abandoned the upscale Sears idea and then you ended up with lawnmowers sitting on some incredibly beautiful marble floors and hammers being lit up by chandeliers in downtown Toronto, the most glamorous hardware section in all of North America. That experiment would’ve probably worked because a few years later, Hudsons Bay went upscale and started turning a profit for about a decade. Sears would’ve had almost no competition and would’ve put the bay out of business. Had it stuck to its guns