“Phil, you know this store is going to put you out of business, right?”
My grandfather heard that first in 1962 when Shoppers Fair, a discount department store chain, opened in Jackson. We heard it when Westwood Mall opened in the 1970’s with a Circus World store (eventually becoming a KB Toys). We heard it in the 1980’s when Meijer opened their second store on the east end of town and Kmart opened a new store on the west end of town. We heard it in 1990 when Target came to town. We heard it in 1993 when Toys R Us opened.
Shoppers Fair closed in 1974. KB Toys is gone. Kmart left when we did. Toys R Us left only a year after us. Montgomery Ward left Westwood Mall a couple decades ago. Younker’s is leaving Westwood Mall as I type.
Retail changes.
Jackson used to have a Woolworth store, a Field’s department store, a Jacobson’s department store, and an A&P grocery store—all defunct retailers now.
Retailers come and go. The retail landscape changes. Stores open and close.
We can look at Sears filing bankruptcy as just the natural evolution of retail. They had a good run, but now it is over.
In fact, I’ll go out on a limb right now and predict the eventual demise of Walmart. It might be fifty or one hundred years from now, but history shows us no retailer lasts forever.
The only problem with simply dismissing Sears as an eventuality is that Sears was once on top of the world, both figuratively as the largest retailer in America as recently as 1989, and literally when they opened their tower in Chicago in 1973. Their fall is far more educational to the independent retail world than Toys R Us and their debt problems caused by venture capitalists.
As a student of retail, I see two turning points for Sears starting their downward slide that incorporated the other five “lessons” I listed yesterday. One was in 1993 when they discontinued their catalog. We’ll talk about the other one tomorrow.
-Phil Wrzesinski
www.PhilsForum.com
PS There are several reasons why an independent retailer closes shop including retirement, illness, death, boredom, new opportunities, local market collapse, and competition. The big boys close for one reason and one reason only—Cash Flow. It is the decisions that lead to cash flow problems that I find most interesting.