Since our last update Prien Lake Mall has gained several new tenants. TJ Maxx, Homegoods, Dick's Sporting Goods, and several exterior facing only tenants have been added to the former Macy's building. Sears closed in August 2018.
This is the East side of the former Montgomery Ward/Macy's building. The remainder is filled by Kohl's.
JCPenney now has a new red sign to match the new TJ Maxx and Homegoods signs.
The Sears auto center had already closed.
Here are a bunch of photos of the Sears store starting in March 2015. As you may remember, Sears and Dillard's were added onto the mall in the 1998 expansion. This was one of the newest Sears stores and barely made it 20 years.
As you can see, the electronics department was in the process of being consolidated into a much smaller section.
I miss the days when Sears stores had a wall of TV's.
One of the presentation rooms for the theater systems. The Woodlands Sears also had these rooms.
Nearly all of the video games were wiped out.
May 2015, vacuums have filled in empty space that was formerly electronics.
Only about a month later, the TV wall was beginning to shrink.
December 2015
August 2017, the presentation rooms were just filled with old fixtures.
Several spots in the store were beginning to empty out, you could tell that this store would not last much longer. A year later this store would be closed.
Several spots in the store were beginning to empty out, you could tell that this store would not last much longer. A year later this store would be closed.
This and a rack of DVD's was all that remained of the electronics department.
These empty rooms had been filled with random beds and fixtures.
Or nothing at all.
The fallen light fixture is a nice touch.
Inventory issues were apparent all over the second floor.
May 2018, just prior to the store closing announcement.
They had partially blocked off the empty rooms that I photographed on my last visit.
Mattresses had taken up a good portion of the second floor.
The Men's department.
Fitting room closed off in the Men's department.
Children's and Baby departments.
90's era signage.
Appliances and former electronics department.
You can see the other side of the blockage of the empty rooms.
This was where the wall of TV's was.
Here is a better shot of the blocked off area.
Now to the first floor, we start with the tool department.
The tool department had begun thinning out. Floor stains from removed shelving.
Empty spaces all over the place.
Lots of products out of stock.
This photo would be an unusual sight in early 2020. Lysol, bleach, and cleaners. Sears certainly had you ready for the future. These cleaning displays were a one-time setup that all Sears stores had around this time.
Women's clothing, just down the hallway from the tools and sporting goods.
This entrance to the store had been closed off. The weird thing is they used the Canadian Sears logos on this signage.
More Women's clothing.
Fast forward to June 2018 during the store closing sale. We showed up fairly late on this visit, so there are only a few photos.
July 2018, about a month before the store closed for good.
Had I have known that this was my last visit, I would have tried to get some of the electronics signage for my collection.
This looks to be an old school product from the 90's.
Signs of water damage above the escalators.
A better view of the Sears Canada logos, maple leaf and all.
Electronics, tax service, and optical were gone a long time ago from this store.
Kayak across the store if you dare.
Cover the kids eyes!
The Sears closed on August 12, 2018. Plans to redevelop the property are in the works.
One final look at the store.
More posts to come, stay tuned!
I miss the wall of televisions also. The Willowbrook Sears used to have a similar set up. It look weird to me when I was younger because there was a clear barrier separating the main path leading from the entrance and the electronics department.
ReplyDeleteI always wondered why they did that at the Willowbrook Sears. The theory is that theft was an issue so they had to install it. I actually own 2 televisions from Sears that were bought in the past 5 years.
DeleteIt looks like Simon has done a pretty good job converting the dead anchor space into a powercenter with a lot of more popular, traffic-driving retailers like TJMaxx/HomeGoods, Kohl's, Ulta, and Dick's Sporting Goods. We'll have to see if Simon can work similar magic with the former Sears location. I think that is going to be very difficult to do right now especially since some retailers, like JCPenney, might be on their way out.
ReplyDeleteAs for the Sears itself, thanks for the photos. It's interesting to look at these late 1990s Sears locations. Sears started using a cookie cutter design during this time and so this store looks almost identical on the outside to the Pasadena Town Square/Macroplaza Mall. Well, almost identical. I don't think the Macroplaza Sears has new signage unless it got it in the last couple of years. It's odd how a lot of stores with new signage closed shortly after getting their new signage.
The interior design here was similar to the Macroplaza Sears as well, but I think the Macroplaza Sears, which is a bit older, has a more garage-like tool department that Sears experimented with whereas this has a somewhat normal looking tool department. I'm guessing those automotive supplies were brought in from the detached auto center. It was rather disappointing that Sears went back to detached auto centers in the mid-1990s because I preferred the convenience of the attached auto centers.
Sears locations from this time do have those glassed in departments. These, and other little nooks, were in sad shape in the last few years of this store. It's really sad to see that. This store was only 20 years old when it closed, but it looks to be in worse condition than some of the Sears in this area which are over 50 years old. I wonder why things went to wrong here. Maybe the Macroplaza Sears is in better condition, but I'm not sure. I don't think I've been down there since 2016 or 2017.
The electronics department at this store looks to have been quite nice before it was downsized and eliminated. It's kind of funny to see Xbox One stuff at this Sears because it's easy to forget that Sears was still selling video games when the Xbox One came out. It's starting to feel like it's been a long time since Sears had relevant electronics departments.
It's funny how stores let those topless manikins sit out like that. It's one thing to see that at a closing store like this one, but I've even seen it at normal Macy's and Dillard's in recent years. I wonder if any shoppers complain about such things. In the case of this Sears, it's not like customer complaints really matter anymore.
I really can't explain why they used the Sears Canada logo on those door signs. That's really baffling. Maybe they hired a sign company to make those and the sign company Googled the Sears logo and the Canadian one was the first thing that showed up? Surely the employees should have known that was a Canadian logo by the maple leaf. I don't know, this is even stranger than the Kmart Australia logo being used at some US Kmarts.
Sears used those vintage 1980s vacuum cleaner accessory bags for many years after they were outdated. That version of the Sears logo was discontinued four years before this store even opened and the zip code on that bag is for the Sears Tower even though Sears had moved out of there before this store even opened. That said, it's possible that product is from the late 1990s or early 2000s.
I've seen some odd products for sale at Sears liquidations like used cans of paint and cleaners. Those bricks are something to add to that list of oddities. I suppose only at Sears and Kmart would bricks be sold in the women's underwear department, lol.
This mall has a lot going for it. With Lake Charles losing Kmart, the mall should gain more business with the variety of stores here. It says a lot for how strong the Lake Charles economy is/was that the mall has continued to fill empty space relative quickly. The other comparable nearby Louisiana city of Lafayette has one dead mall and another that is struggling despite a recent renovation. Lafayette is slightly larger, but has too much retail for the population.
DeleteThere were a lot of unusual things going on at the Sears store. Strange signage, strange products lying around, and the halfway remodeled electronics department that closed shortly after receiving a new paintjob by the theater rooms. I have been looking out for these old products at store closing sales ever since the Greenspoint Macy's had those Foley's items for sale. Even if I don't add the item to my collection, I still photograph the really cool stuff for the blog.
Between the Canadian Sears logo to the Australian Kmart logo, these Louisiana locations have a lot of character.
When I was around 5-6 years old, I used to think Sears was a Home Depot-like store in malls just because they sold tools.
DeleteThey used to have a lot more at the Sears tool departments back in the day. Depending on which location you visited, some stores had the tool department right at the mall entrance.
DeleteI want to say that a Sears store that I visited when I was younger had tools near the mall entrance. I can rule out the Willowbrook location. The only other Sears locations that I have ever been to are the Greenspoint one, and the Main Steet one.
DeleteGreenspoint had a similar entrance and setup to the Willowbrook location. The electronics and auto center areas were flip flopped though with the tools in between. Main Street had the basement level that was tools, appliances, electronics, seasonal, and sporting goods. The Woodlands Mall had tools that could be seen from the first floor mall entrance.
DeleteAs je said, Sears used to have a lot more in their tool departments than they do now. In addition to what they have now, they used to have a paint department and they also used to sell items like ceiling fans, light fixtures, and faucets.
DeleteA lot of shoppers never took Sears seriously as a softlines retailer because people assumed Sears was a blue collar store oriented around tools. Thus, Sears launched their big "Come See The Softer Side Of Sears" campaign in the early 1990s. Although the ads won many awards, they didn't seem to convince many people. I've heard it said that the problem with those ads was that they did drive people to visit Sears, but once they saw the stores again, they felt that they had not changed and were still focused on hardware.
Sears did have those Sears Hardware standalone stores. There were many of those stores in this area, but they are all gone now. Sears also had The Great Indoors. Home Depot had the similar Expo store. Both of these concepts had locations across the street from Willowbrook Mall.
At one time, Foley's, JCPenney, and others sold tools and hardware. Foley's bigger stores like the downtown one and the Almeda/Northwest Mall had all kinds of departments like hardware, pharmacies, cloth/sewing, electronics, music, lawn & garden, and so forth. Here's a link to a post on the South Belt Memories blog which has an image of all the departments the Almeda Foley's had when it opened. At one time, malls and department stores had the diversity that Sears has and then some. Modern malls which are almost all about fashion are, IMO at least, a rather boring development that has taken place in the last few decades.
As for all the retail news about bankruptcies and liquidations, it's all quite sad, but not unexpected. I heard that some retailers are waiting to declare bankruptcy until the time when they know they can open the stores for liquidation sales. Thus, expect to hear more carnage, like from JCPenney, here soon.
It's interesting to me that several of the retailers in the deepest trouble, Stage, JCPenney, and Neiman Marcus, are based in Texas. I suppose that's just a coincidence more than anything, but low oil prices, which was starting to happen even before the lockdowns, could really put the squeeze on local retail if oil is cheap for any prolonged period of time like it was in 1980s. We saw the carnage which came from that.
This is not the newest of news, but it came out a few weeks ago that American Freight, the furniture store which purchased most/all Sears Outlet locations, will turn Sears Outlet stores into American Freight stores. Maybe it's just me, but the American Freight name is not very appealing.
Some retailers last a long time. Supposedly there are some pharmacies in Europe and Japan which have been in continuous business since the 1300s. Here in the US, some retailers have been successful for many decades, but it seems like most Americans are looking for the next retail wave. Just in the last 100 years we've gone from catalogs, downtown department stores, malls, discount stores, big box, superstores, and now online shopping. Some retailers are on top of things and sense changes, or even make the changes themselves, like Sears did for decades. Eventually, it seems like all retailers will get caught with bad management who can't keep their companies relevant with the times.
Many retail watchers used to view Walmart with disdain and may still do so, but I think we're at the point now where some of the younger retail fans view late 1990s/2000s era Wal-Marts with a great sense of nostalgia. The older retail fans might find that humorous, but Walmart nostalgia is to be expected given that they were, and still are, a dominant retailer. I'm sure there was a time in the 1970s and 1980s when the thought of Kmart nostalgia seemed preposterous, lol.
That Almeda Mall post is certainly well done. That is a huge amount of information that they were able to find in 2016.
DeleteYou bring up a good point about the retailers from Texas all being in trouble. Lord and Taylor had a presence in the state as well, but pulled out over a decade ago. JCPenney famously took over several of the old Lord and Taylor stores. We knew the cash crunch at Stage stores was a problem prior to the Covid-19 crisis, they were moving way too fast with their store conversions without good financial backing. It probably would have made more sense to close about half of their stores to get fast cash prior to the conversions. I guess they would have had to seek bankruptcy prior to closing that many stores though, but now the whole company may go down.
American Freight reminds me of Harbor Freight Tools. I guess any business that can get rid of the Sears name is doing so.
Sears and a lot of old school retailers are picked apart by people who want to line their pockets quickly and don't care about long term viability. By the time any changes are made, they are too late to save the company. Speaking of Sears, Seritage is facing a cash crunch as well. One of the reasons why Sears was purchased out of bankruptcy was to stagger store closings so Seritage could keep up with redevelopment projects. Now the redevelopment projects are stalling and Sears is almost out of money again to continue operating. Seritage may wind up going down as well.
Walmart nostalgia seems strange to me, but you are right they have been a part of everyday life for millions of Americans. I do feel some nostalgia in the old small Walmart locations that can be found from time to time like in Navasota and Giddings Texas.
The South Belt Memories blog is a great website. They have a lot of great vintage photos of Almeda Mall and the surrounding area. They keep adding more as well. I think I read that Almeda Mall donated copies of many photos from their archives to that blog. They added some very high quality color photos from the 1970s to the blog around Christmas and Rodeo time. I'll put links here to them.
DeleteAlmeda Mall Christmas 1973
Almeda Mall Christmas 1976
Almeda Mall Christmas 1977
South Belt & Almeda Mall Go Texan Days
One thing I didn't realize is that Almeda Mall had a McDonald's in it at one time in the 1970s. That seems pretty clear in at least one photo from one of the above photo collections. That means there's a good chance Northwest Mall had a McDonald's in it too, but I certainly don't remember such a thing and I can't recall hearing about it. I don't know.
I think all three of those Texas-based retailers and Lord & Taylor were headed towards bankruptcy even without the virus situation. The virus has just hastened the inevitable. Perhaps some of these stores would have had a better chance of being saved rather than liquidated without the virus, but we'll have to see what happens in the bankruptcy proceedings.
Yeah, American Freight makes me think of cheap tools, not furniture and appliances. It's an iffy name, IMO, but I suppose it goes to show how tainted the Sears name is.
I didn't know that Seritage was in trouble, but I can't say I'm surprised. We'll have to keep an eye on the situation. I'm sure Lampert has a strategy for all of this, but I can't guarantee you that it's a good strategy. It might be good for him, but I don't know if it'll be good for the mall operators and such.
As for those old, small Walmarts, I did some research and it seems the Hempstead Walmart is still open. That one is quite small and old. While I was researching that, it seems the old Hempstead VF Outlet, formerly called the Factory Stores of America, is still open (well, Google says it's temporarily closed right now due to the pandemic). The VF Outlet is basically a very small mall with the VF store as the main anchor and then maybe three or so small stores and a popcorn stand across the corridor from the anchor. Back in the 1990s when I used to stop there quite frequently, they had a perfume store and a shoe store. Google Maps has an image from January 2020 here of the very small mall corridor. The VF Outlet used to have good prices on jeans, but I don't know about now. It's been at least 20 years since I've been there.
I'd imagine that the majority of Americans under the age of 30 have 'grown up' so to speak in Walmarts the same way we grew up at malls and Kmarts. Yeah, Walmart nostalgia is strange to me as well unless we're talking about those old brown Wal-Mart Discount Cities with the orange carpets and the electronics room at the center of the store, but it's certainly understandable. Do you remember Bud's Discount City, the clearance version of Wal-Mart which Wal-Mart would open in old locations after they moved to bigger ones? We briefly had a few in the Houston area in the early 1990s. Here's a photo of one I came across online. I remember shopping at those. The prices on unwanted goods were excellent, but they made thrift stores feel organized and upscale.
The South Belt Memories, Almeda Mall post is what I was hoping to do with the Belle Promenade post. It was difficult to get photos for that mall since it had been closed for so long. I have been chipping away at that Almeda post, it is very well done.
DeleteMcDonald's was a sizable restaurant years ago in malls. I wonder if Northwest had one and where it would have been. Almeda seems to get more love than Northwest online. I guess it is because of Almeda outlasting Northwest. Most people didn't start documenting Northwest until it was about to close.
I forgot to add Saks to the list. They are another company close to bankruptcy.
Fast Eddie is going to make his money. I can't imagine a scenario where he goes bankrupt. Seritage was supposed to be set up for long-term success, but that is in jeopardy now. Losing the naming rights to the Outlet stores is another blow to Sears.
That VF Outlet looks a lot like the Livingston location I visited a few years back. I am sure the people who live in these towns appreciate having an indoor mall even if it is small. The indoor air conditioned corridors are a blessing this time of year.
I may have to check out that mini Walmart in Hempstead. I remember driving past it before Highway 290 was built up.
I never shopped at a Bud's Discount City that I recall. I guess they were similar to an old school Big Lots or Ollie's.
I just finished scanning through those Almeda Mall photos. Tons of images from the 1970's to see. These photos make me ask the question, when did malls become so boring? People had a good time and the entire mall was dressed up for these events. Everything seemed so much more lively than you find at the malls that still host events. The mall was so much more attractive back then, storefronts had character. Some malls like Memorial City still host events, but why don't all malls go all out these days?
DeleteThose Almeda Mall photos are great. In many cases, the storefronts were not the focus of the photos, but some interesting details can still be pulled from them if one pays close enough attention. In addition to the McDonald's, there is a shot of the old vertical Radio Shack sign which was great to see.
DeleteI'm not sure where exactly that McDonald's was at Almeda Mall. It looked like they had quite a big storefront though with their own dining room so it probably isn't where the food court is now. There's been a lot said about Almeda Mall, but that McDonald's is still news to me. I'm not sure if Northwest Mall had a McDonald's, but I'm really curious to know. It's possible these McDonald's were short-lived at these malls and that's why they seem to be forgotten.
I do know that there are people with NW Mall nostalgia, but there's just not nearly as much said about it as Almeda Mall. I think a lot of that is because of the work of that South Belt Memories blogger who has done a lot to keep the memories of Almeda's best days alive. NW Mall lived in the shadows of two powerhouses with The Galleria and Memorial City Mall so that probably didn't help. Almeda Mall meanwhile is probably still the second most powerful indoor mall in all of SE Houston behind Baybrook Mall and there's a lot of people who live in the SE suburbs all the way down to Galveston.
I know the South Belt Memories blogger got a lot of her information from the University of Houston library. It seems that Foley's donated a lot of internal memos, photos, and stuff like that to the UH library when Macy's took over. I reckon anyone can view these special collections if they ask a librarian, but it'll take a lot of time sorting through documents and then digitizing the relevant ones. Since they have all kinds of internal memos and such, I reckon it's possible that they have all kinds of insider information from all the Houston malls which had Foley's or that Foley's considered putting stores in including malls which were never built. Foley's parent company developed Greenspoint and West Oaks Malls so they probably have very juicy documents about those malls. It would be great to go through those archives at some point, but that'll take a tremendous time commitment. The South Belt Memories blogger also got photos from Almeda's archives as well so that's a great source of info.
I also think that malls have become boring. Mall operators can complain about the lack of traffic in their malls, but what have they done to generate traffic? They don't have many events which the public looks forward to and the stores lack diversity. It's probably a combination of mall operators lacking vision, pinching pennies, and settling for low hanging fruit instead of trying to achieve something great. It's a sad thing really.
Yes, there are a number of those VF Outlets/Factory Stores of America around the country. I don't know if they all have indoor mall designs, but they don't get much publicity or attention these days even though they do exist. It might be worth photographing one of those VF Outlet malls if you're ever in the area. It's not like it'll take more than 5 minutes to photograph the whole mall, lol.
Bud's made older Big Lots feel like a Dillard's. Bud's is the kind of place where you could buy a package of socks which only had one sock. They did sort merchandise into departments, but aside of that, everything was just thrown onto tables or shelves with no kind of organization. The deals were good though and occasionally they had products worth buying.
I'm not surprised to see Saks in trouble. I'm thinking we're going to see a lot more carnage now than we did in even 2008-9. Mall operators have to be worried that they may go from having 4-5 anchors to potentially having one or two with the way things are going.
Almeda Mall definitely had the advantage over Northwest Mall. Northwest Mall was much more difficult to get to and had much closer competition as you mentioned. The good thing is that Northwest still had a lot of the retro storefronts if you looked close enough. The fact that that one hallway by JCPenney was never remodeled, made Northwest really stand out especially after Almeda was remodeled.
DeleteSearching through old archives can be very time-consuming. I spent several hours researching that Belle Promenade Mall post online and in a library near the former mall. I would not recommend doing that for every mall, it slows down the process. Belle Promenade was one of the few malls that to me deserved that amount of research. It was a mall that I frequented as a youngster and later on I watched the decline as an adult. It is crazy that as of last Summer, the floor in the food court, about half of the center court, and cinema are still intact.
One of the chains I was hoping would replace Sears at Deerbrook is in trouble financially. Dave and Busters had been expanding into former anchor stores including several Sears locations. Deerbrook has not had an arcade or good sit down restaurant for over a decade. They do still have Casa Ole, but they are nowhere near as good as they were several years ago.
You would actually be surprised with the amount of time that I can burn in even the smallest malls. The VF stores have some good deals, and I have left with clothes or something else for the family.
Bud's sounds like the kind of place that would be filled with cigar smoke and lots of dust. I guess a Walmart clearance store would not be the best place to expect a clean, organized environment. The clearance aisles at Walmart sound kind of like your description of the place.
Sounds like JCPenney is going to file baknruptcy today or by Monday in Corpus Christi. I think our mall stores are safe. I can see them shutting down the Lufkin Mall, Huntsville West Hill Mall, Brazos Mall, and the I-45 store near Dickinson. The Saks here in Houston should be safe, unless the company folds. The Galleria Saks is only a couple of years old, practically new.
Northwest Mall was quite an interesting place. I felt that Levcor did a pretty good job operating the mall for years after it became clear that the spot was not a viable space for retail. The mall was always clean during my number of visits in the mid-2010s. For a while, it was more recently renovated than Almeda Mall before Almeda got a renovation recently and things like the Foley's wing clock worked at NW Mall even though it didn't at Almeda. They even managed to get a few new tenants like that paid children's play place even though the situation was hopeless. NW Mall had the odd distinction of being highly visible, but yet hard to actually access. It's even less visible now after the new freeway ramps have been built.
DeleteBased on what I can tell from the Google photos of the place, the Hempstead VF Outlet store looks mostly the same as it did ~20 years ago when I used to visit the place with some regularity. It looks like they still have a good selection of jeans and such. It's funny to say this, but that tiny mall might have more products of interest to me than many much bigger malls.
It should be noted that the VF company was restructured last year and that might have some impact on the outlets. VF spun off their jeans brands (Lee, Wrangler, etc.) and their outlet stores as a North Carolina-based company called Kontoor Brands. What's left of VF, sports clothing and footwear mostly, is now based in Colorado. With this split, the VF Outlets could be impacted down the road, but it appears to be business as usual for now.
I did not hear that Dave & Busters is having financial problems, but that's not a big surprise. Bar Louie, which has been opening in some malls, filed for bankruptcy in January even before the coronavirus issue. I have been to the Dave & Busters on Richmond before (I'm not sure if it's still there), but it's been a while. That was in the mid-2000s I would say. As for Casa Ole, the one at Willowbrook Mall closed a number of years ago. All of a sudden it closed one day and there was a notice taped to the door that the IRS seized the property. That space is now a Los Cucos. I'd probably consider that to be an upgrade. Casa Ole has never had the best reputation, but I know some people who love it and have been going there for decades. It surely beats Pancho's at least.
Yes, researching a mall at a library is major work and is probably best for those who want to describe a mall they know very well which was probably the case for you and Belle Promenade Mall. I will say that those Foley's archives at UH probably have some really interesting nuggets of inside information about what Foley's was thinking when they built their various stores. It would be interesting to evaluate their views of the future.
Yes, Bud's was remarkably similar to those very unorganized Wal-Mart clearance racks that they have now at regular Wal-Mart stores. The Wal-Mart ones actually look a bit more upscale since they at least have the same racks as the rest of Wal-Mart even if everything is randomly thrown on them.
We'll have to see what happens with all these retail bankruptcies. They may plan to reorganize, but that does not always happen. It seems bankruptcy judges usually favor plans that save jobs, but with the entire industry struggling the way it is, perhaps liquidating inventory in order to pay those who have money owed to them seems like the safer bet.
JCPenney field for Chapter 11 Bankruptcy.
DeleteIf I spelled field instead of filed, sorry.
DeleteLevcor certainly did a good job in the final years of Northwest Mall. When most malls would have completely died, they kept a mostly full food court and they had a decent amount of stores still left. They must have finally hit a tipping point where they were bleeding money keeping the mall open.
DeleteVF is the last big store at a lot of these properties. They may get a boost in towns where Stage stores is closing up shop. I did not know they were having financial troubles as well, but nearly every brick and mortar company is having issues these days.
I have never been to a Dave and Busters. It looks to be similar to Main Event except geared more for adults. Casa Ole has fallen behind the times and will probably continue to close locations.
Foley's seemed like a futuristic store to shoppers back then. They certainly had way more to offer shoppers than the department stores of today.
I wonder if Buds business model would survive today. There was a store that briefly opened in the former Palais Royal at Macroplaza Mall in Pasadena, that sounds like Buds was setup.
Junk thrown in large bins at very low prices.
JCPenney is planning on closing about 240 stores initially. I That list will be out soon. JCPenney has some leeway because they are going to create an REIT to generate more revenue. Some chains can't liquidate fast enough because of the restrictions in some areas.
I am a little behind on comments so I will reply to the rest later.
JCPenney filing for bankruptcy is a very sad event indeed.
DeleteAccording to what was written on the layoffs website, which may or may not be accurate, JCPenney does not plan on closing any stores which have optical locations. I suppose those are operated by a third party retailer like the Sears Optical locations were and JCPenney has told that operator that they aren't closing their locations. That's good news for locations like Willowbrook, Meyerland, Wallisville Rd., Memorial City, The Woodlands, and League City, but a number of area JCPenney stores don't have optical locations so I suppose we'll have to wait to see what may happen to them. It looks like some fairly prominent locations do not have optical stores like Baybrook and Deerbrook Malls, but the speculation from the public is that the smaller stores are under the biggest threat. Of course, all of these plans are subject to change depending on how the bankruptcy goes.
DeleteIf JCPenney goes the REIT route, it might just be a sign of JCPenney slowly eliminating their retail operations ala Sears/Seritage by slowly selling off and closing their best performing, most valuable properties and perhaps keeping only locations which they own in struggling malls and leased locations. Of course, one has to question the value of retail real estate right now at even valuable malls given the struggles that even prominent B&M retailers are having right now.
I'm not so sure why VF decided to spin off their jeans brands. It seems to me that Lee and Wrangler are very valuable brands worth hanging on to, but I don't know if they had a financial need to do something or what. Fortunately, the outlet malls are now part of the new jeans company, Kontoor Brands. I wonder if these malls will get rebranded anytime soon. I suspect jeans drives a lot of sales at those outlet malls, but other clothing, backpack, and sportswear brands which are still part of VF probably make up a pretty good chunk of sales too so hopefully Kontoor can continue getting good inventory at good prices from those brands which are no longer under the same company as the outlet stores.
I have not been to Dave & Busters since the mid-2000s like I said, but if it is like it was then, it's a pretty nice place to be. The food is expensive for what it is, but they do have an arcade and such. When I did go there last, I don't think it was very busy so we had free reign over the arcade machines we wanted, but I think we went during the middle of the week so that probably helps.
The former Willowbrook Mall Casa Ole's problems with the IRS aside, a number of Casa Ole locations are still open. The one near Almeda Mall is most certainly still open (or at least it was as of a couple of months ago). Restaurants like that are probably caught in a difficult position. They risk upsetting their core customers if they change, but if they don't change, they risk being stuck in the 1980s in the minds of potential new customers. I figure Casa Ole is still pretty affordable and casual as far as sit-down restaurants go and sometimes that's enough to keep customers coming in.
There are a few independent retailers in town selling deeply discounted closeout goods on an as-is basis. I don't think Walmart has a need for such an outlet because they have enough room for clearance aisles now in their Supercenters. The fact that Wal-Mart pulled the plug on Bud's and that few people have memories of them is probably a sign that there just isn't much room for a chain cheaper than Wal-Mart. I'm also sure that Wal-Mart is probably a bit reluctant to try to shave profit margins anymore than they have to.
No worries
DeleteThe optical locations are probably some of JCP's best locations. Since Sears stores no longer have optical departments, it is another way JCP could capitalize on the demise of Sears. It is going to be difficult to market an old JCP store for redevelopment these days. Hundreds of vacant Sears stores are sitting abandoned right now.
DeleteI would not be surprised if VF needed the funding from the sale of their jean brands. VF stores have to compete with Walmart in many areas so they are probably struggling. Most of those VF Factory Malls are in need of major renovations.
Main Event is the opposite of what Dave and Busters sounds like. I looked into the one at the Marq-e center when we were there years ago. It looks more relaxing than Main Event or the new Tilt locations are.
You are absolutely right about Casa Ole. They are in the difficult situation that older chains are in right now. They are usually a more relaxing place to eat than places like Pappasitos or Chuy's that generally have lines of customers waiting.
Walmart is discounted enough, they did have that promotion years ago "Always low prices". Now they have their Rollback sales.
I did some research and it seems Kmart had their own version of Bud's called Variety Outlet in 1994. Wikipedia has a couple of links to newspaper clippings talking about the concept. One link is here and the other here. I'm guessing Kmart wasn't any more successful with the concept than Wal-Mart was, but I guess Lampert-era Kmart could dump some of their excess inventory off at Sears Outlet stores which were until recently fairly closely aligned with Sears/Kmart even if they were under SHOS.
DeleteI have not really needed to visit a VF Outlet since Sears sold Lee and Wrangler jeans and often did so at a pretty hefty discount. Maybe the VF Outlet would have been cheaper, but when you factor in SYWR coupons and such, it probably made more sense to just shop at Sears. The Willowbrook Mall Sears had a pretty good inventory of jeans, including Levi's, even up until the closure announcement. That was a little surprising given the inventory problems just about everywhere else.
With Sears increasingly no longer being an option, and with the potential for JCPenney and others also not being an option, perhaps the VF Outlet will be a more appealing choice for apparel if I need any. I think I have enough jeans to last me a while. I know Wal-Mart used to sell Wrangler jeans, and maybe they still do, but I don't think the jeans sold at Wal-Mart are up to the same quality standards as jeans sold elsewhere. Maybe that's an outdated fact though, I don't know.
I've never been to Main Event, but I'd imagine Dave & Busters has less children around. That may not be correct though because my experience at D&B was during the middle of the week so I'm guessing there wouldn't have been many kids out at that time anyway.
I went to an area Chuy's earlier this year before the lockdowns started and such. The place was a madhouse. I didn't have to wait too long to be seated, but the wait for the food after it was ordered was very long. Also, there were so many loud people around us that it was a rather unpleasant dining experience. The food wasn't bad, but it wasn't particularly great either. Casa Ole certainly wouldn't be my first option for Mexican food, but I think I'd rather go to Casa Ole over having that experience at Chuy's again. Of course, with the whole virus limitations, even the craziest restaurants might be tolerable now at least in terms of noise.
The concept of Wal-Mart having sales outside of Black Friday type deals is quite odd because I'm so used to their 'Always Low Prices' ideology from the past. I suppose they feel the need to drive interest in their stores so people will do there shopping there instead of online. Can you imagine the chaos if Wal-Mart did vintage Kmart style blue light specials where they would make announcements, call people to a part of the store, and then offered deep discounts on particular items? Fist fights between customers and trampling would probably be common.
I had no idea that Kmart had the Variety Outlet stores. It sounds like they were really trying to bring back their unsuccessful locations. I found it strange that only 15-20 people would be working at those stores. The store probably started looked terrible in a short time. A store of that size would probably need a lot more employees than that.
DeleteI increased my supply of jeans and other clothes at Sears and other places over the past couple of years. Jeans are easily a 5-year plus investment, so I will probably stay away for now.
We ventured out today to a few retailers and it was not much different than things back in January. About 50% of the people and nearly 100% of the employees had masks on at each store we went to. Hand sanitizer was in stock at several retailers, which is much different than last month. I still have not tried sitting in a restaurant yet, I am still using drive thru or carryout only.
Walmart would be an interesting place if they did the blue light specials, lol. One of the good things with more sales going online, is that the stores have less traffic on Black Friday. It is not nearly as crazy as it has been in the past, but it is still much busier than normal. This will be a year to watch to see how things rebound by then.
Variety Outlet was something I did not know about either until I read about it just the other day. Kmart did try a lot of things back in the 1980s and 1990s, but almost all of them were ultimately failures that drained money away that should have gone towards keeping the core Kmart brand relevant. I suppose I can't blame Kmart for thinking that way. After all, it was diversification that helped Kresge's successfully transition into Kmart. That said, Kmart just couldn't pull it off. While Wal-Mart had a big hit with Sam's Club, Kmart's Pace Membership Warehouse is a mostly forgotten retail failure.
DeleteI also thought the employee number at the Variety Outlet was very low. Maybe only a small part of the store was used or maybe they had limited hours. I don't know. I don't think Bud's used all of the space that they could have if I remember correctly. If Variety Outlet was kept as tidy as Bud's was, employees didn't have to worry much about organizing things.
You're right, Black Friday isn't as crazy as it used to be. I suspect the trend will continue this year. I don't think things will completely rebound to where they were in 2019 even and last Christmas season was fairly disastrous for B&M retail even without the new hurdles we have now. All that said, Wal-Mart is a pretty busy and crazy place year round so I can only imagine how crazy it would be if they did blue light specials.
I had some time to pass in Cypress a couple of days ago while I waited for something so I visited the outlet mall there for the first time in a long time and completely walked the mall. It wasn't very busy, but I don't know how busy it would be on a weekday morning even under normal circumstances. Many of the stores, maybe even more than half, were not open. It seems that shoe stores in particular are waiting until maybe the end of the month or next month to open. I suspect there are issues with having people try on shoes and such. Some stores are open, but their fitting rooms werent't and they also weren't accepting returns/exchanges at the time. That's not exactly going to give consumers much confidence to buy things if they can't try them on and have to wait who knows how long to return them. A couple stores were only allowing a small number of visitors inside so there were lines to get into the store. It was strange to see lines outside stores in an otherwise pretty dead mall.
While I was waiting in Cypress, I also visited one of the newer Kroger Marketplace stores up there by the mall and also one of the newer HEB stores in the area. I had been to another Kroger Marketplace in Cypress and this one wasn't really any different as far as I could tell so there's not much to say about it. Although the store did have a decent number of shoppers, it wasn't too difficult to keep distance from other shoppers.
The HEB was a mixed bag, IMO. The store wasn't as busy as some of the other HEBs closer to me so that's a plus. Maybe it was just because of the time of day I was there. That said, it was more difficult to keep social distance at HEB than at Kroger. The biggest problem was HEB employees. There were several employees going around with carts meant for delivery/pick-up orders. I was surprised how many employees were going around with those carts, HEB must be getting a lot of business right now using delivery/curbside pick-up. Anyway, the employees were in a rush so they were just grabbing things off the shelves even if other shoppers were right there. Also, employees were putting out new produce stock at the same time that people were shopping for the produce so the employees were standing right next to and even leaning over shoppers to stock things. That certainly wasn't an ideal situation as far as social distancing goes. At least the general aisles with canned foods and such were pretty peaceful so at least there's that.
I can confirm that Randall's is using one-way aisles at the Champions store.
Kmart had a ton of acquisitions and experiments that failed in the 80's and 90's. You are right, they did need that money to strengthen Kmart, which was bankrupt barely into the following decade.
DeleteI guess the one good thing to come out of this is that 2021 sales at B&M stores will look really good in comparison to 2020. I can see some insane prices for Black Friday this year, last year I found some really good video game deals.
Furniture stores are also limiting people from sitting on items at certain places. A few retailers are taking returns, but it is the ones that were already open like Walmart and Target.
Walmart is the only store I have seen so far with one-way aisles. The HEB issues are not surprising, a lot of people are having groceries picked up or delivered now. You would think that the employees would be the ones that are the best at practicing social distancing.
From what I have been able to gather from online reports, Pace Membership Warehouse was doing quite well when they were independent, but when Kmart took them over, they started to sink like a rock. In the case of Pace, Kmart spent their money to help ruin two chains, Pace and Kmart, instead of just investing that money back into Kmart locations to make them strong at a time when Wal-Mart was really starting to flex their muscles. We know about Lampert, but Kmart had really lousy leadership even way before Lampert in the 1980s-early 2000s which lead to their first bankruptcy and Lampert getting control of the company.
DeleteDying mall stalwart Bath & Body Works and their corporate partner Victoria's Secret said that they will close a number of stores. That will be bad news for malls as both of those stores are quite popular. I wonder if the closing Bath & Body Works stores will be at locations in good malls or in dying malls. You'd think that they would be the ones at dying malls, but the closing Victoria's Secrets must be in better malls since they don't usually have locations in dying malls.
Speaking of closings, I searched for some Dillard's news and came up with a mixed bag. On the good news front, it looks like the conversion of the Richland Mall ex-Sears in Waco into Dillard's has been completed. Richland will now have that Dillard's and a separate Dillard's men store. Of course, I think Dillard's already had two stores at Richland so maybe one is closing and moving to the ex-Sears location. If that's the case, I don't know if the mall is really gaining anything other than trading one dead anchor for another. On the bad news front, although Dillard's has not announced any mass store closings, there have been at least a couple of reports from local newspapers across the country of Dillard's locations which are closing or are being converted into clearance stores. None are in this area, but there is one closing store in New Mexico.
The retailers who can survive the next few months by treading water will probably eventually see better days. The surviving retailers will probably see increased marketshare as they absorb sales from closed chains and the decreased competition might allow for higher profit margins. That said, online shopping and the likes of TJMaxx aren't going anywhere and demand for clothing might decrease now that working at home has become more accepted and normalized. The gains in marketshare and such may just serve to offset other losses.
Retailers better be prepared to offer their Black Friday savings via online shopping/buy online, pickup curbside options or else they're really going to struggle to get shoppers. Shoppers were quickly ditching traditional B&M shopping last Christmas season for online/local pickup for online orders even without the virus situation. I suspect there will be a lot less people traveling this Thanksgiving than what is usual so that may give people more time to shop (probably online). OTOH, people may travel less for Christmas as well so that means if people want to give distant relatives and friends gifts, they'll have to order something online and have it delivered to the recipient.
I think there will be some very good deals this Black Friday in order to encourage wary shoppers to spend their money. I suspect people might spend their money on different things than they usually do this year though because of the virus. While tech is always a hot Christmas seller, some people simply won't be able to wait until Christmas to upgrade their computers and such if they need them to work or study from home. With people wanting or needing to stay home more now, I suspect things like TVs, furniture, cookware/small appliances, and home fitness stuff will be hot sellers. The problem is that expensive stuff like that will have to be discounted heavily to make people commit to such large purchases.
Was there a Pace Warehouse near FM 1960 off of I-45. I remember a Sam's type of warehouse club being there, but I can't remember the name of the place.
DeleteSome of the Victoria's Secret and Bath and Body Works closings have been at the same property in the past. Bath and Body Works is feeling the pinch because of the issues at Victoria's Secret. It will be 2 less tenants in a struggling mall when they leave. I can see West Oaks Mall being one of the malls they leave.
The original Dillard's is closing at Richland which is at front and center of the mall. Maybe they are looking at opening up a walkway with a town center type of development. Bringing the largest anchor back to life is a huge win for that property. Gordmans is closing, but that anchor is in the back of the property. H&M and Dick's Sporting Goods recently opened as well so the mall is still doing well. Dillard's is quietly doing ok, but are in a better position financially than their peers. Macy's reportedly lost 1 billion over the C-19 shutdowns.
Consumer spending will be down this year big time. As of this comment, there have been 41 million new jobless claims. That is insane, and a lot of the government protections are about to run out unless more help is approved. It is a very sad situation right now, many more companies can't survive much longer like this.
Yes, Kmart tried to make that shopping center with Fry's and The Dump in it now into some kind of Kmart power center when it was new. If I remember correctly, Kmart built a regular Kmart, Builders Square II, and Pace in that shopping center. The Builders Square II and Pace didn't last very long.
DeleteAnother warehouse club chain Houston had was Price Club. They had at least one local location near where the Memorial City area Costco is. In fact, the Costco there might be the old Price Club, but I'm not sure. Costco did buy out Price Club, but I'm thinking there were some years in between the buyout and when Costco actually opened. Actually, the Chase Bank office building next to the Academy might be the old Price Club now that I look at the map, but I'm still not positive about that. That area has changed a lot since I saw that Price Club in the early 1990s.
Price Club was started by Sol Price, the founder of FedMart which was another popular Spring Branch membership store in the 1970s. FedMart was more like a members-only Walmart than a warehouse store though. The Wirt Rd. Fiesta in Spring Branch used to be a FedMart, but they had other locations in Houston. I think some of the other FedMarts in town may have started out as Globe stores, Walgreens' short-lived version of Kmart.
I was reading this week that Foot Locker is feeling somewhat constrained by their mall locations. They seem to prefer shopping center locations now where they can open bigger stores and stock in-demand sports/athletic apparel in addition to shoes. I wouldn't expect Foot Locker to dump their mall stores quickly, but we may see a slow movement of their stores to shopping centers. GNC was planning a similar move, but now it seems GNC is in serious financial trouble and they may declare bankruptcy here soon. Add Bath & Body Works aforementioned problems and many dying mall loyalist retailers might not stick around malls like they used to.
I wonder if we'll see a situation where mall operators start opening up the exterior walls of their malls where they can and install exterior entrances for as many in-line stores as they possibly can. It seems that this is what the retailers want these days. Of course, such a move will be expensive and it won't be feasible at some malls due to the way they were constructed and designed.
Richland Mall's best bet might be to try to convert the abandoned Dillard's anchor into a lifestyle center. Maybe the likes of Foot Locker would rather move out to that part of the mall where maybe they can have exterior access. I wonder what that new Dillard's in the old Sears looks like. Dillard's often did not do much to their buildings when they moved into them, but I'm guessing they didn't leave their new store looking like a Sears. New department stores are rare in recent times so that might be worth a look.
On the topics of department stores and Foot Lockers, it looks like an investor from the Czech Republic has made sizable investments in those two businesses. With that, I wonder if we may see more collaboration between the two. I also wonder if we may see more foreign ideas in US retailers as retailers might become dependent on anyone with deep pockets. Maybe one day in the not so distant future, the Chinese and others will own major US retailers like Walmart, Kroger, and others. Who knows.
Another Texas-based retailer, Tuesday Morning, looks to be in serious financial trouble. It looks like they are closing a number of stores which they deem to be redundant and too close to other stores. Tuesday Morning has opened some new stores in recent years so maybe they just expanded too quickly.
You're right that there is a real financial crunch right now for many shoppers and retailers. There are going to be some major changes in the retail scene in the coming months. There are many retailers who struggled throughout the 2010s who are now finally crumbling.
Did Sears stores smell like car oil? I’m not sure, but I remember a smell like that whenever I went to Sears. Maybe the smell came from the area around the auto center?
DeleteSears had a unique smell. I am not sure what it was, but the tools and automotive items smelled like oil in some stores.
DeleteI remember the Fry's center in the late 90's. I did not see it when it first opened, but I believe the Fry's was the Builders Square. The Kmart was an average sized store, but I believe it was built before Super Kmart Centers were built in the area.
DeleteI don't remember a lot of those Membership chains from the past. There were so many over the years. Now I can't imagine life without Costco, lol. Companies were also a lot more willing to try out new concepts years ago than they were pre-Covid. The only concepts that seem experimental are the smaller sized Target stores, since Walmart gave up on their small sized stores.
We are going to see a lot of malls that were barely hanging on, die out soon. I can see Macroplaza, Greenspoint, and West Oaks completely failing soon. We are going to see some vacancies at good malls too. An example of that is the very popular Lakeside Mall in Metairie losing their JCPenney store. We will lose some stores that we don't expect to close. Mall operators are going to have to give rent breaks or help with some incentives or it will get worse.
Richland Mall has a lot to offer. I would really like to see how the mall is doing after the new Dillard's opened up. Waco is a growing town and the mall is in a really good location to take advantage of the changes. Retail in Waco is somewhat lacking for a town of over 100,000 people so that helps the mall out.
I am not sure what to think of foreign investors taking over companies. Companies need cash to survive though, but hopefully it is not a situation like in the 80's and 90's when a lot of American companies moved overseas.
From what I understand, Tuesday Morning is similar to Home Goods. Home Goods and TJ Maxx have been doing well at the expense of other chains mostly department stores. Chains like Tuesday Morning are going to have a much harder time sourcing products these days since many manufacturers have been cutting back production significantly. If there is a bidding war for the limited items, Tuesday Morning would easily lose with their financial situation. As we have seen with Ross stores opening back up, there is already a shortage of name brand items available for closeout stores. A lot of Ross stores have been emptied out by customers. The supply chain is shaken up right now, it is going to be crazy for a while. Maybe by the time Christmas orders are ready to ship, things will be closer to normal.
As much as I don't want the country to go into more debt, I think a second stimulus is needed. I like the idea of a back to work stimulus plan, some people are making more money off of unemployment than they were making while employed. The government can't support the population for much longer. People need to get back to work while social distancing, testing the population, and keeping the sick people in quarantine.
Is the Greenspoint Fry’s closing? I saw some pictures on Google Maps and saw that a lot of shelves were empty.
DeleteAll of the Fry's locations have inventory issues currently. Some locations have quietly closed, but the company has been very quiet about the issues they are having. The company has mentioned they are switching over to a consignment type of inventory system that has led to "temporary" product shortages. They have been having product shortages since at least 2018 that keep getting worse. I visited the 3 area locations including Greenspoint late last year and early in 2020 to document them in case they close. If you search for Fry's electronics Layoffs, you will see a lot of posts about inventory issues across the chain.
DeleteSome Sears did have some slight smells to them. Sears with attached auto centers did have somewhat of a fresh rubber smell in them from the tires they had on display, but this really could not be smelled once one got away from the automotive department. Maybe someone with more a more sensitive sense of smell might notice it though. Sometimes the rubber garden hoses and such would smell a bit too, but those weren't as strong as the tires. I remember someone on a a non-retail forum saying years ago that he liked to go to Sears when his wife went to the mall so he could smell the new tires, lol.
DeleteThe classic Craftsman screwdrivers with the hexagonal (or octagonal?) handles and the rounded end had a reputation for the plastic handle to off-gas a really terrible fishy smell when they aged. It seemed to be more of a problem with 1970s-early 1990s models, but I think they fixed the issue eventually. Sears still sold screwdrivers of that fashion at least through last Christmas, but they have been made in China in recent years instead of the US. I've heard some people refer to these screwdrivers as the "stinky handle" screwdrivers. I have some and the smell is terrible when I open the toolbox.
People who remember when Sears had candy counters and popcorn stands will be sure to remember those smells.
Yes, the Fry's was the Builder's Square II and The Dump is where the Pace was I do believe. I did shop at that Kmart a few times especially after Fry's opened up since I spent a lot of time over there. I really don't have much recollection about the Kmart other than to say that it felt like a typical early 1990s Kmart. Even those managed to feel somewhat stuck in the 1980s.
In the 1980s, diversification and experiments with new formats were all the rage. Unfortunately, some retailers took their eyes off the prize while attempting these experiments and their core businesses took a big hit. Kmart is the textbook example of this, but Sears is often cited as well with their 'stocks and socks' strategy and with them buying or opening so many niche retailers like Western Auto. I was on another blog this week talking about Sears' attempt at opening standalone stores and in-store departments in the late 1980s with McDonald's where the two of them sold McDonald's themed children clothing called McKids. The thought of that may seem preposterous now, but it really did happen.
Most of the closures on the initial JCPenney list were not surprises. We expected the smaller town stores to close, but the Lufkin Mall one was a surprise to me and certainly the Lakeside Mall was a surprise. Expect to hear more closures in the coming months. Yeah, I think we'll see some malls fail here in the next few months. A lot of these malls were just barely hanging on anyway.
I think we may see more seasonal pop-up retail here in the 2020s. Instead of one retailer struggling through the whole year in one spot, you may see a retailer temporarily take residence during Christmas selling toys and gifts, then after Christmas it may become a tax prep office. During the summer, a swimwear or luggage store might move in. Spirit Halloween can then move in during the fall. That could become the way shopping centers fill their vacancies.
Tuesday Morning is similar to Home Goods, but Home Goods has a much better in-store experience. I suppose that explains why one is closing stores and the other has long lines of shoppers. It's always amazed me how all these clearance stores could open. Surely there's only so much clearance items to go around, but maybe now we're feeling the supply shortage. These clearance stores might get temporary help from store liquidations, but I don't know what they'll do after that. These clearance stores have killed off so many of the department stores whose inventory they fed off of. Perhaps these clearance stores can try to get their hands on some online store returned goods.
The last 2 Sears in the area do not have attached auto centers so they have a different smell. The Shepherd Rd. location may be in danger of closing. 12 out of the remaining Seritage stores are going to lose their leases by March 2021 and may close by September of this year. The list of which stores out of the 17 are losing the leases is not out yet. I hope we can hold onto that store for a while longer, that sign needs to stay on.
DeleteI don't think I have any of those stinky handle screwdrivers. I have an old box of tools that I have not opened in a long time, if I decide to open it I will make sure to wear a mask.
The Sears stores in Mexico surprisingly did not have strong smells by the candy counter. The Woolworth store did. Sanborns had a lot of different smells depending on where the restaurant was located in the store.
That shopping center has changed so much over the years and still continues to prosper. The boost in those shopping centers has come at the expense of the Greenspoint area unfortunately.
I remember some of the Sears experiments back in the 80's. Their most famous was probably the Discover Card. For a while Sears was the only place that accepted that credit card. So many of those experiments weakened those companies. A lot of the ideas were good, but they never had the right financing or attention from corporate to see them through. I don't remember the McKids clothing, but it sounds like it would not have gone over well.
I don't get the Lakeside closing unless the property is going to be quickly redeveloped. JCPenney has another store in a less popular mall across the river at Oakwood, that seems like it would be the store they would close first. The nearby Clearview Mall is scheduled to be demalled in the near future so you would think Lakeside would stay full.
Deerbrook Mall had just filled nearly every vacancy at the mall before the Sears closure was announced. You make a good observation, pop-up seasonal stores seem to be the next step in retail. The Sears in Memorial City Mall had a small trampoline Park setup at the former mall entrance so at least something was happening at that end of the mall. Since that store was so close to the kids play area, they probably got good business. Now they are probably gone since these types of businesses were closed for months.
The closeout stores are basically turning into what the Outlet stores have turned into. The name brand manufacturers make department store level clothing, along with slightly lower quality clothing for the closeout stores to make it seem like you got a deal. Outlet stores these days have a bunch of full-price items and some "outlet" deals on their stock. It is not much different than going to the mall any more. Companies like TJ Maxx, Burlington and Ross are growing like crazy. You do save money going to those retailers, but the clothes will fall apart quicker from my experience. The department stores still get the better inventory.
A lot of department stores seem to be holding onto inventory for their own off-price concepts. Nordstrom Rack, Macy's Backstage, Dillard's Clearance Centers. Even JCPenney and Sears dabbled with their own off-price stores.
One time, I went to a Sears Outlet store (now American Freight, or something like that) and was surprised that there were no clothes, only tools and appliances. I wonder if they only sell that stuff because it was more profitable for them to only sell tools and appliances.
DeleteYeah, I heard the interesting Seritage news a little while ago. I made a post about it a few minutes ago in the discussion where we were discussing the future of Sears. It may be game over for the N. Shepherd Sears unfortunately.
DeleteI can't say I have any stark memories about the aromas of the Macroplaza Mall and N. Shepherd Sears in my recent visits. They seemed fine to me I suppose. The only bad smells I can remember smelling at a Sears in recent times was at the West Oaks Mall Sears during my last visit there. The A/C wasn't working and the store was very warm and musty smelling on that visit. It was during that visit that I felt the store would close soon and that's what happened.
I wonder if these stores purposely let the smells of the candy counter drift into the rest of the store. I've heard it said that smells like that can make people feel like they are children again and thus they may spend money more frivolously. I don't know if there's any truth to that though.
Sears must have fixed the "stinky handle" screwdrivers before 1995 or so because I have some screwdrivers from around that period and they don't smell. The older ones, yikes, watch out! The issue was so bad that I looked up the problem on the Internet and other people have the same problem. Here's a post on the Shop Your Way page about the problem, lol.
I remember when Sears launched the Discover Card. My father, who was a big Sears fan, rushed out and got one as quickly as he could. He must have been one of the first cardholders. It had two big advantages in that it didn't have an annual fee and it had the cashback bonus. Some retailers loved the Discover Card because they didn't charge the merchant fees that Visa and MC charge. Others, mostly those who viewed Sears as a close competitor, hated it. Some of them accepted the Discover Card anyway, but they didn't quite admit to it. They would say that they accepted the Novus card which I think was some sort of internal bank name for the Discover Card. Montgomery Ward was one of the stores that referred to Discover as Novus, but they were hardly the only one. Here's one of your old Greenspoint Wards photos that shows that they only referred to Discover as Novus.
You may remember when Sears had little Discover, Caldwell Banker Real Estate, Dean Witter Investments, and Allstate Insurance departments in their stores. Some of these non-retail businesses were very successful and still are today, but it took away from the actual retail operation. If Sears was going to hire executives in those days, would they hire a retail or a banking expert? Diversification creates problems like that.
Speaking of retailers with odd credit card policies, I posted a Drug Emporium update in one of your posts about that chain. Don't worry, it's good news.
Maybe the Lakeside JCPenney had a lease renewal coming up that they couldn't afford to pay? It's hard to say, but when retailers start closing successful stores, they usually don't last very long.
I suspected that the labels were going to be forced to make product lines just for the closeout chains just like they do for the outlet stores. I keep my clothes for a long time so it's a good thing that I don't shop at the closeout stores except for Stein Mart. At least Stein Mart has a civilized atmosphere. They keep their stores neater than some department stores. I quite liked K&G, but it's been a while since I've been there and I'm not sure if they are a closeout store or what.
There were a few Sears Outlet stores that had clothes, but most chose to only carry hardlines. Since the 2019 bankruptcy, these stores have struggled to get inventory. Now they have a better chance of long-term survival.
DeleteThe department stores were surely designed to get the most out of the customers back in the day. The smells, visuals, and sounds were carefully designed to get shoppers spending. How many kids pulled their parents towards those candy smells back then, lol. Malls used to group certain stores and snack places together as well. Now it seems like store placement does not follow any kind of setup. Stores geared towards Women can be grouped up near Sears or Mens stores near the Macy's for Women and Children.
DeleteI forgot about that photo, that door is long gone. I was late getting credit cards which hurt my credit score for years. Discover is coincidentally the only credit card I have these days.
I am sure Sears tried to put people in charge that did not know what was going on in one business or the other. It is hard to learn about retail or banking if you have not managed in the business.
JCPenney is on a short timeline to see business improvements. I need to go see the concept store in the Dallas area just in case the company does not survive. Malls are already hurting big time, JCPenney not too long ago was considered a strong anchor. Now they are at the same level as Sears.
I don't have much experience with Stein Mart. I have heard good things about them, but I never think about going to one. I have purchased so much clothing from Sears closeouts, that I will not need anything for a while.
The Baybrook area Sears Outlet store used to, and may still, have clothes. In fact, they had quite a lot of clothes. They had a lot of Sears and Kmart merchandise which still had the original price tags, but they also had some Walmart, Target, and JCPenney house brand stuff as well. I once bought a nice pair of Dockers brand slacks from there for something like $12 or $14. They usually had an abundance of unbagged white men's briefs kind of all over the place on tables and sometimes they'd even take the briefs, put hangers on them, and then put them on the racks, lol.
DeleteAs is often the case at clearance stores, there would be a ton of clothes in odd sizes, but not so much in the common sizes. This can be a problem with Stein Mart as well, but at least Stein Mart does not have any tighty whiteys on hangers, lol.
That's a good observation about mall store placement. When I think about what was near the Willowbrook Mall Sears over the years, it was retailers like Radio Shack (a direct neighbor), Sam Goody/Suncoast, Woolworth Express, Oshman's, Kay-Bee, and GNC. Those were perfect neighbors for Sears. Maybe newer mall operators were hoping that the Sears customers would cross the mall instead of just staying in the Sears wing, but that's probably giving them too much credit.
I knew that you had detailed photos of several Montgomery Ward doors, but that probably only the Greenspoint and San Jacinto ones would still have the Novus logo. I went with the Greenspoint one because I had seen the Novus logo there with my own eyes. I guess it's a good thing I didn't go with the San Jacinto one because there was a little bit of glare right right where the Novus logo was. Oh well. I actually think I took a photo of the Greenspoint Wards doors once many years ago. I should see if I have it, but it's nothing better than your photo I'm sure and they're probably worse. But, yeah, those doors are long gone now sadly.
I've had a Discover Card for many years. Did you get the retro Discover Card design on yours? It's a good card to have and I think they have pretty good customer service. They used to put a Novus logo on the back of the card to remind people that the card works at places which only claim to take Novus. I have not seen the Novus name in years though aside from those Montgomery Ward doors.
This 1986 Sears video shows some of Sears' 'stocks and socks' divisions. Watching that video now is quite sad given Sears' impending doom.
I would certainly take the JCPenney photos that you want as quickly as possible. I don't think the announced store closures will be the only ones. JCPenney may well fall apart quicker than Sears did.
I did see the clothes at that Sears Outlet the one time I went there. I picked through a little bit but did not find anything.
DeleteStein Mart will probably see an increase in sales when the last of the Stage stores go away.
Willowbrook did still have some good stores that paired with Sears like sneaker stores and Spencer's.
I wish I would have been able to get something from those old Montgomery Ward stores as they were being demolished. I really wish that I would have photographed an Electric Avenue neon sign back in the day as well.
I have a basic Discover Card with the city background. I did not know they had the old school option. I just looked at the back of the card and they have the Diner's Club logo, but no Novus logo.
It is crazy to see all of those old Sears commercials. The future seemed very bright for the company back then and it was.
I had not documented JCPenney nearly as much as with Sears. JCPenney is not nearly as interesting as Sears or any of the other retailers that have died out over the years. JCPenney has the history going for it, but not much else. I do have some JCPenney store documentations in my collection.
2020 may wind up being the year when Sears and JCPenney disappear for good.
For all we know, Electric Avenue might be alive and well on the second floor of the Willowbrook Mall Macy's Men's store. I spent a lot of time at the Memorial City, Greenspoint, and Willowbrook Mall Wards over the years and I would say a lot of that time was spent at Electric Avenue. I have pretty good memories of the place, especially of the Willowbrook store, but it would have been nice to have some photos of the place. Oh well, at least we had a chance to peek into the past when the Greenspoint Wards building was still standing. I suppose the same could be said about the San Jacinto Mall Wards, but I never visited that location.
DeleteWhen your Discover Card is close to the expiration date, they may ask you to go online and pick a special card design if you want one. From there, you might be able to pick the retro card.
Wow, the Diner's Club is a real flashback. I'm not sure if I've ever met someone with an actual Diner's Club card. A quick online says that Discover now owns Diner's Club. I'll have to check my card to see if it has the Diner's Club logo. I have not seen the Novus logo on a Discover Card in about 15 years I would say. It's been a while.
Speaking of Novus, I found this old 1985 Discover Card commercial and it says at the end that it is accepted at Montgomery Ward and it has their logo. If Wards was willing to have their logo in a Discover commercial in 1985, why couldn't they just admit to accepting Discover later on instead of the whole Novus thing? I don't know.
1986 was a strange time for Sears. They knew the discounters like Wal-Mart and Kmart were about to snatch top retailer status from them, but I don't think they quite knew yet how bad the big box, category killers were going to put the squeeze on them. I don't think anyone was thinking in 1986 that the company would be just about gone in 35 years, but I suppose 35 years is a pretty long time.
It's interesting how much has changed since then. In 1986, that father and son were probably buying US-made fishing poles from a suit-wearing, full-time Sears clerk who probably made a pretty good living and thought he was working for an invincible company. It's really quite sad to think about all of that and how things ended up.
Someone made a funny joke at the Layoffs site that he was wanting to know where he can get a TransformHoldCo bumper sticker to replace the faded Craftsman sticker on the toolbox of his truck. It's sad in a way, but I can't stop laughing about that little joke, lol.
You're right, JCPenney stores are not as interesting as Sears. The most interesting JCPs to me are the older ones which have fewer renovations and which sold things like electronics back in the day. There really aren't many of those left in town. Meyerland and San Jacinto might be the only locations left like that.
How come Sears/Kmart didn’t go away in the 2008/09 recession? Circuit City, Mervyns, and Sharper Image went away, while Sears/Kmart didn’t. Was it a miracle, or something else?
DeleteSears/Kmart was sitting on billions of dollars back then. At that time they still owned most of their properties and they were still profitable. Kmart benefitted from consumers trading down from department stores to discounters. Looking at the year end results, Kmart was seeing year over year sales increases. A lot of the cash they were earning was going into stock paybacks.
DeleteThe modern version of the Sears employee who you said thought the company was invincible, is a Walmart employee now. Unfortunately, Walmart is going to go out of business sometime in the hopefully far future.
DeleteIt would be crazy if the Electric Avenue sign is still up and works at Willowbrook Mall. I also wonder about the second floor of the Spencer location. Maybe one day, we can somehow get access to see.
DeleteI am hoping to pay off my card soon, but it would be cool to have an old fashioned one. I remember Diner's Club being a fancy type of credit card. I wonder how many restaurants still accept them.
It is crazy how things quickly changed for both Sears and Montgomery Ward in the late 90's. Montgomery Ward went bankrupt and Sears remodeled most of their stores at that time. Sometime not too long after 1986 is probably when Sears began cutting back their employee salaries. Now unless you are a store manager, you would probably not be able to afford to live on your own and support a family without government assistance.
I did see that post on the Sears Layoff page. There are a lot of comedic posts like that one, but there are a lot of people rooting for the demise of the company. I know Fast Eddie and the company executives have basically killed the company, but the employees are the ones who suffer when their stores close. I know a job at Sears or Kmart is not desirable, but how can you root for people to lose their jobs?
The San Jacinto Mall store is well worth visiting. Most of the store still has the brown and tan carpet of the 1980's JCPenney design. It is a shame that you can't see the mirrored glass mall entrances anymore. The West Hill Mall JCPenney also is a nicer store in comparison with many of the same 1980's design elements.
It seems like every retailer has their day of reckoning. The last of the dinosaurs are nearly gone and a lot of the chains that were popular during good economies are now hurting. I think Walmart has the tools to survive and be one of the businesses to stand up to Amazon.
DeleteSears and Kmart had a lot of advantages in 2008-2009. As je mentioned, a lot of shoppers were trading in department stores and expensive big box category killers for discount stores. This certainly benefited Kmart more than Sears. In fact, Kmart's reputation for layaway and such gave them a unique advantage during that time when people were looking for financial security. Kmart was also still paying celebrities big bucks to endorse clothing lines back then which gave Kmart some relevancy with their soft lines. I think Selena Gomez had a fashion line back then and we know how rabid her fans were at that time. Sears had a clothing deal with the Kardashians around that time or maybe slightly afterwards.
DeleteI'm guessing Sears/Kmart wasn't under a lot of debt at that time. Debt is what kills retailers. Neither Sears or Kmart were spending a lot of money. Kmart was freed of some of their debt after their 2002 bankruptcy. While not having a lot of debt was good at that time, the problem is they weren't investing in their stores or building new stores where the customers were either and so customers left quickly once online shopping took off and once they could afford to return to more expensive B&M retailers. There was only so long that Lampert's strategy of not putting money into stores would work. Inevitably, that strategy was going to fail. And, like je said, Sears had the stability of many assets, most of which are gone or are worthless now, and the security Lampert's wealth.
There probably are some long-time Sears employees who have to work as door greeters at Walmart now because their pensions are shot. Working at Walmart and working at Sears during the good times are really totally different experiences. Working at Sears, or any department store, was almost like a white collar job, but one that didn't require any special degree to start. Workers got full-time hours, full benefits, vacation time, and stuff like that. There was a certain level of job security and opportunities for promotion. OTOH, the employees had to be knowledgeable about the products they sold and they had to know how to make their customers happy in order to close sales.
Sometimes there were the annoyance that comes with commissioned sales at department stores. Also, sometimes Sears salesmen were arrogant, but not always. Montgomery Ward salesmen couldn't afford to be arrogant and I can remember several instances of receiving good customer service at Wards. In fact, I can even remember the name of the woman who worked in the furniture department at the Willowbrook Wards for a number of years who went the extra mile to make sure a couple furniture purchases we made in the early 1990s were great experiences. Maybe someone could get service like that at a place like Dillard's, but Dillard's is also a more expensive store than Wards was.
Sure, today's no/low-frills shopping allows for low prices that could probably never be sustained with the classic Ward/Sears type model. That said, given the low quality of many modern goods, it was probably cheaper to buy a washer from Sears that cost twice as much, but lasted 20 years (or 40 years with parts that Sears/Wards would stock for decades after the sale) than a modern washer that's lucky to last 10 years.
Yeah, that Sears Layoff page is very strange. There are a couple of rose-tinted sunglasses wearers who think Kmart can do no wrong, but then at least twice as many people who are cheering for the company to fail spectacularly. It seems cruel to cheer for people to lose their jobs, but hopefully Sears employees will be able to bounce back and will find better bosses than Lampert.
What would happen if Lampert left Sears/Kmart or got fired?
DeleteThe company spent money they could have reinvested in stores by buying stocks back. Their stock was well over 100 dollars a share about 10 years ago. I forgot about the big name clothing brands Kmart had back in the day. Even in the more recent years Kmart still had some celebrity clothing lines.
DeleteThose Sears pensions were just not sustainable once the company fell apart beginning around 2010. Companies rarely offer pensions these days because of issues like this. Sears had a sustainable business model that was broken apart by bad investments and a gutting of all of the assets for short gains.
Aggressive sales tactics are still in full force at furniture stores and car lots just in case you miss those commissioned sales days at the old retailers, lol. Good salespeople are rare these days like the lady who worked at Montgomery Ward. Dillard's is probably the only department store that is not a luxury store that still has good service.
It is a shame that we can barely count on products to last for 10 years. As an example, we are on our 3rd stove in about 7 years. Our first one got zapped by a lightning storm, then the replacement malfunctioned when it was put in self-cleaning mode and melted the instrument panel. The third has been working for a little more than 2 years now. Our refrigerator is close to the 10 year mark and I had to do some cleaning to fix a leaky freezer. The interior plastic is cracking and exposing the insulation in the refrigerator side. An older refrigerator did not have these issues after less than 10 years.
That page is certainly interesting. It is crazy that so many commenters are hoping for the company to fall apart.
Eddie is the owner of the company now. He has a lot of his finances tied into the company so the only way to force him out would be for a buyer to take the chain over. Even in the last few years of the old Sears, he had lent the company a lot of money to keep it going.
DeleteWould it be better if someone richer than Lampert bought Sears/Kmart?
DeleteYes, you're right about the sleazy sales tactics at car dealerships. When I last bought a new car a handful of years ago, it seemed like the new cars salesmen know even less about the products they are selling than they used to some years ago. It seems like it used to be that the original salesman you'd meet would try to sell you on some of the features of the car. Now, the salesmen does nothing but get keys for the test drive and then chaperones you on the test drive. These days, they seem to rely more on sales managers/assistant sales managers to actually close the deal. I think when I finally settled on a price to pay for my car, there were three greasy salesman sitting around the table.
DeleteI'm sure you've heard the latest rumors that Kmart has another round of closures. These are apparently all Seritage locations in California and Puerto Rico. I'm sure nobody is surprised about that.
The electrical surge was a fluky deal. I wouldn't blame the stove for that, but that's really silly that the second stove cooked itself after only a few years. I've heard of stories like that though with stoves, dishwashers, and washing machines. The computerization of appliances is contributing to these early failures, but it seems that the appliance manufacturers are using very shoddy electronics in their goods because they should not be having electronic faults like this after such short periods of time. There are a lot of electronic devices these days which last a lot longer than that and probably don't cost as much as an appliance. To make matters worse, the replacement parts, if they are even available, cost as much as a new appliance. It's pretty ridiculous. If you don't mind me asking, what brand was the oven that cooked itself?
I suppose if you've gotten 10 years from the fridge, you should consider yourself lucky, lol. I wonder what brand that is as well. I know a lot of people who have 1990s fridges that are still going strong even if they have been demoted to the garages. I have a family member who would still be using their 1970s Montgomery Ward Signature fridge if it wasn't harvest gold (yellow) in color. I think that fridge was sold off to a restaurant owner who planned to put that fridge in their kitchen/backroom where it wouldn't be seen by customers. Oh well, at least it wasn't avocado green.
I recently saw a video on YouTube of a user, Vwestlife, who found a never used (or only very lightly used) 1994 Philips double cassette deck in the original box and packaging which was originally sold by a Dillard's store in Arizona. The unit even had 1994 Dillard's price tags on the machine itself so it may have been a floor model. It's kind of funny that someone bought a cassette deck for a decent amount of money and then never used it for 25 years before selling it. Maybe Dillard's would have sold electronics longer if they hadn't bet on Philips components and the CD-I game console. Philips did sell a lot of TVs, VCRs, and shelf stereos at places like Kmart and Walmart, but their 'serious' Hi-Fi components were never popular here in the US. The cassette deck was actually made in Portugal.
The Sears section of the Layoffs page is full of nonsense. Layoff pages for other retailers seem more normal. Someone posted a bunch of racist stuff on the Sears board today. I'm not exactly sure what it is about Sears and Kmart which attracts all the attention that they get over there.
I looked at the Layoff page for Academy because I remember hearing before the whole virus situation that they were having some problems. I'm sure the virus has not helped their situation any. It seems that there are not any clear answers yet, but some employees are very nervous about a potential bankruptcy. I suppose that's another Texas retailer to keep an eye on, but I think that is one company that might be able to rebound from their woes.
Definitely but I doubt anyone would buy the rights to Sears/Kmart unless it the company goes into bankruptcy again. The best chance would be a similar type of resurgence like Montgomery Ward after bankruptcy. Sadly that would mean the end of the brick and mortar locations if that happens.
DeleteI think that if someone bought Sears/Kmart, they would be not only richer than or as rich as Lampert, but also a nostalgic person who wants to see Sears/Kmart be profitable again.
DeleteIt has been 4 years since I bought a vehicle. I did not intend on buying that day, but they made it hard to resist. The car I got was nearly exactly what I was looking for, and it was within my price range. I financed the car for next to nothing and paid it off early. Now is a good time to look at cars, but I am sure that the salespeople have gotten even more aggressive with their sales tactics. A buyers market like we have now is a salespersons worst nightmare.
DeleteI hope our Sears locations are spared from the closures. It seems like they are even hiding the job postings from showing the store closings this time around. I did notice a store manager position available for a Sears store. I wonder what the story is with that opening.
The second stove only lasted 3 months before the self-cleaning mishap. We actually had to wait several months for Sears to replace it with a new stove even though it was practically new. Luckily we had gas burners so we could still use those, but the oven was controlled by the electrical panel.
My fridge is a Whirlpool, bought at Sears. We almost have all of our appliances from Sears. The dishwasher we got at Best Buy because we could not agree on one of the models Sears was offering. Our stove, fridge, washer, dryer, and a couple of our TV's came from Sears. The fridge is the oldest appliance we have right now.
That Dillard's cassette deck is a find. I will check out that video later. I did not own any of the good stereo equipment from back then.
I did see that post earlier today, I guess the moderators don't police the site as they need to. One of the reasons why I moderate the comments here is to prevent stuff like that.
I think Academy and Dick's Sporting Goods will be alright. Their stores sell a lot of products that are in demand right now. Guns, ammo, at-home gym equipment, outdoor sports are all selling like crazy since the virus has changed our way of life. Academy and Dick's expanded their store base rapidly so that may be what is hurting Academy.
I don't even think they could get to a Wards level revival. AFAIK when Wards went bankrupt people's opinion was mostly stuff like "aw that sucks, I used to go shop there, memories." Now Sears is literally a laughingstock to the mainstream audience. Even Family Guy made a joke about them. Basically I don't think they have the positive image.
DeleteI guess the most that could happen would be if they sold Kenmore to one of Samsung, LG, etc. Many people still view Kenmore appliances in a good light, and with a relaunching of it, large ad campaign and everything, Sears's legacy would at least go on.
My car was also purchased four years ago. I kind of knew what I wanted and I had a good idea what a good price was for that car. I was able to check a few dealers before I bought what I did. I don't have any regrets about what I paid, but I still didn't like the sales tactics. I thought it was quite a bit worse than what I had dealt with before even from the same dealership. Of course, the sales people at that dealership I liked were long gone when I wanted to make another purchase. Oh well.
DeleteI'm not in the market to buy a new car right now, but I suspect that you're right that it is a good time to buy right now. I hear that new car sales right now aren't as bad as some people think they are because some people in big coastal cities who normally use public transportation are wanting cars to try to avoid catching the virus on public transport. Also, it's possible that the deals may not be as great as they otherwise could be because dealers may not have quite the inventory they would normally have since plants have been shut down. Sales were kind of poor even before the virus and so I'm sure the manufacturers were planning on making less cars to prevent an inventory glut. Still, it's probably still a very good time to buy a car if you need one. The end of the 2020 model year is coming up soon, but I bet some dealers still have unsold 2019s. I remembered hearing ads for new 2019 cars as late as February and even March before the virus was a big deal here.
I have purchased cars before during very down points in the economy and maybe that's why my previous buying experiences were better than what I had last time. I helped a family member choose and buy a car in October/November 2001. I'm sure you remember what that was like. My previous car was purchased in October 2008, just a month after Ike and the collapse of the economy.
I had to laugh at that store manager position as well. I suppose they need someone to run the store until the liquidators inevitably take over. I suppose it might be worth it for someone to take that job just so they can say they are a manager in the hopes they can turn around and get a better manager position elsewhere, but I don't know. I also wonder if Sears is on to how we've been tracking their store closures and perhaps they're changing their methods. Or maybe they're waiting until Friday in the hopes that the weekend will squash any negative publicity.
That's unfortunate to hear that the appliances you bought from Sears have been unreliable, but I suppose they would have been unreliable regardless of where you got them from. One nice thing about Sears brand products is that they have a model number code which makes it easy to determine who made the product. Sears appliances, electronics, mowers, and so forth use a model number code that looks something like ###.######. The three ###s before the dot is the manufacturer code. You can then use a list like this to determine who made your Kenmore appliances. Except for my water heater, all my modern Kenmore appliances were made by LG (GoldStar). My GE microwave from Best Buy was also made by LG.
I read that Moody's gave Academy a poor credit rating and deemed them a high credit risk and I think that was before the virus situation. With that, they may run into the same problem Sears had in that they'll have to pay suppliers before receiving inventory and so forth. Then again, some suppliers may see Academy's market share in some markets and feel that they have to supply them anyway. I don't know. I'm not sure if they have excessive debt or what, but I do agree that they could pick up sales on home gyms and such. Back to School season will be very important to them this year. If anything holds them back on that, they might be in trouble.
I thought that since Sears/Kmart sold stuff like at home workout equipment, lawn furniture, and appliances, that they would start gaining money from that stuff selling a lot.
DeleteWarren Buffet comes to mind, but I think he had invested in the old Sears before pulling his money out.
DeleteSears/Kmart actually stopped ordering the Lawn and Garden items in 2020. They are selling out of their remaining inventory. I am not sure about the situation from with the exercise equipment, but I can imaging they are down to low stock levels. Even the big chains are back ordered on home gym equipment. The appliance department had some business on my visit to the Pasadena Texas location back in May, but they are having inventory issues there as well. I think that Sears store could probably consolidate all of their remaining inventory to the first floor, big chunks of floor space are now empty or filled with boxed merchandise like large appliances.
DeleteIf it’s true that Sears/Kmart has inventory problems, then what merchandise do they have a lot of?
DeleteI’m asking because if Sears/Kmart gets all of the merchandise that sells well at their stores, they get all of these merchandise that is selling well and open a store that just sells that stuff.
DeleteAnother idea for Sears and Kmart stores that have inventory problems is that if a Sears location has 2 floors, they should move all of the merchandise to the first floor and leave it up to the individual store to decide what to do with the empty second floor. If this inventory problem is happening at a 1 story Sears or Kmart store, that they should move the remaining merchandise into one part of the store and block the empty area off and let the individual stores decide what to do with the space.
Here is a quick and not unexpected update with bad news. The Sears Jobs website has added liquidation job positions for the N. Shepherd location. It'll be gone soon and the Pasadena store will be the only one left in the Houston area until it inevitably closes in the near future.
DeleteWell we have a couple of months to visit that historic store before it is gone. 2020 strikes again.
DeleteWe will see what happens to the assets of Sears soon enough. I think the name will inevitably get snapped up. Sears does still have a good reputation in Latin America, but it is practically worthless here in the USA.
DeleteTheir clothing departments are still fairly stocked, not like they used to be. It is going to be even tougher to see once the Houston area is down to one store in the next few weeks. The North Shepherd store is going to close leaving just Pasadena, El Paso, and a Dallas area Sears in the entire state.
DeleteI think that is what is happening with Sears/Kmart to a certain extent. The stores that are closing get orders to pack up certain items to move to other stores. Then crap moves into the store to sell alongside what is left in the closing store. There is just not a lot left these days in any department. A lot of Sears and Kmart stores have shrunk over the years. Willowbrook and Pasadena employees in the Houston area, had blocked off sections of the store. Even with the smaller stores, there are still big holes in the product lines.
DeleteThis year also had the tax season followed up right after that with the stimulus checks. I am happy with my current vehicle, but I am certainly tempted to upgrade right now.
DeleteThe financial person with my car purchase was a little rude once I turned down the extras they try to sell you. All I wanted was an extended warranty, not all of the other crap they try to sell you.
That period just before Ike to just a month after Ike was a huge drop off in the economy. Back then was one of the scariest times I have worked through, all of the economic news was bad. Right now we have a day or two of negative news followed by a day or two of positive news. Once the virus is under control hopefully before the end of the year, the economy is going to rebound. Even now we are starting to see some signs of recovery.
I missed that Shepherd Sears store closing job posting by a couple of hours. I had a bad feeling that the Seritage closings were going to take that store out. Now Texas is down to 3 stores, El Paso, Pasadena and 1 in metro Dallas. Fingers crossed, these stores can continue to limp along.
I have all of my appliances on my profile at the Sears Parts website. They used to send me reminders about filters and warranty extensions. Now I don't hear anything from them.
I wonder if Sears goes under if we can find water filters. The water filter we use was a Sears exclusive and the alternatives were pulled from Amazon earlier this year.
I didn't even know Academy was in trouble. They have continued to grow, especially in Texas and Louisiana for years. I guess they have been moving too fast.
A few more bankruptcies are possibly in the works. Brooks Brothers, Men's Warehouse, and Chuck E Cheese. It is getting hard to track, but these are mostly weaker retailers.
I agree with Stormak356 that Sears has a pretty bad reputation these days. Montgomery Ward was still trying to improve their stores when they went out of business. A lot of their stores had just received new carpeting and other updates, their inventory was still okay, and they were advertising on TV.
DeleteKenmore will still be a valuable name. In their last few years, Wards was using the Admiral name as their in-house premium brand for electronics and appliances. The name was actually owned by Maytag, but Wards had exclusive rights to use it. When Wards went out of business, Home Depot picked up exclusive rights to the name. I don't think they use that name now though. Anyway, I can see any number of companies wanting the Kenmore name including other retailers and appliance companies. I think Chinese appliance companies wanting to get an established brand name for their entry into the US would love to have the Kenmore name.
It seems like almost all dead retail names get picked up by someone these days. Some dollar type store with two locations in the Midwest bought out the Fred's name. Sears and Kmart's names will get picked up, but I don't know for what purpose.
Perhaps the Hometown franchise owners will try to organize on their own with the Sears name and will perhaps try to get inventory from the appliance distributors that serve other small appliance stores. Maybe whoever keeps the A&E appliance repair division, which came from Wards in the first place, will buy the name. If A&E and the warranty division is still profitable, maybe Lampert will try to keep it for himself. Who knows. Those are valuable assets. The name could also be purchased and then licensed to the garage door, central A/C, and carpet cleaning type companies that currently license the Sears name (at least I assume those are all licensed at this point).
There is always the possibility that someone could make a catalog company with the Sears name like what happened with Wards. The people who buy from those catalogs are usually rural seniors in the middle of the country and those people may not be aware of what's happening at the malls. They may not be familiar with the decline of Sears.
I had a strong suspicion that the N. Shepherd store was done when Seritage was talking about building apartments over some of the old Sears/Kmarts locations they were basically evicting. Oh well, now we know. I was monitoring the Sears job page during the afternoon and saw it pop up. That seemed like the kind of thing companies do on Friday afternoons in the hope that nobody will notice.
At least we have a couple of months to enjoy the store before it's gone. Maybe if they turn the location into apartments, maybe they could keep the sign. Then again, that space could be turned into a shopping center, grocery store, or really anything. That's good property which makes it less surprising that Seritage wants Sears off of it.
At least we can watch the famous clip from The Brady Bunch Movie to remember Sears' better days (though people were poking fun at them even in 1995). That store looks pretty accurate for a ~1995 Sears except that I don't think regular Sears sold toilets. Also, there's no way that many teenage girls were shopping at the Sears, lol. If you look carefully, one of those girls is carrying a bag from the AT&T Phone Center which used to be at a lot of malls in the 1990s. Also, check out those great stereo components at the end of the clip.
On that note, it would be great if Warren Buffet brought Nebraska Furniture Mart to Houston because they sell stereo components including $6,000+ CD players, lol.
People aren't going to need as many suits in an era of Zoom calls. I thought Men's Wearhouse made a mistake cutting ties (no pun intended) with their founder who did their commercials for years. The first Men's Wearhouse was in Houston.
I think one of the main problems with Sears/Kmart is that they have almost no advertising.
DeleteThey did cut out just about all of their advertising a few years back. They used to advertise like crazy on TV, newspapers, and sent flyers to homes. They also used to print a lot of ads for the inside of the store to pick up when you walked in. The Pasadena Sears actually had some during the Christmas season in 2019, but I have not seen any since then.
DeleteIt is a shame that the Sears and Kmart names are so tarnished these days. I still believe the names have value, but I am not sure what they would be used for. Some of the name brands like K-gro and Smart Sense may have some value along with Sears branded parts for older appliances.
DeleteThe A&E division might be the only thing profitable right now in the company. They must have a lot of employee turnover because they have hundreds of job ads across the country for those jobs. The delivery business they just sold off was very profitable, but it became another quick cash hit for the company. Seritage needs the cash to survive so we will probably never see that money invested back into Sears. The royalties from Craftsman are probably next to nothing since tools are not being restocked as far as I can tell.
Imagine if the Sears name was added to the Montgomery Ward catalogs. It would be the strangest turn of events for the legacies of the companies if that happened. I wonder if the Sears Online Marketplace is still doing well. If I remember correctly, at one point they were the third best online marketplace after Amazon and Ebay.
I bet we will see some really cool fixtures for sale at the Shepherd location that have been packed away for decades. I wonder if you will be able to purchase the stairwell signs that are definitely original. This is probably the last chance to get some really old fashioned Sears fixtures for us.
That Brady Bunch clip would be even crazier to act out in 2020. There is so little to get excited about inside of Sears stores these days. Most of the items that I go to Sears for are gone except for clothes and some tools. We did take a chance on a used tablet in January 2020 that was a store fixture for $50 and it works. That will probably be the last electronic item that I buy from a Sears store.
I would like to see a Nebraska Furniture Mart. It seems like a direct competitor to Gallery Furniture so maybe that is why we have not gotten a location in Houston yet. There are not many people who can afford a $6,000 stereo system, but it would be cool to own.
I certainly remember those commercials from the 80's. Another thing that has hurt their business is the fact that companies don't require suits like they used to years ago. In cities like Houston a suit is way too much clothing for the majority of the year. Unless you have to have a premium suit, places like Suitmart are a much better and cheaper alternative than the Men's Warehouse. You are right about the demand going down with people working at home. They may have to increase their shirt selection and decrease their pant selection for the people staying at home, working with Zoom calls.
If indeed, the North Shepherd Sears is closing, then I think the closing sale is going to last longer than usual because of the pandemic. I’m kind of hoping that is the case so that people can have more time to visit the store before it closes for good.
DeleteKmart was advertising fairly heavily even up until about a couple of years ago. For a while, we were getting Kmart ads here in Houston even though we hadn't had a Kmart here in years. The later Kmart radio ads were basically for SYWR Surprise Points and also mentioned Sears. Some of Kmart's ads, like the Ship My Pants and Big Gas Savings ones, caught a lot of national attention. Even with that, the stores were more or less empty.
DeleteIn recent years, Sears/Kmart have not been shy about giving away huge promotions. For a while, I was getting $5-$15 in Freecash just about every week via SYWR. In the last couple of years, Sears/Kmart was offering those Spend $100, Get $100 back promotions that I took advantage of last Christmas. The sales were so good that I remember remarking that it seems like Sears is in a liquidation sale without actually admitting it. Even with those ridiculous promotions, Sears/Kmart stores were pretty empty so it seems customers were soundly rejecting them. Even people that knew about the promotions probably had a hard time finding things to buy with all that Freecash due to the inventory problems and eliminated departments.
Kmart tried a lot of house brands over the years, but it seems like K-gro was the only one that really stuck around for a while aside from the celebrity lines. I remember when Sears Hardware started selling K-gro products.
Sears Marketplace probably needs a strong Sears website and Sears' own offerings on their website is as pathetic as their in-store offerings. It wasn't long ago that Sears' website was a viable alternative to Amazon, but that's no longer the case. Aside from appliances perhaps, the Montgomery Ward website has more to offer than the Sears one.
All those neat things the Bradys were excited about are long gone from Sears locations and have not been replaced with modern equivalents. If Hollywood was amused by the boring reputation of a circa 1995 Sears, just imagine what fun they could have with a modern Sears.
The N. Shepherd Sears may have some interesting fixtures to sell. It'll be interesting to see what gets pulled out of the backrooms there. It'll be worth documenting if you get the chance.
The Dallas area Nebraska Furniture Mart has a 560,000 sq. ft. sales floor. That's like 3.5 Willowbrook Sears locations. From Google Maps, the Home Depot across the freeway from NFM looks like a Walgreens in comparison. They sell furniture, but also electronics, lawn mowers, appliances, BBQ grills, and so forth. It's more like an upscale Sears or a much bigger The Great Indoors. The $6,000+ is just for the CD player component, the amp and speakers are extra. They do have cheaper electronics, but it seems that the majority of the Hi-Fi components they sell are from the Denon, Marantz, and Arcam brands and those are on the higher end of the market. They do have some cheap things like Crosley turntable and $20 GPX Discman style CD players, but not much in the middle like Sony or Pioneer stereo equipment which most certainly still exists. That's kind of odd that they've ignored that part of the market. It would also be nice if they sold Yamaha equipment that kind of stretches from the middle to higher end. Still, it would be nice to have any kind of department type store for stuff like that especially given that Fry's is becoming useless. Best Buy has a decent selection in-store and online via their Magnolia stores, but it could be better.
Yes, the tie and jacket look up top and sweatpants down below look is probably quite popular these days, lol. Men's Wearhouse probably operates in a strange middle where the people wanting a fancy suit won't shop there and those wanting a cheap suit won't shop there either and will go to K&G or Suitmart. The founder had a good way of selling the idea of a professional look at a decent price, but I'm not sure if there is much demand for a middle of the road suit these days and the retailers aren't doing much to promote such an item.
We will know soon enough. So far nobody has posted any information online about the store closure, but the job listing for the store closing is legit. I noticed the discounts at the Fort Worth Sears closing sale was 20-70% off on the signage. The store is scheduled to be closed before September 30, 2020 per the Seritage agreement.
DeleteWe had a Christmas toy advertisement from Kmart mailed to us a few years back. I did enjoy those clever shipped my pants and big gas savings commercials. I also enjoyed the Sears commercials that made fun of how empty their parking lots were.
DeleteI am going to check my SYW points balance. I had some points from the Kmart purchases back in March that may not be there anymore. Their discounts were not nearly as good as they had been in the past. I loved those buy $40 and get $40 back in points. Those offers were really good.
In about a month or so we should start seeing the fixtures on the sales floor. I really will hate when that street sign goes dark.
560,000 square feet is the size of a decent mall. I can't imagine how vast those stores are with all of that space in the same building.
The last place I bought a suit was at Suitmart. It has been worn 3 times and probably does not fit anymore. I paid less than $100 for the whole setup. Suit snobs would probably eat me alive, but it works for me. There is not going to be much demand for this type of dress clothing outside of major events like weddings, quinceaneras, funerals, and graduations.
Did you go to the Main Street Sears when it was closing? You would think that they would have retro fixtures also.
DeleteYes, the Ship My Pants and Big Gas Savings commercials were probably the first time in a long time that Kmart got major publicity like that and that might have been the last time they have publicity like that. Those ads might be Kmart's longest lasting public memories in this century. The commercial about Sears having plenty of good parking space was funny too. Sears and RadioShack both poked fun at themselves during that time, but it's too bad it didn't help sales enough.
DeleteFortunately, I used up all my SYWR points about a week before I heard the rumors of the Willowbrook Mall Sears entering liquidation. I think I could have used the points during the liquidation if I had to, but the prices actually went up once the liquidation started. Almost all clothing and tools were 40-50% just with Sears' regular sales, but then everything was 10-30% when the liquidation started. The liquidation sales got better as time went on, but a lot of the good stuff (at least by 2020 Sears standards) was gone by then.
For a while some years ago, there was an obscure part of the Sears website which basically listed the inventory in each individual store and what the prices were including sales/clearance prices. Some of those clearance prices were not even marked in the store, but they would ring at what the website said they were. I got a lot of great deals that way including some Craftsman garden tools for less than $5 and a ~$100 digital camera new in the box for about $20. I think I found the Sony cassette/CD boombox at the Mall of the Mainland for about $18 that way too. I know you got one of those boomboxes from Sears or Kmart at a great deal as well. Unfortunately, that obscure part of the Sears website stopped working one day and it never came back. Oh well.
When the N. Shepherd Sears closes, I wonder what will be the oldest retailer in Houston operating continuously out of the same building. I assume that Sears has that record now after the Main St. Sears closed, but maybe there is some small business that has been open longer. I'm not sure when the Meyerland JCPenney opened. That could be just as old as the N. Shepherd Sears, but I'm not really sure.
The Dallas area Nebraska Furniture Mart is absolutely huge. In addition to the 560,000 sq. ft. store, there is also a 1,300,000 warehouse/distribution center at the facility. I don't know what NFM is going to do with that big showroom if they ever have to start cutting inventory or departments. That's a lot of room to fill.
There is apparently a NFM in Iowa that does not sell furniture because Warren Buffet has another furniture chain in the same city. The NFM there just sells electronics, appliances, and so forth. The NFM name is a bit misleading there I would say, lol.
Suitmart suits probably aren't bad if they are 100% wool and are tailored to fit correctly. I'm sure they're good enough for the typical guys who only wear suits about once every 3-4 years. I once showed this Suitmart commercial to a tailor friend who makes bespoke suits and he said the suits didn't look bad, but he couldn't believe that they made a commercial with the models wearing such badly fitting suits. I had to explain to him that Suitmart has low budget commercials (obviously) and they probably just grabbed some suits off the sales racks for the models and then put them back after the recording. I don't think Suitmart is going to tailor a suit for each model just for 2-3 seconds of airtime unless maybe they were paying the models in suits. That's probably worth more than what the models actually got paid, lol. At least the commercial is better than the typical Weiner's commercial from the 1990s. If that wasn't enough, here is another Weiner's commercial.
The retro Sears sign on North Shepherd is a bus stop, so maybe they will keep it after the store closes.
DeleteYes I did, and actually made it on the last day. It is one of my larger posts so it has taken me a while to put it together. There were some interesting fixtures, but they were on the larger side so I did not pick up any.
DeleteHopefully, but I can see the neon being removed when the store closes. I would hope they would find a way to save it, but Sears may not want to keep the logo up when the store closes.
DeleteOh yeah, I think I remember a YouTube video on your channel that had something to do with the Main Street Sears.
DeleteThose ads certainly did not help sales in the long run as you mentioned. The Radio Shack one especially never showed what they were going to change at their stores.
DeleteI only have a few cents of SYW points available. I actually need a new weedeater, but there are only a handful of models listed on the website. None of the available models have store pickup as an option, but maybe I will find one at the Shepherd Rd. Sears when I go.
Yes I did find my boombox at a really good price at the Brazos Mall Sears. It is sad to visit their website and look for something in stock. Nearly all of the items from Sears or Kmart are unavailable or not available for store pickup. I went back on my old orders to see if any of the Sears or Kmart t-shirts are available, and they are all listed at temporaily out of stock. I read that softlines are no longer going to be ordered on the layoffs page. I wonder if that is true, and if it is, what are they going to sell? It seems like nothing else is being restocked except maybe appliances these days. It would be interesting to see a Sears store in 2021 with only the departments being restocked still left in the store. It would have to be a really small store or have thousands of unopened boxed appliances lining the floors.
I am think you are right, the Meyerland JCPenney would be the oldest continuously operating department store in the area. I can't think of any other retailer that has been in the same place for so long except for maybe a grocer.
I really want to check out one of the NFM stores in the future, maybe when I return to Dallas I can make it happen.
That second Wieners commercial does not hold up well these days. Especially that opening line, that was terrible. Those terrible commercials are hard to forget, so I guess they helped out sales. That Suitmart location near Greenspoint Mall is an old school shopping experience. I may have mentioned it before, but the Leonard Krower/United store design is still somewhat intact. The store feels, and smells old school and it is a blast to visit. I don't go buying suits very often, but I would definitely go back there.
It has been sitting in my backlog for a while. It will eventually come out, but I want to make sure it is worth the wait.
DeleteYes, I also thought that Kmart ads were weird in Houston because they closed a long time ago, like 17-18 years ago. I wonder if all of the last remaining Houston Kmart locations closed at the same time, or closed one by one.
DeleteThey closed in 2 waves. The initial list of stores began closing at the bankruptcy filing and the rest closed a few months later at the conclusion of the bankruptcy. I guess the Lufkin, Lake Charles, and Killeen stores were close enough for the ads to continue in our area.
DeleteHow did El Paso still have so many Kmart stores open as recently as 2016?
DeleteThe El Paso area is a very popular shopping area. The State of Chihuahua that borders Texas has a population of 3.5 million residents, with bordering Juarez accounting for 1.5 million of those residents. Retail sales in the border towns of Texas are very good. El Paso with a population of less than a million residents supports 3 shopping malls and an outlet mall. Neighboring Juarez has 9 indoor malls that I know of, but most of those are not very large.
DeleteEl Paso is also home to one of the last three Sears stores in Texas. I have documented that Sears store and the attached Cielo Vista Mall for a future article. Even though border crossings are much more limited these days, El Paso is still growing rapidly which helps keep the area retail going.
Are retail sales on the border of the U.S. and Canada also as good?
DeleteYes, I also seem to remember two waves or more of Kmart store closings in around 2002 at the time of the Kmart bankruptcy. I reckon that's a pretty typical way for store closures to operate during bankruptcies because we've seen that before with other retailers.
DeleteRetail along the border generally does quite well because it serves both the local population and the population of international visitors from the other side of the border.
You might be able to find a weedwacker at Sears even if their website says they don't have any in stock. I was looking at a power garden tool on the Sears website around Christmas and they said Willowbrook didn't have it in stock. When I went to the store, however, it was in stock. The Sears website used to be very accurate in terms of reporting in-store inventory even a year or two ago, but that seems to have slipped in recent months. Of course, I also wouldn't be surprised if they didn't have anything in stock. I suspect that what they had in stock during Christmas was all they were going to get.
I also read that posting that Sears was no longer going to order softline goods. Sears would then send all their remaining softlines out to the stores even if it was out of season and sell it at clearance prices. Once that sells out, I reckon Sears will officially be just a hardlines retailer. Even then, I doubt tools and such will get much restocking. It'll just be appliances mainly it seems. The stores will only need just a part of the first floor to sell that. We'll see if those reports are correct, but I'm thinking there is a good chance that they are true. The Mall of the Mainland Sears had a lot of clearance clothing during the last couple of years that it was around. Some of it was clearly shipped in from other stores to be sold at clearance prices at the Mall of the Mainland store.
If you're wanting to relive the good times at Sears, JCPenney, and Montgomery Ward, I do have an update. I think some months ago I reported that a new website opened up with scanned copies of old department store Christmas catalogs. This site was competing against the well-known WishbookWeb website. Well, that other website has added a lot more catalogs, mostly the regular Fall/Winter and Spring/Summer full Sears catalogs that were like 1600 pages each. There's a lot of great stuff to go though and this site has surpassed WishbookWeb in usefulness. The link to it is here.
I came across this 1989 Woolworth ad that proudly also advertises the Discover card. I suppose Woolworth was all for Discover not charging merchant fees and was more than okay with giving Sears' product some free advertising. This 1987 Woolworth commercial features a restaurant which looks just like the Almeda/NW Mall ones, but I suppose that was a common design.
I have not been to SuitMart before, but I did look at the pictures of the Greenspoint area store online. That neon and those steps do look quite retro. I'm not sure how the stores smell, but I do vividly remember the starchy smell that Weiner's stores had. Making jokes about Weiner's was just part of growing up in Houston for many years. I suppose Weiner's decided to go with the humor with those ads instead of fighting it. Weiner's didn't really last for very long after those ads ran.
That would be great if you could document Nebraska Furniture Mart for the blog if you're ever in the Dallas area. That's a pretty remarkable location. It might be hard to photograph the furniture part of the store because I'm sure there will be commissioned salesman all over the place, but other parts of the store should be more open.
It looks like the blog has surpassed the 1,000,000 visits milestone while I was typing this reply. Congrats!
From what I have read, retail sales are strong on the United States side of the Canadian border as well. I have never been to any of the Northern border cities, but it is on my list of future conquests.
DeleteI remember the Humble Super Kmart was closed in 2001 with several other area stores in the first round. I think the Westheimer Super Kmart was the last Super Kmart left in the area and it lasted until the 2002 closings.
DeleteI am going to see if Sears has a decent weedwhacker at the closing sale when I go probably later this month.
It seems like the stock levels at Kmart and Sears are hitting critical levels. Kmart stores have a lot of softlines so things will be really bad if clothes go away. There are only 34 Kmart stores remaining, so we may be at the end of the line for them. I guess the Guam store will be the last one surviving when all of this is over.
The catalog site will be a nice site to look at from time to time. The video games descriptions are always hilarious to read in those catalogs. That and some magazines were about all we had to find out about new games back then. I bet that website has taken a lot of time to put together.
I am glad that people are putting up these older videos from retail commercials. I have old VHS tapes that have a lot of good commercials from back in the day that would probably be wroth checking out.
We rarely shopped at Weiners back in the day. It was a place you would not admit to going to anyway, lol. I really can't think of one thing we bought from them. I know one of the Big Lots near me is in a former Weiner's location.
I noticed the milestone after midnight, so I made sure to finish up the 1,000,000 visit post. It is a very cool milestone that only a handful of retail blogs have made. I certainly appreciate your comments and help with the timelines of some of these places.
The Westheimer Super Kmart is the Super Kmart I visited most frequently, but I did visit other ones like the Humble one and the one in the Moon Township suburb of Pittsburgh (which was actually the last Kmart I ever went to). It was certainly still around in 2002 because you may remember the big police sting against illegal drag racers that happened at that Kmart. That drew major controversy for years after Kmart left. I used to remember that the parking lot of that Kmart was always filled with litter. Perhaps it was from the illegal drag racers and spectators, but I don't know. It wasn't the only Houston-area Kmart with poor parking lot upkeep, but it was probably the worst that I saw at least.
DeleteThe loss of softlines will hurt Kmart probably more than it will hurt Sears if the rumors are correct. Kmart does sell appliances, but not as much as Sears so Kmarts will need more to even try to hang onto customers. I suspect they'll try to keep everyday items like toilet paper in stock, but I suspect that won't be easy for Kmart to do at this point. It's clear that Kmart and full-line Sears stores will be gone soon. Maybe the small format and the Hometown division can keep the lights on a bit longer, but even that is pretty doubtful.
Yes, it must have taken the person behind that website a lot of time to scan all those catalog pages! Just one 1,600 page catalog seems like it'd take a long time. I was flipping through the 1993 Spring/Summer Sears catalog this evening and it's pretty amazing what all they have in there. There are the things you'd expect like clothes, electronics, and tools, but they also have toilets, toilet bowl cleaner, tanning beds, white-wall tires for vintage cars, and rebuilt engines for VW Beetles, Japanese cars, and V8s for domestic cars. It's a bit surprising to see Sears selling car engines in 1993, but that probably came via Western Auto who they owned at that time.
I saw in the 1,000,000th visit post that you're planning on doing a post about Memorial City Mall. I've found a couple of interesting videos about it on YouTube. First there is an ad for the mall at about 6:37 into this video. Also, here is a video about the Exhilarama game center at the mall in the 1990s. I never went there, but I remember it was a pretty big deal with the kids. That was back when the mall always seemed to smell like Froot Loops, lol. Also, you should probably link to the vintage pictures of The Floppy Wizard store at Memorial City that TFW website has here.
Weiner's was a very odd store. It didn't feel upscale at all even compared to a Mervyn's or something like that, but they did sell the in-demand brand names in the 1980s and 1990s like Levi's and Nike. Even with that, they didn't have a great reputation and I'm sure their name had a lot to do with it, lol. They had two stores near here. One was where the King Dollar is now in the former Kmart shopping center at FM 1960 & Jones Rd. The other is in the Willowchase Fiesta shopping center. It was neighbors with Mervyn's there.
I'll have more to say about the big milestone on the 1,000,000th visit post, but you're right that not many retail blogs have reached that milestone. A lot of the more prominent retail blogs today are at around 500,000 or below. It's not like the blog limped to 1,000,000 either, the blog has been very busy lately with a lot of visits, posts, and comments.
Unfortunately, some retail blogs, mostly ones that started around 2008-09, were only active for 3-5 years. Your blog has been active for about 11 years. That is amazing. Congratulations for keeping up with the blog not discontinuing it.
DeleteI cannot remember if I addressed this in my earlier reply or not, but US retailers near major Canadian cities do receive a bump in business from Canadian shoppers. Most of the major Canadian cities are located near the US. Shoppers from the Toronto area go to Niagara Falls (the New York side) and Buffalo to shop. Some even go to the Millcreek Mall in Erie, PA, to take advantage of low sales taxes in Pennsylvania. That mall is much bigger and nicer than what you'd expect in a town the size of Erie, I've been there before. Of course, some people come from nearby Ohio and New York to shop at Millcreek as well.
DeleteShoppers from Victoria and Vancouver often go to Seattle. Montreal is not too far from Vermont and the eastern part of upstate New York. Windsor practically borders Detroit.
Most of the goods we have in the US are available in Canada these days so there isn't so much a need to travel to the US for that purpose, but the prices can be a bit cheaper in the US than in Canada. This is especially true when sales taxes are factored in. This makes cross-border shopping attractive for bargain hunters.
I've been to Niagara Falls and the New York/US side is a pretty economically depressed, rustbelt type city. You wouldn't expect a ton of retail there just based on the city itself, but the combination of Canadian shoppers and tourists from elsewhere in the US has allowed them to have some expanded shopping like an outlet mall. The only retail I've visited in Niagara Falls is the Kmart there which has since closed in the last year or two. Walking into one of those older style Kmarts in 2011 after not being in one for many years kind of reminded me that the lower ceilings, huge HVAC vents, and somewhat inadequate lighting gave the store a bit of a downmarket feel, but the store was okay aside from that. I think the checkouts were a bit slow, but the line was not long at least. When I went to a Super Kmart in PA a few days later, it was quite a bit more inviting to shop at a store with much better lighting.
I remember the street racing busts that were on the news. Houston had a pretty big street racing scene back in the 90's and early 2000's. I am not sure how it is now, it was very unsafe for normal drivers. That Kmart was situated off of Westheimer so it was a good place for people to congregate and not be seen by the police.
DeleteI just don't have any answers anymore as to how Transformco will survive. It sounds like the company is on the verge of bankruptcy again. The margins of the products they sold were probably already thin, sales have to be very low now.
Sears had a ton of items for sale, but I am surprised they had car parts listed in 1993. I guess that there was still a demand or they were trying their best to get rid of the items. I wonder if those items are still sitting in a warehouse somewhere along with the other numerous parts they had in stock.
I almost forgot about the Memorial City photos. I went super early one weekday before most of the shops opened, and got a lot of photos. I saved the links above to add to the article when the time comes to put it together. I still need to organize my files, there are a couple of items that did not initially transfer over when I fixed my computer.
I know Humble and Porter had Weiner's locations. Weiner's did not have a lot of mall locations, but I have seen them listed on 1960's era directories of Houston malls. Mervyn's was a decent store, I bought clothes from them from time to time.
The blog viewership has steadily increased over time. There was the one increase a couple of years into the blog from the spammers, but I took care of that by limiting comments.
Thank you anonymous. It has not been easy keeping the blog going, but I do what I can to find time.
DeleteI forgot to post about the Moon Township Kmart. Thankfully that store was covered heavily by WallieB26 (8 part series https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vWiuEGEH0XU&feature=youtu.be) and Channel Boogaloo (5 part series https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bog8jIFpbds&feature=youtu.be)
DeleteBoth the customer and employee side of the story were covered in these posts.
It is amazing how the Buffalo/ Niagra Falls areas are completely different from one side of the border to the next. I guess it is like Juarez and El Paso. I guess the cost savings and travel time from Canada to the USA is not worth it except for some places like Erie Pa. Some areas across the border such as Detroit are not considered safe and would not attract very many Canadian shoppers even if there was a significant tax rebate.
Kmart actually had two locations in Moon Township, a Super Kmart and an older Kmart. The older Kmart survived a few years longer than the Super Kmart did. I visited the Super Kmart, not the older Kmart that is in those videos. Still, that series of videos by the Kmart employee is interesting. Thanks for the link. It's an interesting look at what it is like to work at a store which will no longer exist. Interesting and sad I suppose.
DeleteThe Dead and Dying Retail blog, which looks to be dead itself, did a post about the Super Kmart that I went to which I will link here. That Kmart will likely be the last Kmart I ever visit. It's a shame really because that Kmart was pretty nice. I was staying at a hotel nearby (not the one that was literally next door, I did have to drive to get to it) so I was able to spend quite a bit of time at that Super Kmart. I probably went through all of the store.
Yes, the Canadian side of Niagara Falls is where all the action is except for the outlet mall I suppose. There is also a Wegman's Supermarket across from the Walmart in Niagara Falls, NY. That might be a tourist stop for some given Wegman's reputation.
While Pennsylvania does not have sales tax on clothing, it seems hard to believe that the tax savings alone would be enough to cause someone to drive any significant distance to go to Millcreek Mall. Yet, that does indeed happen because they get a lot of visitors from Ohio, New York state, and Canada.
You're right though that some potential shoppers in Canada who might want to shop in the US end up not doing so because of crime concerns in the US. I do think a big factor as to why malls, especially urban malls, are more successful in Canada than in the US is that they don't have as much crime as we have that scares away shoppers. Heck, even locally there was a situation at the local Walmart to me this week where there was a fight and there was some question if shots were fired in the store. That's not the first time something crazy like that has happened at that Walmart either. It probably happens at a lot of local Walmarts.
Yes, I remember a lot of teens were arrested and many of them claimed to be innocent Kmart shoppers. I'm not sure how many teens were hanging out at Kmart to shop late at night in 2002 like it was The Galleria or something, lol. Oh well, there might have been parts of that sting which weren't up to regulations, but I won't fault anyone from trying to crackdown on street racing on busy streets like Westheimer because it is unsafe and a public annoyance.
Now that Sears is just about done, Memorial City Mall might be the local mall with the most variety left since Target is there. Still, I find MCM to be a bit of a sprawling maze. The mall is much nicer now than it used to be, but I kind of preferred the old MCM which still had the Walgreens for a long time, Piccadilly, Phar-Mor, Montgomery Ward, Sears, The Floppy Wizard, and so forth.
I'm guessing Sears stopped selling those car parts like engines once they sold off Western Auto. It's possible they were having the engines shipped directly from the supplier, but maybe Sears had a warehouse of VW engines and such. If so, they might still be sitting in those warehouses, lol.
Oddly enough, I looked and there are still a couple of Western Autos in the Houston area in Conroe and Dayton. These are old franchise locations which, if Wikipedia is correct, might be using the Western Auto name against Advance Auto Parts' regulations. Both locations appear to be mostly appliance and lawn mower stores at this point. Of course, at one time, Western Auto used to sell all kinds of things including appliances and TVs/stereos. The Dayton Western Auto seems to have two locations, one which is a little shack selling feed and the other is in a shopping center in town and has the mowers and such.
I see, thanks for sending the Super Kmart article over. It is amazing how many Kmart stores there were for a town like Moon Township to have 2 stores for a population of around 20,000.
DeleteWegmans is a chain that I would like to see here in Texas. I have heard nothing but good things about that chain.
I wonder if the casinos drive traffic to some of those states along with the shopping options. It looks like some parts of Canada have casinos while others such as Quebec don't.
I wonder what the stats of police calls are like for Walmart stores. I know the big box stores in general have lots of theft calls, but what about assault, public intoxication, and others. I can see why certain areas of the USA would not get Canadian shoppers.
Teens/Young adults shopping at Kmart without their parents in 2002 was about as likely as finding a teenager in 2020 without a cell phone. I went to a parking lot gathering or several back in those times (1990's), they were a place to go after hours for those of us who were not old enough to go to bars.
I remember the old Memorial City Mall a little bit. If I remember correctly the mall was under renovation for about 3 years because of how extensive the remodel was. Back in the 80's and 90's, our family would take a trip down there to visit both malls. I still have some video games from the Montgomery Ward and possibly my receipt from one purchase I made there. Those dot-matrix printer receipts will probably last forever.
I have seen a few of the Western Auto stores. I am pretty sure I know where the Conroe one is located. I can't believe I have never noticed the Dayton stores, I have passed thorough that town more than I can remember. Maybe those locations have some of the leftover parts from the Sears warehouses.
Part I:
DeleteMoon Township may indeed have had too many Kmarts. I am not sure if a suburb of that size needed two Kmarts. I will say that the Super Kmart was on the edge of Moon Township near the Robinson Township border. Just across the border is The Mall at Robinson. That is a nice mall that was built in 2001 so it's probably one of the youngest traditional indoor malls in the US. The company that owns the mall is actually based in Australia.
I visited The Mall at Robinson and the Sears store that was at the mall during my visit. The Sears has since closed and the plan is to convert the Sears into a Legoland Discovery Center and an iFly indoor skydiving center that will open in 2021. There is a lot of retail around the mall including a Mike Ditka restaurant that actually looks pretty expensive. I believe Ditka is from the Pittsburgh area. Of course, I doubt the Ditka restaurant will be high on your priority list of places to visit, lol.
When the Moon Township Super Kmart closed, there were rumors that it would be torn down and that Chevron would build an office building on the property. Well, if Google Maps is accurate, it looks like the Super Kmart was torn down, but nothing has replaced it and the parking lot is still there. It's kind of interesting to see a zombie parking lot like that.
Speaking of zombies, when I was visiting Pittsburgh, I was seriously considering staying where I did or staying near the Monroeville Mall in another suburb. That is the famous mall where the 1970s horror movie the Dawn of the Dead was filmed. A scene from the Flashdance movie was also filmed there and it seems that Mister Rogers did an episode about elevators and escalators at the mall. At the time I was visiting, there was a zombie-themed store at the mall which also had a zombie museum with famous zombies from various malls. Although Monroeville is not a dying mall, I suppose that was fitting given the prominent role the mall played in Dawn of the Dead. It seems the zombie store and museum have moved to the location where another George Romero horror movie was filmed.
I'm not sure about casinos in Canada or along the US-Canadian border, but I do know that both the Canadian and New York side of Niagara Falls has casinos right near the border. I've been to Niagara Falls a couple times in the last decade and when I went there in 2011, I stayed at a hotel in New York right across from the casino (my room window faced the front of the casino). It is a Native American casino. Then, I stayed at a hotel on the Canadian side which actually connected to the Canadian casino. I suspect that most Canadians who go to Niagara Falls to gamble would go to the Canadian casino, but I really can't say for sure.
I wish I did stop at the Wegmans just to see if the hype is justified, but I already did the shopping I needed to do at Kmart and time was limited. I suppose if I ever go back, Wegmans would be the first retailer there I would visit now that the Kmart is gone. The Tops supermarket chain, which get some coverage on retail blogs, is Wegmans' main competitor it seems in Buffalo/Niagara Falls and it would be nice to visit them as well.
The sad thing is that even the nice parts of the US may have more violent crime than average Canadian shopping centers.
I've heard that Walmarts are real crime magnets and not just for shoplifting. Supposedly a lot of drug deals and such happen in Walmart parking lots. There was a story a few months ago of someone illegally selling mercury stolen from an industrial plant at a Houston area Walmart parking lot and I believe they were suggesting that shoppers get tested for mercury exposure, lol. A lot of people say they don't want a Walmart in their backyard and I can see why.
Part II:
DeleteI still have some Montgomery Ward receipts from the 1990s and I can confirm that they don't fade, but I don't think any are from the Memorial City location. I have a receipt for an appliance purchase that they put in one of those receipt sleeves with the salesman' Electric Avenue card attached. That's a real collector's item to me at least.
I visited Memorial City Mall a lot back prior to about 2001 or so. I remember making a lot of 'heavy duty' shopping trips there and at Willowbrook and Greenspoint Malls (and NW and West Oaks Malls to a lesser extent). By 'heavy duty,' I mean those were the kind of visits where I'd visit every anchor, some in-line stores, and some big box stores in the area to find what I was looking for. For reasons that I cannot remember now, it seems like the majority of big purchases we made around 1999-2001 were in the Memorial City Mall area including the Sony Video8 camcorder which was used to to record that Metairie Kmart we discussed the other day which was purchased from the MCM area Service Merchandise, the clothes dryer I still have which was a floor model at the MCM Sears, and some electronics which I purchased from the MCM Wards (I think that was during the Christmas before they went out of business). It's also possible those Wards purchases were at Greenspoint, but I can't remember for sure. What I do remember is that I intended to buy those things at Willowbrook, but the Willowbrook Wards was sold out.
Since then, my visits to MCM have been more sporadic. I did visit the mall a few times during the renovation and I do remember it was quite strange shopping there at that time. I do remember shopping there a couple times in the 2000s to visit the Clarks shoe store before they became more popular elsewhere. Also, the car I purchased in 2008 was purchased at a dealer near the mall and I had some minor issues with that car when it was relatively new which needed to be fixed. I remember spending quite a bit of time at the mall during that time waiting for my car to be done or for them to give me a rental car. Some years later, I would take that same car to a dealership near Deerbrook Mall since they had better maintenance prices and so I'd spend a lot of time at Deerbrook waiting for my car to be ready. I suppose selling that car has curtailed some of my more lengthy modern mall visits, lol.
I would visit Town & Country Mall on occasion, but I didn't visit it nearly as often as I visited MCM. T&C itself was pretty useless for things like electronics/appliances and I preferred the clothing options at MCM. When I went to T&C, it was usually just to look at the mall and not to actually do any shopping.
Both the Conroe and Dayton Western Autos are quite small and easy to miss. It looks like both have Sears era Western Auto sign designs. The Conroe store might have some Sears era parts because it looks like the facility has a large warehouse/lawnmower repair facility attached to it. I'm not sure about the Dayton store, but the Conroe store sells Speed Queen washing machines which is a brand a lot of people like these days because they are supposedly much more reliable than common brand washers and they are made in the US. I think only small appliance dealers sell them and not big chains.
There's probably zero chance you could photograph the insides of these stores since they are so small, but there's probably not much in these stores to photograph since they mainly sell lawn mowers and such. It might still be interesting to photograph the outsides of them and maybe include them in a post about obscure Houston area retailers who people might not even realize are in town. Perhaps a post with that and maybe some other things like outdoor shots of obscure fast food places and other small businesses might be interesting if you're still looking for fresh content after 2021.
Unfortunately, the North Shepherd Sears is closing after all. I was hoping the store would survive since it is a retro store, but I found out on Google Maps that it is closing.
DeleteHere is a quick update. There is an article in the local paper covering the Heights/Garden Oaks saying that the N. Shepherd Sears will close on July 11th. If that's correct, this is going to be a very accelerated liquidation. Maybe their plan is to try to save inventory to send to other stores. The link to the report is here.
DeleteI also read a report on the Layoffs site that the Sears Home & Life in Pharr, which is a franchised store, has yet to reopen since the lockdown. I'm not sure if that's true or not, but if they have not opened yet, they probably won't open for a while given current circumstances in the state and with Sears in general.
Here's a quick update to my previous quick update. The Leader newspaper called the N. Shepherd Sears again and got a different date, Aug. 30th, for the store closing. I'm more inclined to believe the Aug. 30th date than the July 11th one, but who knows. Anyway, we do know the store is closing for sure now if there was any question about it earlier. Here is the link to the story.
DeleteAlso, I think I read earlier that the Prien Lake Mall GNC was on the list of initial GNC store closures.
Sometimes, Walmart is the only chain aside from fast-food establishments and Family Dollar/Dollar General stores in rural America.
DeleteI am still fond of Ditka, he put all of his chips on the table and lost it all. He tried something that no other coach had done in Saints history.
DeleteI am going to need to check out the Mall at Robinson. Some of those post 2000 malls have very interesting designs. Sometime around the mid 2000's is when malls were being renovated to the blandness we see today. Simon, I am looking at you for the crime you committed with the Katy Mills remodel.
It is cool that the Monroeville Mall still notes their past with the zombie store. The Metrocenter Mall where Bill and Ted had several scenes filmed, has some plaques and pictures. Sadly that mall is closing at the end of this month permanently.
The more I hear about Canada, the more I want to go. I am not much of a gambler, but I do like the ambiance of casinos. Casinos do a great job of keeping the inside of the establishments safe, it is when you walk out that becomes concerning. Well depending on which casino you go to.
Walmart deserves the reputation they get. A lot of the stores have managers that are either too overwhelmed, or just don't do a good job. A safe, appealing environment to shop at is not too much to ask for. Hire more security, hire more employees, do a better job training, and the list goes on. I have seen nice Walmarts in less than ideal parts of town, and dirty Walmarts out in the suburbs. You just don't know what you will get. I hadn't heard about the mercury exposure, but that is the kind of weird stuff that happens at Walmart.
I think the mercury exposure happened at the Memorial City-area Walmart, on Beltway 8.
DeletePart 2
DeleteAnything from Electric Avenue is definitely a collectors item these days.
We have made some of our big purchases at stores away from our area as well. It is funny how that works out when you live in a city this large. I recently came across my 12mp camera that we bought in the Sears at West Oaks Mall. We bought our gas stove from the same store because it was on sale at the price we wanted that day. I was working a lot more back then so it was a lot harder to find deals. Our biggest purchase in the MCM area was a large TV at the new version of Comp USA.
An unreliable car is one of the worst things to have in this city. Our weather is terribly hot for 6 months or more a year, the average commute times are high, and it takes a long time for AAA or roadside service to arrive.
Town and Country Mall was the snobby mall to go to. At least with 2 of the anchors there. Dillard's and JCPenney were pretty decent there. JCPenney had a nearly identical floor plan to the Belle Promenade Mall store. The Tilt Arcade on the 3rd floor was a decent arcade to go to back then, it was rarely busy.
I have been considering purchasing some glasses to record with. A lot of Youtubers have been harrassed by security lately. I am not sure if you can use those to photograph or of they are just for videos. If I get those, I would feel more comfortable documenting smaller places. I always try to take photographs without people in them, but it is not always possible.
Yeah that Sears is a big loss. 70 years of business and a beautiful original neon Sears sign will soon go dark.
DeleteI will see if I can find the date for the closing. I have a feeling the store will not last until August 30th. I went twice this week and it was super busy both times. So far they don't have any really interesting fixtures, but I noticed part of the second floor had been blocked off and there are a ton of fixtures up there. The employees were moving the second floor fixtures to the far side of the store where Women's clothing was located.
DeleteHow did the Sears in Pasadena survive if the mall is basically empty now?
DeleteThat is true anonymous, Walmart is the only game in town for a lot of small towns. You don't have to drive far outside of Houston to find a town like that.
DeleteThe Pasadena Sears was actually one of the busiest stores in the company and may still be. It is one of the few Sears stores that still opens 3 checkouts plus jewelry. Last Christmas season the store was still bustling. The shopping area is not too bad if you take the situation at the mall out of the equation. The shopping center across the street and the ones up and down Southmore are doing well. The owners just can't seem to catch a break with the mall. Macroplaza Mall is barely managing to survive. Mall ownership has been upgrading the property with new fancy light fixtures, newly bricked up columns, new decorative fixtures all throughout the mall, center court entertainment, and a continuing stream of new businesses. Sadly the businesses don't seem to last now about 1/3 of the mall is completely empty. Once you pass Sears going towards the former Macy's, only 1 store remains. Even the empty part of the mall is getting improvements.
DeletePart I:
DeleteThe Mall at Robinson has some nice features. I think I remember it having at least one fountain which is something you don't always see at a newer mall. I would say that it's somewhat similar to The Woodlands Mall, but perhaps with a bit more pizazz to it. For whatever reason, a lot of two-story malls end up looking very similar to me unless they do something very unique to standout.
You might enjoy Ditka's then. It looks like it gets good reviews, but it is somewhat upscale and, thus, presumably expensive. I ate at a hibachi restaurant near the mall and it was quite good. Pittsburgh is quite an interesting place. At the time I was there, there were a handful of dying malls, but I think some/all of these have closed since then. One neat thing about Pittsburgh is that because of the hilly nature of it, sometimes there are pretty big changes in elevation between two nearby stores. It's kind of strange to have to look down or up at a neighboring store. There are probably a lot of places in the country like that, but it's not like that here, that's for sure. I'll also say that The Mall at Robinson has the first Dick's Sporting Goods I ever went to in addition to being near the site of the last Kmart I ever went to (presumably, it seems unlikely that I'll see another).
Canada is quite safe. Pickpockets and such can always be a problem anywhere so you have to be careful about that, but otherwise there really isn't much to worry about. I had no problem roaming the busy streets of Toronto, Montreal, Quebec City, Niagara Falls, or Calgary even when it was getting dark. Of course, if you go to these places in the summer, it stays lit even later in the night than it does here since it is up north so that even adds more safety. The only place that was gave me any sense of nervousness was the ByWard Market in Ottawa. Even then, it wasn't bad. The downtowns there are much safer and cleaner than ours. Aside from Calgary, they are more populated with tourists and those looking for entertainment options than most of our downtowns.
I think you'd really like Montreal. It's got a party-like atmosphere like New Orleans and it's also a food town like New Orleans. Maybe even more so since I think there is more variety. The downtown there is almost like one giant indoor mall if you use the tunnels. There are so many malls that they just kind of run together. Plus, if you like old architecture, Montreal and Quebec City have some of the oldest and more ornate buildings in the US/Canada. I highly recommend it if you get a chance to go there, but I'd also check out other parts of Canada as well. Toronto, Ottawa, Niagara Falls, Montreal, and Quebec City, plus some other smaller places like Kingston, are all pretty close so you could do them on one trip. Calgary and the mountain national parks in Alberta, one of which borders the US Glacier National Park in Montana, are marvelous and well worth seeing. Banff and Jasper National Parks are must see if you like pristine mountains and lakes. I'll include a link here to the Moraine Lake in Alberta and I can tell you that it really does look like that in person. It's amazing.
Here's a guide to the Montreal Underground City. It's really quite remarkable, I'm not sure if the guide really says everything that can be said about it. That's not to mention what is at ground level which is amazing to see and take in.
Part II:
DeleteThere are so many strange stories that we hear about our local Walmarts. I'm sure there are some news stories which we miss as well. I remember a few years ago someone set off some serious fireworks inside the local Walmart (the one where they thought there were shots fired recently) and that caused total chaos. When malls have crime like that, they get bad images and people stop wanting to shop there. It seems like when Walmart has those problems, it's usually overlooked. I don't think Walmart can assume that'll always be the case though so they may need to take these things more seriously.
When Sears was in their prime years, the Willowbrook Mall Sears had a smaller appliance department than it does now just because they had so many other full departments. The Memorial City Sears had a much bigger appliance department so it was worth going their first to do model research. Once you knew what you wanted, you could have it ordered at any Sears, but sometimes you could negotiate a better deal at a particular Sears due to them having commissioned salesmen. At least 20 years ago, the MCM and West Oaks Sears seemed more willing to bargain than the Willowbrook and Greenspoint Sears.
I do have the faintest of memories of the Town & Country Mall JCPenney. I did go there shortly before it closed. Usually when we went to JCPenney in the era before the Willowbrook store existed, we went to NW or Greenspoint Malls though. T&C was certainly more upscale and it was neat to visit, but it just didn't have the stores or the shoppers that MCM had.
That car I had was one of those good news, bad news cars. The good news was that it never did have a major breakdown which left me stranded or where the car would not start (not counting dead batteries because it's hard to fault the car for that, but the car did come with a very small battery and I'm sure a bigger battery would have helped the batteries last longer). The bad news is that it had some other issues which were annoying. The day after I bought the car, the tire pressure monitoring system failed and so I had to take it back and I had a rental car for 3 or 4 days. I had the rental car more than I had my new car for the first week I owned it, lol. Not long after I got it back did I start hearing clunking noises when I went over bumps. It turns out the car was mis-welded when it was being built and so the metal was crashing into another part of the body. It had to go into the body shop for a few days because of that and I had a rental car again (which I distinctly remember taking into the MCM parking garage, it's strange that I have such a vivid memory of that). The car had some problems with premature brake wear which was the subject of a big class-action lawsuit. I had the dealership in Kingwood/Humble replace the brake pads and their cost was just exactly what the lawsuit was paying so I had it fixed for free basically.
When the car got a bit older (though it wasn't old), it started having various minor electrical issues. None of those stopped the car from running, but it was annoying. I decided to get rid of the car as soon as the extended warranty ended and that was a good idea. I got it appraised at CarMax and then a day or two after that, some of interior lighting started to fail. Fortunately, CarMax's offer was still good so I hurried up and took their offer, lol.
I know some of the YouTube retail publishers use the glasses, but I don't know if you can get good still images from those. I suppose it would have to interface with your phone or maybe there is a remote shutter switch you can put in your pocket or something, I don't know. If nothing else, you could grab stills from the video, but sometimes those stills come out blurry. It's a shame that malls are still harassing photographers even at a time when malls are truly struggling. Good retail photographers like yourself do try to protect shopper's privacy by not taking pictures when it's crowded.
Part III:
DeleteI was not intending for this to be a three part reply, but I forgot to mention something up in Part I which I think you'll find to be neat. Some number of years ago, we talked about the Boscov's department store chain up in the NE US. They've been able to maintain pretty retro stores and they were one of the last US department stores to eliminate appliances and electronics about 5-6 years ago.
Retail blogger Random Retail visited the Binghamton, NY Boscov's last year and he uploaded the photos from that visit last week. You'll like the photos of this four story store which looks to be stuck in about 1988 or so.
One interesting find is that this store sells Wegmans brand tissues. It's odd that a department store would even sell tissues pre-coronavirus, but it's even more odd that they are selling store brand ones from a different chain. I suppose Wegmans items are considered luxury goods up there. It looks like it might be in some kind of bargain basement type deal, but I don't know.
I remember when Dillard's complained that some dollar type store was selling toilet paper at Highland Mall many years ago. Now, the department stores might have to start stocking toilet paper and tissues!
The closest I have been to a post 2000 mall is the remodeled Oakwood Center Mall and Galleria extensions. The Mall at Robinson seems a little less bland than the mall updates we have seen in this area. The Woodlands Mall has never really stood out to me either, it is really bland.
DeleteI wonder if Ditka's gives Saints fans discounts, lol. A Saints fan might be a rare sight to see in that area. Pittsburgh is a famous city amongst the Deadmall community. The Deadmall community meeting in 2018 was there I believe. Century III Mall was a major story especially for how Moonbeam let that property fail so badly.
That Moraine Lake is certainly sweet, you can't come close to anything that breathtaking in this part of the USA. I would like to see the older architecture, I am a big fan of older buildings. I could go for the food, but the party life has passed me by years ago, lol.
The photo on the main page of that website looks awesome. It reminds me of the Centro Santa Fe in Mexico City with the multiple stories.
Part two
DeleteI guess people just take their chances at Walmart, it seems like just about every store has had some kind of crime or problem happen there on the premises.
I didn't even think about the appliance department size differences at the Sears stores. There is not a lot of haggling these days at department stores.
That is a lot of problems for a car to have. It is a shame that when you get stuck with a vehicle like that, you have to pretty much take a loss to get rid of it. We had several Ford vehicles from the late 90's and 2000's that all had a lot of issues. None of the issues were bad enough to pass the lemon law standards though.
Some Youtubers have made sure to include the parts of the video where they get harassed by security. I was taking photos at Macroplaza Mall the other day and security saw me, but he did not say anything. It was the first time I have noticed security looking at me when taking photos.
Part 3
DeleteI love seeing those Boscov's stores. Some of them still have the full neon and globe lighting to go along with the mirrored ceilings and chandeliers. Ace's Adventures recently went to the Johnstown Galleria, here is the video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WaLE7srrLvQ&feature=youtu.be
They have a pretty sweet Boscov's there with all of the neon still intact.
I am surprised more department stores have not started carrying tissues and sanitizer. Sears had the cleaning chemicals and sold hand soap up until last year. Especially now, those items are hot sellers.
That whole Highland Mall situation with Dillard's was petty, but it did eventually work out. The mall property is much more active now and Dillard's was able to move on to greener pastures. Imagine if Dillard's winds up selling toilet paper in the near future.
Century III Mall was one of those famous dying Debartolo malls that I suppose is a dead mall now. I remember reading about it when I went up there. It was still open at the time. I think I did consider going there as well, but I didn't get the chance.
DeleteAnother mall I seriously considered visiting in Pittsburgh was the Parkway Center Mall. At the time I was there, the mall was dying and was anchored by a Kmart. A year or two after my visit, the Kmart closed and the mall closed not too long afterward. I really wanted to visit that mall, but I didn't get the chance. Supposedly the mall had a bad foundation so there were big cracks in places that were covered with metal plates. Also, supposedly the mall would shake when trucks would go by on the Interstate. That certainly didn't sound like the safest situation. I think the number two hotel on my list was located right by that mall, but I ended up near Moon Township and I can't complain. The hotel was very nice and quiet, I was able to visit the Super Kmart, and visit the Mall at Robinson.
I'm not surprised that Pittsburgh has a lot of Deadmall fans in or near it. It's not far from Cleveland and Akron, which I also visited, and we know about the famous dead malls in those areas like Randall Park and Rolling Acres. Rolling Acres may have been open during my visit, but just barely. There are so many videos about that mall that it's like I visited it even though I didn't, lol. I did visit the Summit Mall which is remarkable because it is a DeBartolo-developed mall that's actually doing well. That's so shocking that I had to see it to believe it, lol. The other mall in Akron, Chapel Hill Mall, was doing okay when I was up there, but it seems to have fallen into dying mall status since. The Macy's and Sears there closed a few years ago and now the JCPenney is closing. It won't have any anchors left.
It looks like Ditka's has some football decor, but I don't see any Saints stuff, lol. They'd probably be surprised to see a Saints fan there just because there aren't very many up there if nothing else.
Thanks for sending over the Ace's Adventures link. Boscov's has some real gems. I hope they can survive. They are kind of like the Fiesta of department stores.
If someone was shopping at Sears in 2018-19, they could have stocked up on cleaning supplies and on Centrum multivitamins to boost their immune systems before the coronavirus hit. Add that to all the bottled water and toilet paper that Kmarts had. The N. Shepherd Sears in particular had a lot of Kmart branded tarps for sale back then as well. Hopefully that's not a harbinger that we'll have an active hurricane season just as Sears seemingly predicted the coronavirus, lol.
The Highland Mall situation was a real mess for a few years. It was in the news a lot and not for good reasons. I'm glad it was redeveloped in a way that benefits the community.
One of your Anonymous commenters has asked about Sears stores which had electronics up at the mall entrance. I found this image of a Sears at the Plaza Del Caribe in Puerto Rico which not only has/had electronics at the entrance, but they even have Sears Brand Central signage there as well.
Getting kicked out of Macroplaza Mall for taking a picture would have been beyond ridiculous. It's not like that mall can afford to kick out too many shoppers. It's probably a good idea to see if those camera glasses can work for you. It might be fun to have video of the stores you visit even if you don't plan on posting it online. If nothing else, you can pull screenshots of scenes if someone wants to know something. It would be nice if those did take decent stillshots though in a way that's not obvious. There used to be a spy shop in Copperfield that used to advertise on local TV, but I don't know if they are still around, lol.
The Pittsburgh Mills Mall, now Galleria at Pittsburgh Mills is another mall that failed right at opening. It still has the cool Mills fixtures that were removed from all remaining Mills Malls that were acquired by Simon. There are a lot of Rust Belt malls out there. One of these days I would like to visit that region.
DeleteBoscov's is the closest to an old school department store out there. Some locations have been updated to a much blander look. I hope they rethink changing the rest of the stores to that look, it is as bland as every other department store. Macy's has a few retro stores in the Northeast as well.
I forgot about the vitamins, I do remember Sears stores randomly having them. They were trying to sell all kinds of things at Sears just before the bankruptcy. Things the company should have tried years prior to bankruptcy. Toys was one of those departments they should never had gotten rid of. Some years they would have a toy department for Christmas, some years they would not have one. Then they brought toys back after Toys R Us failed. The toy department is once again gone, probably permanently.
Now that is a Sears entrance! I can't say that I ever saw a mall entrance with the Brand Central sign up. I wonder if Puerto Rico Sears stores still have electronics. I know the Kmart stores still do, I looked up a few of the Kmart stores in PR online.
Once I get caught up with some household things, I need to look into the glasses. I am not very good at video recordings with a constant steady hand. I prefer to take photos because they come out better IMO. Having glasses tied into the phone would be really handy. I could look at the view from my phone and snap photos from there if it is possible.
Pittsburgh Mills is one of the more spectacular retail failures. Unfortunately, I suspect the failure of it didn't help investors who were considering new indoor malls. Pittsburgh has two of the newest indoor malls in the US with The Mall at Robinson and Pittsburgh Mills, but only one was a success. At least it was a big success so it kind of offsets the failure of Pittsburgh Mills.
DeleteMacy's does have some retro stores and Dillard's does as well. I remember watching one of the prominent retail YouTubers doing a tour of a Dillard's in Arizona that looked right out of the 1980s. I can't remember which user it was, but there can't be too many retail YouTubers in Arizona so you'll probably know who I am talking about.
But, yeah, even those retro stores don't compete with the neon at Boscov's. Those are neat stores. It's a shame they could not keep their appliance and electronics departments open, but at least they tried to keep them going longer than just about anyone else.
I was amazed at what would show up at the various Sears around town right before the bankruptcy. The vitamins were probably the most random thing. The Mall of the Mainland Sears put them in the hardware department, lol. I suppose it was close to the fitness department, but vitamins at Sears was always going to be an odd fit.
You're right, Sears never should have gotten rid of toys. With all the demised department space at Sears stores in recent years, it's surprising that some stores didn't have a better display of toys than what they did. Ideally, they would have been located near the children's department like they were years ago. The Mall of the Mainland had a good space for toys right at the front of the store by the main entrance even if it was on the complete opposite side from the children's clothing department.
Unfortunately, it looks like the Plaza Del Caribe Sears closed earlier this year. I did some searching and it seems that other Sears in Puerto Rico have interesting mall entrances as well. Maybe it's the same Sears, but I'm not sure. Here's one that has a "Sears Home Improvements" sign above the entrance to the tool department. This one has a "Sears Homelife" sign above the entrance to the full furniture department. Unlike in the 50 states, I suppose Sears Homelife lives on/lived on in Puerto Rico. I always thought it was a mistake for Sears to abandon their full-line furniture departments. That seems like the kind of thing which could have helped them stay relevant in recent times. Maybe Sears thought The Great Indoors could replace their Homelife stores, but that didn't work out obviously.
It's possible that Sears/Kmart in Puerto Rico have their own management and suppliers. If they do have their own management, it would be hard for them to do worse than the management here in the 50 states. It's a shame that even some of these stores are closing because you would think that someone like Sanborns might have been interested in buying them. Oh well, I suppose Sanborns can always move in when Sears itself goes out of business.
I notice that Sears has added some new store closings to their jobs website, but none are in this area. Interestingly, they posted a job opening for a regular, non-closing salesperson at the Sugar Land Sears Hometown store (presumably an appliance & furniture format store). It's listed as a Transform Co. job. I wonder if Sears corporate owns that Hometown store because you wouldn't think that a franchise employee would be listed that way.
Why did Sears and Kmart start getting rid of electronics? I would think that they would be a very popular item to sell.
DeleteThey were probably losing market share quickly. Sears was not getting the latest and greatest items anymore. Technology moves much faster than Sears was willing to keep up. Their connected home experiments did not work out, so electronics went with it. There was a brief period when Sears had started bringing home technologies to their stores along with electronics. They also had Kenmore TV's for about a year, I almost bought one.
DeleteThe retro Dillard's in Arizona may have been Retail Archeology. A lot of Boscov's stores have been documented by Ace's Adventures, Faded Commerce, Sal's Expedition Log, and many others.
DeleteA YouTube channel Brick Immortar will be publishing a series on Puerto Rico Malls in the near future. They spent several days this month and last month touring malls across the island. Brick Immortar is a really interesting channel based out of Omaha with some Canadian Malls featured as well. We will see how these Kmart and Sears stores are doing in the next few weeks.
That is an interesting job listing. I wonder if it is a typo. The Sugarland store is not normally listed as a Transformco store.
I just looked up Retail Archeology's videos after you mentioned his name and it was indeed one of his videos. It's a video of the Dillard's at Desert Sky Mall in Phoenix. I'll link the video here.
DeleteThat series on Puerto Rican malls should be really interesting. It'll be interesting to see if they are more like US malls or more like Mexican malls. Maybe it'll be a little bit of both. That should be interesting. I'll have to check out that channel, I had never heard of it. It'll be fun to check out the Canadian malls he's been to. I wonder if he's been to any of the ones I've been to.
Je is right, Sears and Kmart were not keeping up with technology even when they had full electronics departments. Sears always had a lot of TVs, but not much else. TV sales got a real boost in the mid-to-late 2000s with the digital transition and popularity of HDTVs and flat panel TVs. Eventually, almost everyone bought an HDTV and stopped the quick TV upgrades so that shrunk TV sales. The only cell phones one could buy at Sears were pre-paid phones. Those have some popularity, of course, but stores like Target sell those and also regular phone plans. Sears didn't have Apple products either which hurt their sales relative to others.
Electronics are notoriously difficult to sell profitably. The profit margins are very thin and online stores provide immense competition. Some years ago stores like Sears and Best Buy could sell a lot of electronics like cameras, camcorders, VCRs, DVD players, cordless phones, and Hi-Fi components. Things like smartphones, smart TVs, and cable DVRs have eliminated the need for people to buy these things. People still buy new computers, but not as often as they did 20 years ago. Even though products like cameras and VCRs had almost no profit margins, people buying those would often buy warranties accessories to go with them like camera bags, video tape, cables, memory cards, TV stands, and cleaners. That's how companies made money on electronics, but with fewer devices being sold, there are less opportunities for accessories to be sold.
Best Buy responded to these changes in the electronics industry by focusing more on major appliances and giving less floor space to electronics. That has worked well for them. Sears responded by expanding their mattress departments. Mattresses have huge profit margins. The problem is that people don't visit a store to check out the mattresses like they did with electronics.
The sad reality is that Kohl's has/had more electronics in modern times than Sears and so that makes them more interesting to a lot of people. At one time, my understanding is that Kohl's also had full electronics departments like Sears and Montgomery Ward, but this was before they came to Houston. Kohl's must have eliminated electronics around the same time JCPenney did, but they have brought back small electronics departments in recent times.
Retail Archeology is a really good channel. He covers malls in the Southwest, not a lot of channels cover that area. I will check out that video again, I only watched a little bit of it when it first came out.
DeleteBrick Immortar is an up-and-coming channel. His content is really good and well worth checking out.
I didn't even think about the profit margins on the additions to electronics purchases. Those were huge for retailers and usually gave the employee with the sale a better commission.
DVD players are about the only addition that is still a big seller, but they are inexpensive. Sears had not been into high end electronics for years, those also have a good profit margin. To be successful in consumer electronics, the product lines have to constantly change. Stores like Kmart can get away with selling cheap electronics, they did not have the same reputation for quality that Sears did.
Mattresses are such a slow seller. The good thing is that the floor models take up a lot of space.
I haven't been to a Kohl's since a year ago. I am not sure if they still carry electronics.
Sears put a big bet on HDTVs about 15 years ago. For a while, things were looking good for them. HDTVs were a real game changer. For one, people were looking to buy digital TVs when analog TV was going off. Second, people wanted the big screen sizes and improved image quality of HDTV. Third, people liked the thinness of LCD TVs as compared to the old bulky CRT TVs.
DeleteOn top of that, HDTVs in that time were selling for a lot more than they are today. The profit margins may have not been big because there was a lot of competition, but people buying a $1,200 TV are a lot more likely to use credit than someone buying a modern $400-500 TV and so there is a profit potential there. On top of that, people buying HDTVs back then needed all new high profit margin accessories to go with them. They needed new TV stands, wall mounts, cables, and so forth. On top of all of that, surround sound systems were still big at that time and so that was another thing to add to the bill.
Sears had almost as many HDTVs at one time as Best Buy, but as HDTVs returned to somewhat of a commodity status, Sears' gamble on TVs was starting to not pay off. They didn't really have a lot of other electronics to sell and they didn't have the big brands like Apple. Connected Solutions was a good idea because smart devices were the booming thing, but Sears never actually got the products people wanted. Does anyone remember Alfie, Sears' competitor to Amazon's Alexa? Lol, of course people don't remember that.
Even in the 1980s and 1990s, Sears didn't have the best reputation with electronics. In the 1980s, Sears was mostly only selling their own brands and their own brand electronics didn't have the sterling reputation that Kenmore, DieHard, and Craftsman had. JCPenney's MCS Series of Hi-Fi components were quite competitive, Sears' stuff wasn't as good.
Montgomery Ward's solution to all of this was to implement Electric Ave. with name brand electronics and to really emphasize the name brands that they sold. This was ultimately the best strategy, but Sears didn't copy it until 5-6 years later with their Sears Brand Central concept. Even then, Sears still pushed their own LXI Series brand quite heavily even with Sears Brand Central so they were kind of working against themselves.
DVD players still sell even today. I think I read a year or two ago that DVDs still out-sell Blu-Ray movies. Granted, I think part of the reason why DVD players sell as well as they do is because the current models are quite low quality and break quite frequently. Some of those modern DVD players seem rather Tozai-grade to me. Well, I say modern, but even a lot of the cheap and popular DVD players from around 2003 were Tozai-grade, lol.
You're right, the western half of the US is not nearly as covered by retail bloggers as the east coast. I suppose it's because there are greater distances between cities out west, but I don't know. There are some retail bloggers in LA, but there's not much otherwise. Northwest Retail's blog is somewhat popular, but it's not so much of a blog, but rather a blog formatted like a Flickr stream.
I have seen some of Retail Archeology's videos before. I think he did a tour of his local Fry's store, which was in sad shape, and I remember YouTube user Vwestlife referencing a Dollar General video he made that I did watch. I think I've seen some of his Sears videos as well, but sometimes those who make videos have certain attitudes about stores like Sears which make them annoying to watch (I'm not specifically calling out RA here, this is just a general observation). Retail bloggers are better at reporting things as they are and letting the situation speak for itself. I don't think people who read retail blogs need to be told repeatedly that "nobody shops at Sears, hahaha" like you hear quite often in videos.
I have a feeling that even if someone like Jeff Bezos invested a significant amount of money in Sears/Kmart, that somehow, the company would mess it all up and file for bankruptcy again, especially with Lampert at the helm. If I were Lampert, I would immediately use that money to somewhat, if not completely, update and/or remodel some of the stores that are not that old (for example, the Sears locations that are historic, like the Hackensack and Los Angeles locations, would not be updated.), bring back electronics, especially the latest ones, put inventory back into stores, and maybe reopen some closed Sears/Kmart stores in old Sears/Kmart buildings that are still vacant and/or build new locations.
DeleteThere was a rumor that Amazon was interested in a lot of Sears properties a few year back. It is similar to the rumors about Amazon wanting JCPenney locations.
DeleteThe brand is just too damaged at this point to revive it. Millions of dollars would need to go into each store for renovations and restocking inventory. Just for Sears to restock, you would need them to make good on their vendor relationships which would mean paying off Sears Holdings debts. A lot of vendors were left unpaid after the Sears Holdings bankruptcy.
Back in 2011 would have been the time to get Sears going in the right direction. The company still had money, sales were still okay, and the brand was still valuable.
Je is spot on with his summary of the situation. There's no realistic hope for Sears to recover now. The only way I can see Sears return to any kind of prominence at this point would be for all current operations to liquidate and then have someone buy the Sears name and turn it into some kind of catalog retailer, franchised dealer, or online store. But, of course, the only connection that hypothetical Sears would have to the historic Sears is the name. It would be like the modern Montgomery Ward.
DeleteI know it's been a while, but I've mentioned the appliance and consumer electronics dealer trade journal named TWICE. It's a reliable source for information about the appliance and electronics retail sector. They published their big listing of their top 50 major appliance dealers in the US last week. Sears used to dominate this list and was no. 1 until a few years ago. Well, for 2019, they aren't even in the top 10. One would have to pay to get the whole report to see where they list, but it says Sears appliance sales were down 82% in 2019 and SHOS sales were down 67.4%. Those are some big, big losses. Surely store closures, inventory problems, and lost consumer confidence caused by the Sears bankruptcy are major factors in those losses.
Furthermore, some of the companies which passed Sears in the last year are Costco (not a surprise), PC Richard & Son, Nebraska Furniture Mart, and Abt Electronics and Appliances. Well, Abt only has one store. I'm not exactly sure how TWICE does their rankings, but it seems that Abt's one store in Chicago may have sold more appliances than all Sears stores in the US combined (and that's 2019 sales so stores like the Willowbrook and Deerbrook Mall Sears would have been included). Nebraska Furniture Mart only has a handful of locations. There are probably about as many PC Richard & Sons stores now as there are Sears stores. In 2019, Sears probably would have had more stores. So, yeah, even much smaller chains are selling more than Sears does and this is Sears' best department, major appliances. It just goes to show how far Sears has fallen. Here's the link to the article.
There is another article on TWICE comparing the electronics retail landscape in 2004 and 2019. They had this quote to show how things change: "The ruling retailers of the 2004 Top 10 list included Circuit City, Radio Shack, CompUSA and Sears, and the rest of the list held others long forgotten."
The RadioShack website is still around and it looks like they have expanded their selection of vintage RadioShack T-shirts. I'm guessing those Bob Newby t-shirts are a reference to the Stranger Things show. Anyway, RadioShack's website appears to be a trendier, better stocked retail operation than Sears and Kmart, lol.
All we have to do is look at the former electronics walls of Sears to see how massive those TV walls were. Well, in a few weeks it will just be one Sears in our area.
DeleteHD TV's were mass produced during a great time for the economy. Stores like Sears were able to reap a lot of rewards with those TV sales. I am sure they were able to add on home improvement or appliance sales to a lot of those purchases.
As an average Joe type of budget conscious shopper in the 90's, I did not care too much about brands. It was mostly price for me. I liked the Sony Brand because of my familiarity with their Walkmans, but I did not research a lot into electronics back then. I also had a Samsung VHS camera that worked for many years until it got stolen. The price was why I bought the camera though, it was one of the cheapest models they had at the time.
I forgot all about Alfie, but I remember the Kenmore TV's. Those TV's might be valuable these days since they only produced a limited number of those TV's. Odds and ends from the connected solutions were still left at the Deerbrook Sears even as the closing sale began. I was hoping those products would work out for the stores, they were too expensive for me unfortunately.
We have blown through several DVD players, but they are cheap so it is not a big deal. DVD is a user friendly device that hooks up to any TV new or old.
I have a lot of DVD movies from back in the day, and I will continue to watch them for as long as I can.
It is hard for a lot of YouTube creators to say anything worthwhile about Sears. The best videos I have seen are like this one from Faded Commerce. https://youtu.be/LF2U0kPiobg
They share stories of their days of shopping at Sears and Kmart along with a brief history of the stores.
I watched the video you linked and that was pretty good. It certainly didn't have the attitude that I mentioned earlier. I don't necessarily mind people calling out Kmart and Sears because they certainly deserve some level of shame for continued lousy management decisions, but I think that criticism comes best from people who are familiar with what Kmart and especially Sears meant to American middle-class shoppers for so many decades. At least the couple in the Faded Commerce video seem to have some memories and knowledge of when Sears was really something. Also, that was a nice Sears at the beginning of the video. It's shocking now to see a Sears that well stocked.
DeleteThere are a couple of new retail blogs which launched in June. One is the Raw & Real Reflections blog which seems to be done by a married couple who also make YouTube videos (I have not seen those). They've already shown some neat malls in the NE US on their blog. I read their opening post and it was funny because they said that what motivated them to become retail bloggers was visiting the Moon Township Kmart before it closed and everything that went with that. The Moon Township Kmart they are talking about is probably the older one and not the Moon Township Super Kmart I went to, but it's not like Moon Township is some huge place. It's interesting that some other people have great memories from a Moon Township Kmart. They also said they visited the Mall at Robinson during their visit. Here's the link to their blog and here's a link to their opening post if you want to check it out.
It seems like old TVs generally aren't that valuable like vintage audio equipment often is unless it's something really old and special like a Philco Predicta or something like that. I thought Sears had the right idea to make a Kenmore branded TV, but it was just too little too late. It might have had an impact in 2008, but probably not in 2016 or whenever it was that those came out. I think it goes without saying that Kenmore has more respect than LXI Series, ProFormance, Silvertone, and the other house brands for electronics that Sears used for years without much success.
There were certainly a lot of shoppers who weren't too concerned about brands and just wanted something with the features they wanted at the right price. There were other shoppers who really wanted brands like Sony, Panasonic/Technics, and Pioneer. Montgomery Ward just seemed to do a better job appealing to both when it came to electronics. Sears would often advertise their own brand TVs and such without even saying who made it. That only appealed to some shoppers, but not to those looking for certain brands.
DVD is a good format. Even though it's standard definition, I think most people can't tell a big difference between good quality standard definition and HD especially on TVs that aren't huge. Also, DVD players don't need annoying firmware updates just to get a movie to play. I don't really buy a lot of movies, but if I did, I would probably use the DVD format as well even though I do have a Blu-Ray player (which I mostly use as a CD/SACD player on my stereo).
I was reading an article about Kroger's ill-fated attempt at creating dollar stores in the former garden center spaces of a couple of Houston Albertsons locations they picked up in 2003 including the local FM 1960 store. In that article, they mention that Houston had Fred's stores in 2003. I don't remember Fred's ever being here. Do you know anything about Fred's being here in the early 2000s?
It is not hard to believe how badly Sears stores have fallen in appliance sales. I am guessing that the appliances sold at liquidation sales would not be counted since the liquidation company takes over the store inventory at a store closing. Sears had more stores liquidate in 2019 than stores that were normally operating. At the halfway mark in 2020, nearly half of the stores left in the company are closed or in the process of closing.
DeleteRetail has certainly changed. I wonder if more electronics are sold online than in Brick and Mortar retailers in 2020.
Those Radio Shack shirts are pretty cool. I may have to order one in the future.
The Sears in that video was so much better than we have in 2020. We went to the Pasadena store again yesterday. The tool department has been consolidated once again leaving a huge area empty. I am not sure if they are planning on moving something else into the area, but it was an approximately 10x20ft area of emptiness. Some tools and hardware items had come in from what appears to be a delivery, but it was not being put into that now empty space.
DeleteI will check out that Raw and Real Retail blog. They have some good online Youtube content as well.
I miss the variety of electronics that we had in the 80's and 90's. It was an exciting time for electronics and video games.
I wonder how many updates my Bluray player will need the next time I fire it up. I had at least one movie that required a download to watch, not fun.
I don't remember seeing Fred's in the Houston area. I didn't notice their stores until Lafayette Louisiana had a store near the college.
In many ways I am not surprised that Sears' appliances are as bad as they are, but it is still a little surprising to see how small of players they are in appliances these days. Abt and Nebraska Furniture Mart must have tremendous marketshare in the cities where they have stores.
DeleteThanks for the update about the Pasadena Sears. There's only so much Sears can space out the aisles in the tool department to make it appear that they have not lost inventory. I'm sure shoppers probably think the Pasadena store is having a liquidation sale with all that empty space even if they technically aren't. At least they got some new inventory, but hopefully it's useful stuff and not more snow throwers, lol. I wonder if some of the new inventory is from the N. Shepherd store and other Sears locations which have closed this year.
I'd imagine that quite a few TVs are still sold by B&M stores. People may get their new phones from B&M stores affiliated with phone carriers. People in a pinch may buy new computers and printers from stores like Best Buy and Office Depot. Still, I think a lot of new electronics purchases for things like cameras, computer accessories, smart devices, and so forth are made online. I believe the B&M electronics sector was one of the first to see big losses to online stores, but Best Buy has managed to keep themselves relevant when almost everyone was predicting their demise about a decade ago.
I'm considering buying some new speakers for my stereo system. Well, that's been under consideration for the last 15 years I think, lol, but I'm a little bit more serious about it now than in the past. There are so many different brands of speakers on the market in a given price range, but it's impossible to know what's the best speakers for me without hearing them. Everyone has their own hearing preferences. Unfortunately, there just aren't many places left to demo speakers these days. There are a handful of Magnolia stores within Best Buy stores in Houston that have expanded speaker selections like the Katy and The Woodlands stores. Magnolia has a decent selection, but they still don't sell everything as many speaker brands only sell to a handful of dealers. There are Hi-Fi shops that sell like $50,000 speakers that can be demo'ed, but obviously that is waaaay out of my price range, lol. Even a lot of the speakers Magnolia sells are over $1,000. Anyway, it's not like the old days when you could walk into a Circuit City, McDuff, Highland, Radio Shack, or even Montgomery Ward and Service Merchandise and demo some decent speakers in person. It certainly makes it harder to make purchasing decisions. Some online stores offer free returns, but returning big speakers via the mail isn't so easy. It would help if we had a NFM in Houston, but we don't.
One big Hi-Fi catalog store which is also now an online store, Crutchfield, has a new service on their website where they claim they've found a way to make speakers demo'able online if a user has specific models of headphones that they list. They say if you don't have one of those headphones, they'll lend you headphones via the mail. It's an interesting idea, but I don't know how accurate it is. But, yeah, I guess stuff like that might be the future of online retail. Some online stores will be all about low prices at the expense of any services, but some will try to offer unique features to try to assist customers.
Yeah, it's a pain to have to update your Blu-Ray player when you want to watch a new movie and who knows if updates are even available for older players. It's a real flaw of the format. I can see why DVD is winning out.
I checked out the Raw and Real Retail YouTube channel and they've managed to put a lot on their channel in just a few months. They do have a video of The Mall at Robinson.
I am hoping that the Pasadena Sears will get more inventory. I went to the North Shepherd Sears yesterday and some items are already selling quickly. The standard Whirlpool filters are wiped out, I bought one last week and they still had about 20 left. I need to see if Pasadena still has them, they are getting harder to find now.
DeleteYou can still price match with Best Buy and score deals. I bought a TV last season from Best Buy while it was on clearance.
The headphones idea is pretty cool, I guess they can simulate some speaker types on expensive headphones. I guess it is challenging these days to find good speakers, it may require a compromise unless you find a good set on one of the few demos available.
You can get lost in retail YouTube channels. There is so much great content out there. I prefer the channels that keep their videos around 10 minutes long. Some malls need more time to document, but a big box store even a Kmart should be 10 minutes or less.
I have had Best Buy price match a few items in the past few years. I have not had a problem with that. I think that has helped Best Buy a lot. Even if people don't use, at least they have a sense that Best Buy is more competitive with pricing than they were in the past. Unfortunately, Fry's also had price matching and things aren't working out so well for them.
DeleteIt does look like the N. Shepherd Sears is clearing out quickly. I know I've asked this before so it's mostly a rhetorical question at this point, but I wonder why so many people go to Sears going out of business sales when Sears has basically had liquidation pricing for the last couple of years. Oh well, at least you were able to get one filter. I'm guessing stuff like that sells out fast. I wouldn't be surprised if some people flip those on eBay and places like that.
I need to find someone online who is familiar with a lot of different models of speakers and then have them go on the Crutchfield website and assess whether their new comparison feature is accurate or not. I think a lot of people buy speakers online and then just assume that they sound good if they paid a lot of money. Without comparing them, it's hard to know how big the differences are between them. Unfortunately, the reviews in speaker magazines and websites are known to not be very reliable. The speaker magazines have a lot of ads from the speaker companies and I'm not sure how neutral they can be. Plus, speakers which sound great with movies may not be good music speakers and vice versa. The reviewers sometimes don't make much of a distinction between the two. Anyway, hopefully I'll find a way to audition some of the speakers I'm interested in or at least find someone who knows a lot about speakers who can make a good, unbiased recommendation.
Sometimes I wonder if there is some drama going on with these retail video channels. I was watching the Dead Malls with Jeff channel tonight and he had a video from a few months ago on there where he seemed very upset about something (it seemed like it might have been an issue with mall security, but he never actually said that) and he said that he wouldn't do mall videos anymore even though he ultimately did do some more mall videos. He was taking a lot of heat from the commenters and I'm not totally sure why. I suppose stuff like that is always going on in YouTubeland. Fortunately, it seems like people who comment on the retail blogs are genuinely interested in retail, are supportive of the people putting in the effort to make content, and have productive comments and questions.
I agree that some retail videos are too long. I often find myself skipping ahead with those long videos, lol. I also agree that 10 minutes should be enough for most Kmarts. Some videos are also too short in the sense that the whole video is someone walking quickly through the store while moving the camera around so quickly that it's impossible to focus in on anything. Also, sometimes people put in music that either becomes annoyingly repetitive or just sounds strange inside something like a vintage Kmart. I suppose I'm just being picky, lol, but I find blogs and photostreams to be a more enjoyable way to take things in. There's certainly a lot of value in the videos though and I will be checking out more of them.
The prices are actually higher for the first month of the store closing sales than the regular sales at Sears. Tools in particular are mostly cheaper at Pasadena with the normal sale price. I missed a visit to Sears last week as I decided to take a day long road trip over a visit to Sears. The road trip was to one new mall for the channel and 3 updates from existing malls that have changed a lot since my last visit to those properties. I may not be able to go this week either as my schedule has suddenly filled up.
DeleteI would not trust too many publications either when making such a large purchase without hearing the speakers in person. You definitely can't get a non-biased review if the companies are also taking ads out in the same publication.
There is certainly some drama in the Deadmall community. I am not sure why anyone would be against Jeff, he is an honest documenter of malls. I met him last year while we did the Colin Creek post, and we talked for about 30 minutes or so, very nice guy. There are some YouTube creators that break into properties and vandalize that have been giving the good creators a bad name. A few creators have been successful with talking to the owners of abandoned malls and were granted access.
YouTube reduced the amount of time for the videos needed to maximize ad revenue down to 8 minutes. Hopefully some of the videos that stretch the time out with repetition or just move too slowly will speed up. 10 minutes for an average sized mall is a little short, but 10 minutes or more for an abandoned Kmart or big box store is a little much. For me, I find it easier to be discreet with still photos of malls and stores. I can also keep the images more stable as opposed to trying to walk and keep the camera stable.
Part I:
DeleteIf I had to guess which mall you visited, I would have to guess it was the Town East Mall in Mesquite. Hopefully I'm not ruining any surprises by saying that though! Whatever it is, I'm sure it'll be interesting. I look forward to it.
I've read reports over on the Layoffs forum that Sears/Kmart has or will eliminate their SYWR program. I don't know if that is true or not, but if it is, that might reduce the already small number of shoppers that these chains have. SYWR was a real hidden gem for great deals. Of course, as you say, the Pasadena store still has great deals on the little stuff that they have left.
There has always been a natural link between retail vloggers and urban exploration vloggers. In the very early days of retail websites on the web, like Deadmalls, the focus was always on the Dixie Square Mall in the Chicago area where the Blues Brothers was filmed. A lot of enthusiasts for that mall would sneak into the mall and photograph it. That mall was finally demolished and is perhaps forgotten by those who weren't around in those early days, but there are still a lot of urban exploration vloggers who explore old retail buildings.
I used to watch an urban exploration user on YouTube many years ago, but he was kind of strange. He would delete a lot of his old videos for fear of getting caught and such. He behaved rather oddly and he blamed it on breathing in dust from abandoned buildings, lol. Maybe he wasn't kidding, I'm sure there is a lot of asbestos and leaded paint in those old buildings which has turned into dust.
I'm not sure why people are giving Jeff a hard time. You would think that this would be a pretty drama-free hobby aside from being hassled by security, but I suppose that isn't the case. Speaking of being hassled by security, you should check out Random Retail's Twin Tiers Retail blog. He recently celebrated the fifth anniversary of the blog and did so by posting a Q&A about how he gets his photos and so forth. I think he's one of the rare retail photographers who still uses a regular digital camera and not a camera phone. He said he's been especially hassled by Kmart security. Anyway, you might be interested in his comments.
It's good that YouTube has adjusted their policies. Maybe we'll see more reasonably timed videos now. The blog photos work well because a photo can show a lot of detail in just one frame. With videos, some vloggers do a good job doing slow pans and such which show great detail, but some of those videos are the long ones that are a chore to watch. Then you get the videos that are constant motion. Those videos are both long and short, lol. In those constant motion videos, it's hard to see anything clearly and one might get motion sickness from watching them. Also, sometimes the vloggers aren't good at keeping the camera up (maybe purposely to avoid security) and so there are long periods where all we see are the person's feet or something else that isn't of interest.
So, yeah, videos can be really good, but I'm glad for the photos and blogs as well. It seems that blogs can contain a lot of details that would make a video boring. The people who want to read the details can read them, but those just wanting the photos can jump into that as well. Plus, as you say, it's easier to be discreet with photos than with videos.
Part II:
DeleteFrom what I've gathered by reading things from insiders, it seems that when the audio magazines (and this probably isn't just an audio thing) write reviews of products, they send the review to the company making the product for their approval before the review gets printed. There is a legitimate reason for this. If the reviewers didn't quite understand how to use a particular feature on a device or something like that, the manufacturer can clear that up with the magazine in order to get a more accurate review. OTOH, it is said that the magazines will basically allow the manufacturers to make edits of things that they don't like even if there isn't an honest reason for doing so. Since the manufacturers are advertisers in the magazines, I suppose they feel they don't have a choice, but it's hard for the readers to take them seriously. Consumer Reports does honest reviews, but I don't think they've reviewed Hi-Fi speakers in a long, long time.
I should be close to a decision about the speakers. There are certainly a lot of options and doing the majority of the research online for stuff like this just doesn't work as well as going to the stores for a listen back a decade or two ago.
I may have mentioned this back in 2016, but back in early 2016, I found a Radio Shack Realistic LAB-420 direct drive turntable at a thrift store for $15. This is a really, really good turntable. It's the kind that turntable enthusiasts look for. I knew this when I bought it, but the turntable was missing three important parts when I bought it. Two of the three are common, standardized parts which are still being made today and aren't a problem buying. The other part, the counterweight, is a specific part for the turntable and isn't easy to find. I tried to fashion a homemade counterweight at first, but that wasn't a good solution for a great turntable like this so I put the turntable aside. After four years of looking, I finally found the exact counterweight at a reputable dealer online that sells used turntable parts so I jumped on it. I also ordered the other parts I needed to get it going again.
Well, I got the last of the parts in the mail yesterday and I spent a lot of time getting everything put on and adjusted. Everything works well now and it was worth the four year wait. It really sounds good and it looks good too. When I get my new speakers, this will be a really, really good system. I'm pretty excited about that. It's not only a great turntable, but it's a great Radio Shack souvenir from their golden years as well.
Radio Shack equipment has manufacturing date codes on it and this turntable was made in July 1980. Thus, it's pretty neat that I was able to get it going again exactly 40 years from when it was made. I wonder how many modern electronics will be in use 40 years from now. Of course, I have some stereo stuff which is even older than 40!
Town East is on my urgent 2020 list, but I didn't make it this time around. With the happenings at JCPenney, the one-of-a-kind store may not last much longer. As you may have heard the rumor is that Sycamore Partners may take JCPenney over and rebrand about 250 stores to the Belk name. The rest of the stores will close and the JCPenney name will disappear. That mall is also home to the last Dallas area Sears.
DeleteI won't leave you guessing. The malls I visited were Palestine Mall in Palestine Texas, Marshall Mall in Marshall Texas, and University Mall in Nacogdoches Texas. I also visited the West Hill Mall which will soon be anchor less and empty Sears Hardware building in Huntsville Texas. I also passed by the Longview Mall and took photos of the exterior of that mall.
I need to check my points soon. I bought a few items recently from the North Shepherd Sears. They are now in the final month there, it is getting empty in that store.
It is never a good idea to go into the abandoned buildings without some kind of face protection. I have seen countless videos and blogs starting in around 2000. I wish I had started documenting malls much earlier especially considering we spent a lot of time at malls in the 80's and 90's.
A lot of videos that are live streamed also suffer from the same camera issues and the occasional hiccup in Internet service. I don't film a lot of video, but I try to do my best when I do.
I will check out the Twin Tiers blog. It has been a good while since I have been able to update my blog and follow up on some of the other retail blogs out there. Adding to my backlog last month made it difficult to do much else.
The stereo project sounds like it is shaping up. Bringing the 40 year old record player back to life is going to sound really good.
DeleteHow are the return plans for the audio components? I would guess that they are very limited and online companies prefer to go by the manufacturer's warranty over dealing with returns.
I had no idea that many review sites pick through the reviews like that. I guess the same thing happens with a lot of YouTube review sites. It is sad that these days you can't seem to get an honest review without really digging around.
Part I:
DeleteI heard about that rumor about Belk and JCPenney. If Belk/Sycamore was in a good financial position, I could see that situation working well for them. As it is, however, Sycamore is in financial trouble and they could be in risk for filing bankruptcy themselves. They are also very mall dependent with some of the chains they already own. There is some speculation that Sycamore is interested in JCP as a real estate grab. Maybe they are hoping to buy at a cheap price and then hope mall real estate will rise again. It very well may to some extent, but that seems like a risky move given their existing problems.
That's a nice list of East Texas malls to visit. Those are some interesting malls, but some that weren't already kind of dead have probably dropped into endangered status since your last visits to them with all the anchors which are in trouble/closing like Stage and JCPenney. The posts for those should be interesting and I know some of your readers live near those malls. As I mentioned before, I may have been to the Palestine Mall about 30 years when I was in Palestine for a few days.
The urban exploration YouTube uploader I mentioned earlier also had a bad cough and perhaps that could be attributed to dust from abandoned buildings. Abandoned big box stores often aren't all that interesting. Malls are interesting if there are old storefronts left like we saw in your photos of the Spring Deauville Fashion Mall many years ago (fortunately you could get those great shots through the windows). I found abandoned hotels/motels to be quite interesting because sometimes the operators left the motels intact with all the beds, linens, furniture, and TVs all in place. Unfortunately, abandoned motels are often torn up by squatters and people doing illegal activity. That probably makes them especially dangerous for urban explorers.
Live stream videos of retail don't seem very interesting to me. I think I'd rather watch an edited version. I like the videos where the uploader narrates the video after the video was shot. Then, they have time to do research and can give good details about what they saw during their visit. Plus, then the uploader doesn't have to worry about a YouTube copyright strike if the store is playing music in the background.
Retail Retell just posted a nice post on his blog about Bookstop/Bookstar. It's impossible to tell the story about Bookstop without mentioning Houston, the Alabama Theater store specifically, and Retail Retell did mention quite a bit about the Alabama Theater location and about the company's roots in Texas. It's worth checking out if you remember Bookstop.
While researching a reply for that post, I came across a retail blog I had never heard of before called the Mallwalkers Blog. They have some interesting photos of old Waldenbooks and Camelot Music locations. They also have a 1987 VHS Video Catalog from Sears. I had not seen that before (maybe I saw it in 1987, lol), but I had seen the 1981 Sears LaserDisc catalog which is really cool. The post I like on the Mallwalkers blog is the one about VideoConcepts. That was one of Tandy/Radio Shack's many attempts at selling name brand electronics in the 1980s and 1990s along with McDuff and Incredible Universe. The blog has some great images of the VideoConcepts at Ridgmar Mall in Ft. Worth which I believe is now a dying mall. I recommend checking it out, I think you'll like it. I remember VideoConcepts at Sharpstown Mall and elsewhere. The post doesn't mention it, but I also found that VideoConcepts was owned by Eckerd before Tandy bought them out in the mid-1980s. It's a bit odd to see Eckerd involved in selling Hi-Fi, VCRs, and big screen TVs, but I suppose they were. Here's the link to that article on the Mallwalkers Blog.
Part II (hopefully you won't find this part to be boring, lol, but I suppose it is relevant as far as online retail goes):
DeleteYouTube reviews are often not trustworthy. Companies send products to YouTubers to review and keep for free, but of course companies aren’t going to keep sending stuff to people who are critical. Sometimes the YouTubers are even paid outright for reviews. All of this is supposed to be disclosed, but that doesn’t always happen or the disclosure isn’t always obvious.
Not only is the turntable 40 years old, but I ordered and put a 40 year old ADC brand cartridge/stylus on it that had never been used before. I figured it would be nice to have a time period correct cartridge on it and actually Radio Shack sold turntables with ADC cartridges in 1980-81 (the turntable I have would have come with a Shure cartridge that would have been great as well, but I didn't get that with it). Everything works well together and I even got my first new LP album since the 1980s to play on it.
Some online Hi-Fi dealers are good with returns, but not all. The ones with the best policies are often the equipment manufacturers themselves. Some speaker companies will even pay for shipping on the return which is great because shipping speakers is not cheap. The problem with evaluating speakers that way is that it can take a while for speakers to break in and they won't sound their best until they are broken in.
I'm currently dealing with that since I did order a pair of speakers after my last post and I got them in. I narrowed the decision down to three speakers. One option was a pair of Focal speakers from France, but those have a unique sound quality which I would have needed to hear to know if they really would have worked for me. I think there is a dealer in Houston. Of course, this would have been by far the most expensive option and there is some question whether I would have to send the speakers to France or the dealer for warranty service. The former would be prohibitively expensive.
The other two options were around the same price at regular prices, but were both marked down at insane sales. The first of these options was a pair of Infinity speakers which I heard before some years ago at Best Buy or Fry's. I thought they were discontinued because I had not seen them anywhere, even online, in two or three years. I then learned that Harman/Samsung, who makes Infinity speakers, occasionally sells those Infinitys at clearance prices on their website. We're talking about $400-500 speakers marked down to $150-180. These sales only happen every few months and quantities are always very limited, but they actually came on sale last week.
The other option was a pair of DCM speakers. DCM was one of Circuit City's favored speaker brands and they were a big Hi-Fi name in the 1970s-1980s, but I hadn't heard of them even being around since Circuit City closed. It turns out that they were selling speakers exclusively through their website for the last several years. They started selling a two premium lines of speakers better than their Circuit City speakers exclusively on their website back around 2005-6 and they finally discontinued those speakers. It seems that they sent those speakers to an online dealer in Nebraska who sold those speakers for about 75% off. We're talking about $400-600 speakers selling for $100-200 depending on the size/model. Some online Hi-Fi forums caught word of this around last Christmas and there was a mad rush of people buying these speakers that otherwise people didn't even know existed since DCM didn't advertise their website. The speakers got excellent reviews from the people who bought them and then sold out quickly.
Part III:
DeleteI was kicking myself for missing that sale of a lifetime because I didn't find out about it until a couple of months after things sold out. I still kept an eye on the website of the store in Nebraska just in the slim hopes that maybe they'd get more speakers in stock. Well, guess what? Last week, the exact model of speakers I wanted came back in stock.
So, yeah, I was dealing with two great sales and I knew I had to make a decision quickly or else they'd both sell out. Do I get the Infinitys that I had heard before or the DCMs? The DCMs were a bit cheaper and better looking, but the Infinitys were maybe a tad better from what I could gather from reviews and I had heard them before. In fact, I have an old pair of Infinity speakers as well so it's a brand I like.
Well, two things tilted things in favor of the DCMs. On the same Hi-Fi forums, there were reports coming in that almost everyone who ordered the Infinitys were getting packages that were damaged in shipping. Harman would then replace those orders without fuss, but some of the replacements were coming in damaged as well. They were blaming UPS, but the store selling the DCMs uses UPS too and there weren't reports of damage with those. There was speculation that maybe the boxes Harman used were meant for B&M retail when these speakers were sold at places like Best Buy and the boxes didn't have the strength needed to be shipped, but I don't know. I didn't want to deal with damaged goods so that was a big advantage for the DCMs. The other thing is that a renowned speaker designer who sells $1,000+ speakers purchased the DCMs back when they were on sale last Christmas and said they were probably the best inexpensive speakers he had ever heard (of course, they were only inexpensive because of the huge sale). He also said that they were a tad too bright for his liking, but he found a simple modification which fixed that issue. The Infinitys are also a tad bright as well, but I'm not aware of any easy modifications to fix those aside from using an equalizer.
So, yeah, the DCMs looked like best option. I put in an order for the DCMs and they arrived without damage. I think I got the last pair they had because the website said they were out of stock right after I put in my order. They look great. As for as how they sound, well, I'm still evaluating that. I've had them for 3 or 4 days now and they need more time to break in. At first I thought they were really bright sounding, but as they break in, it's starting to even out so maybe I won't even need to do anything to these. It's possible these speakers were made 10 or more years ago since DCM introduced these speakers almost 15 years ago so I think they may need more time than what is usually the case to break them in since they might have been sitting around for a while.
They already sound pretty good as things are right now, but I'm optimistic that they may sound terrific when they're fully open up after they are broken in. They already sound great with classical and jazz music. With rock/pop music, I think the woofers need to loosen up a bit more in order to provide ample bass on softer notes. More subtle bass will help to hide brightness as well. The bass is already very nice and clean when turned up enough or on loud bassy notes. We'll see, but I'm optimistic about them.
Which JCPenney store are you talking about that is one-of-a-kind?
DeleteI would like to see Belk come to Houston but not at the expense of JCPenney. Nearly every mall in the area has a department store vacancy and if only 250 stores are kept nationwide our area will see more losses.
DeletePalestine Mall is dead, Marshall Mall is dead as a mall, but nearly completely redeveloped. University Mall is half redeveloped and half dead mall corridor. The Palestine Mall and Marshall Mall are near identical in design and floor space. They also opened with the same anchor lineup.
I did knock out another set of malls on my list in the Dallas Ft. Worth area just in time to catch 2 Sears locations in their final week. The JCPenney store at North East Mall and Sears at Town East Mall were also visited.
The motel videos are interesting to watch because you never know what you will find. I stick to mostly video game and retail sites on Youtube, but I have watched some urbex as well. There is so much to explore out there.
Livestream videos do have some interesting events. The videos with Jeff getting harrassed by security live is one example of surprises that can happen in livestream videos.
I didn't have too much of a history with Bookstop. I visited the location on 1960 and I remember they had a lot of neon in the store. I wonder if any stores still exist with the neon touches out there.
I will check out that post from both Retail Retell and Mallwalkers on my next chance. I will reply to your other comments as well later today.
A lot of Youtubers are blatantly paid off by the companies they are reviewing. I am not saying it is alright, but they can be entertaining at least for some video game sites.
DeleteGetting quality speakers on clearance sale prices is always a good thing. Sounds like you did your research and found a worthy option. With a purchase in those price ranges it really helps to know a lot about each brand as well as the pros and cons. I am glad to hear you have settled on some speakers and I hope they were worth the wait.
I haven't made a lot of big purchases besides home improvement things this past year. We did research before starting the projects and found good quality work for decent prices.
The Hurst JCPenney at North East Mall is the only fully remodeled test lab store so far. Here is an article that shows a little more about the store. There will be a future blog article about this store. There are so many cool things about this store that are not mentioned in the article as well. Like tabletop arcade machines in the Hangout (Young Men's department). https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.dallasnews.com/business/retail/2019/10/31/jc-penney-creates-the-store-of-its-wishes-in-hurst-settles-on-using-it-as-a-lab/%3foutputType=amp
DeleteSorry, I somehow confused North East Mall with Town East Mall.
DeleteNo worries, it is strange for two malls in the same metro area to have East in the name.
DeleteBelk might not be the same Belk now that they were a few years ago when everyone was raving about them. Their Layoffs page is just about as active, if not more so, than the Sears page. It's certainly more active than the JCPenney page. Maybe that's just the work of one or two rogue employees, but it seems that there is a tremendous amount of uneasiness over there right now about how Belk is being run.
DeleteJCPenney has some of their properties listed for being for sale on the jcpenneyportfolio.com website. One is the San Jacinto Mall location and the other is the Ridgmar Mall location in Ft. Worth which I mentioned earlier in reference to the retro VideoConcepts photos from the MallWalkers blog. I wouldn't be surprised to see those locations close.
Thanks for the update from East Texas. Those blog posts should be great along with the posts from the DFW Metroplex. With all the upcoming posts from East Texas and the Metroplex, along with the posts you've done recently from El Paso and the Valley, you're doing a good job covering all the major parts of Texas.
Seeing Jeff deal with security would certainly be interesting reality TV, but it would be quite upsetting to see as well. I bet that must have been quite interesting to see. While it couldn't have been totally unexpected, I'm sure it was still a bit surprising.
Hotels and motels have always been kind of interesting to me. I don't do it all the time, but sometimes I go to various travel sites and Google Maps just to look at random hotels and see what their rooms and lobbies look like. Usually there aren't too many surprises unless there is a hotel/motel that is clearly retro or poorly maintained, but it's still kind of neat in a way. I know there are some retail bloggers/vloggers who cover hotels/motels as well, but the crossover isn't huge.
The Bookstop in The Commons across from Willowbrook Mall, which didn't last very long, did have some interesting lighting and neon. According to Retail Retell's posts, there are a handful of Bookstar locations left in California and at least one of them still has neon inside. Bookstop operated as Bookstar in some places since they didn't have national rights to the Bookstop name. Bookstar/Bookstop has been owned by Barnes & Noble since 1989 so it's a bit surprising that they've kept a handful of bookstores under a different name for all that time.
I've mentioned YouTube user Vwestlife before because he does awesome electronics videos and he also dabbles in retail videos every now and then including a nice tour of his former local Sears before it closed. I believe he also showed his local Kmart a number of years ago after it closed. Anyway, he started getting offers from companies asking him if he'd like free electronics in exchange for video reviews. He accepted some of those offers, but only on the condition that he be allowed to say what he wants to say. Indeed, when he has reviewed those products, he's about as critical as he is with anything else he reviews. There are a few honest people on YouTube, but I don't know how many there are. I know that a lot of those toy videos aimed at children are funded indirectly by toy companies and supposedly the same is true of cosmetics videos which are very popular. Video games videos are some of the most popular videos on YouTube and so I'm sure the companies are involved there as well.
Home improvement is always difficult especially if it involves contractors or buying materials from vendors you're not too familiar with. Spending on home improvements probably makes more sense than spending on Hi-Fi, but fortunately I was able to spend a fraction compared to what I thought I was going to have to spend for speakers. I was prepared to spend $500 or more, but I only ended up spending about 20% of that! I'm using old speaker wire for now, but I'll probably make new speaker cables using the RadioShack pure copper wire I got during their last bankruptcy at a great price.
I had no idea that the Belk Layoffs page was as active as the Sears page. I guess there have been a lot of changes with the new ownership of the company. I have yet to visit a Belk store since the new company has taken over.
DeleteIt seems like the more time that passes, more anchors drop out of the San Jacinto Mall project. I guess it is good that the new project will not have dead anchors like the mall did, but now it seems like only Macy's will remain there for now. The remaining section of the mall corridor is still sitting there vacant and rotting away now.
I have done my best to catch up on posts after the lockdowns were lifted. If the malls remain open, the rest of the year should be a busy one for documentation. I plan on getting the rest of the Houston area malls that I have not yet documented and finishing up on the remaining Texas mall wish list. Once all of those places are covered, I will focus on posting all articles to clear my backlog, and updates for my old posts. That should take me through 2021 and possibly the first half of 2022. After that I will see about the direction of the blog. With how large my backlog has gotten, it is pointless for me to keep stacking up posts without having time to share them on the blog. There has been so much going on in retail especially in the past 3 years.
Hotel reviews can be very interesting to read, you can also find some interesting apartment complex reviews that are just as interesting. It has been a while since I read any, but I have lived in some crappy apartment complexes over the years.
I saw those Bookstop locations, a couple of them are really awesome, but Barnes and Noble has chipped away at the design elements that made those places unique.
The new Toys R Us has some of their own videos reviewing certain toys. I am not sure how critical these reviews are since the companies rent space inside of the Toys R Us locations. I would guess that Toys R Us would make sure to put out their best products for video reviews, and hope consumers pick up extra items while they are in the store.
I had been ignoring a lot of projects and spending my money elsewhere so it was time to catch up. It is also getting close to the time for a vehicle upgrade so I am beginning to plan for that. I am hoping that I can start saving more for my retirement years if I make it that far. With that being said, from time to time you need to treat yourself, so I still invest time and money on my hobbies.
There were rumors quite some time back that the developers of the San Jacinto Mall redevelopment were offering to build JCPenney a new building in order to make the new structure work, but I'm not sure if that's still an option. As it is, the sale listing for the San Jacinto JCP property lists the old building and doesn't say anything about a new building as far as I can tell. I don't think Sears was ever serious about staying with the redevelopment. I think they sensed an opportunity to get a pay-out from the redevelopers and that's what they were angling for.
DeleteSpeaking of Sears, there were rumors on the Layoffs page a few months ago saying that Sears can only afford to liquidate a few stores at time. Given that a bunch of currently liquidating stores are about to wrap up their liquidations, there was a rumor posted the other day that new stores will be added to the closing list here soon. It's hard to say how accurate that rumor is, but I wouldn't be surprised if it is true. I'm sure the remaining Seritage stores will probably be in the next round of closures.
I'm not sure if you saw the news, but it seems that Amazon will open an Amazon 4 Star store at The Woodlands Mall. I'm not sure if 4 Star is one of Amazon's cashierless stores or what or if one has to be an Amazon member to use the store. Some of their current B&M stores have cameras all over the store. Shoppers sign in to their Amazon account when they enter the store and then the cameras determine what products customers leave the store with and then their account gets charged. I'm not sure if 4 Star works that way. Regardless, it doesn't seem like anything worth getting excited about unless those stores can also serve as Amazon return centers. Perhaps Amazon will open more stores at the other former GGP malls if The Woodlands store goes well.
I saw that Ross is opening a new store in the former Exclusive Furniture spot in Jersey Village. I suppose the few B&M retailers who still have strong sales are taking advantage of low lease prices and are in expansion mode.
I've seen some apartment reviews before, but they tend to be more negative than hotel reviews from what I can tell. Maybe there are good reasons for that. It seems like a lot of hotel reviews are more critical than I am about the condition of rooms. Although I've been to a number of Canadian hotels in recent years and some of those were operated by major US brands, it's actually been quite some time since I've stayed at a hotel in the US. Thus, it's a bit difficult for me to assess the current state of hotels and motels in the US.
I'm guessing the Toys R Us videos focus on the good parts of toys and ignore the less good parts, lol. I wouldn't take them too seriously, but I don't know if there are good, honest toy reviews online. Kids may have a harder time than adults determining which reviews are legit and which are slanted.
I might have spent my money on music CDs instead of Hi-Fi, but it seems that starting around June or so, both the B&N and FYE websites have smaller inventories of CDs than they used to. They still have latest releases, but some of the older CDs are no longer listed (they aren't even listed as being unavailable like they were in the past if they were sold out). I think B&N and FYE's websites used the same supplier in Kentucky. I'm not sure if that supplier has made inventory changes and if those changes are temporary or permanent. Well, anyway, if I do order music anytime soon, I'll probably have to use other sources. I have some ideas of where I can order stuff online, but these are smaller shops and it's hard to tell what their customer service will be like. I've had some bad experiences before with smaller CD shops saying things were in stock and then taking my money when actually the CDs were backordered. I've never had problems with B&N's website in that regard.
The site plan for the San Jacinto Marketplace had a new JCPenney building on the West side of the property. I wonder if the sale would include that land swap which had supposedly been worked out already.
DeleteI saw that rumor as well on the layoffs page. I am hoping that the next round will only be a store or two. I just don't get some of the hatred on that site towards Sears. I guess people forget that employees livelihoods are also part of the loss when stores close.
Looks like the Amazon 4 star store is like a normal mall store with a changing variety of products. They have a tradional checkout system and non-members can shop there as well. It looks like a decent concept and they have a lot of locations already open.
Stein Mart is now closing all of their stores so we will have nearly 300 more big box vacancies. Stein Mart seemed like the company that would have benefitted the most from the Stage liquidation, but they will not be around by the end of the year either.
A lot of chain hotels in the US have been renovating or replacing their older hotels. We stayed at a fairly new hotel in McAllen back in March that was within walking distance to the La Plaza Mall shopping area. It was one of several newer looking hotels in the area. The cost was fairly low and the hotel smelled new. The rest of my visits have mostly been in Mexico. A lot of those hotels were a lot more economical, but the rooms were smaller on average. The Mexico City hotel we stayed at was about $100 a night, and it was well worth the price. Location, room size, safety in the hotel, and room cleanliness was top notch.
When we went to Dallas, the FYE store at Town East Mall was closed. It still had inventory and a sign saying they were limiting people in the store. I have seen other FYE stores open in recent mall visits to other malls. I wonder if FYE is about to close more locations.
You can always try Ebay if all else fails. I still use their site to buy things from time to time. A lot of sellers have multiple items to buy that can save you shipping costs. The prices are hit or miss unfortunately, but CD's have been relatively cheap lately.
Part I:
DeleteThe Sears jobs website shows that some store closing jobs were added this past week, but none of them are from around here. Granted, there aren't many stores around here anyway. It looks like a couple of Sears are closing in New England. I'm sure there will be more closings at some point, but that's all that there is for now.
Most of the other Layoffs pages I've seen aren't as ugly as the Sears page. There are clearly some people who want to see Sears fail. What are these people going to do once Sears does fail? Will they just go away or will they latch onto another struggling retailer? OTOH, there are some cheerleaders who try to portray things as if nothing is wrong at all at Sears. Perhaps those delusional posts encourage the haters to post negative stuff.
I heard about the Stein Mart news. That's a shame, Stein Mart was one of the few clothing stores which I thought was doing a good job. They are/were a closeouts store like Ross, but their stores felt like a department store. They were kept nicer than modern Macy's even. My only complaint about them was that it was a bit difficult to find common sizes as it seemed like most of what they had in the men's department were smalls and X-Large+ with nothing in between. Anyway, I had no idea that they were even in trouble. I can't say that I was shocked to hear the news, but I wasn't even thinking about Stein Mart when I thought about retailers in trouble.
While it seemed that Stein Mart stood to gain from the demise of Stage, I suppose it's ultimately Macy's, TJMaxx, Ross, Kohl's, and JCPenney (if they survive) who will gain from it. I liked the Champions Stein Mart since it was in the old Service Merchandise/Wilson's there. A visit there surely cued up memories of waiting for Hi-Fi gear and other cool stuff coming down the conveyor belt. Fortunately I suppose, the other half of the ex-Service Merchandise recently became a new TJMaxx and I'm sure they aren't going anywhere anytime soon. That shopping center briefly had Palais Royal, Stein Mart, and TJMaxx all next to one another, but now only one will survive. There is a Tuesday Morning there too and I'm not sure if they'll survive.
It looks like Amazon 4 Star could bring some variety to malls then. I'm sure mall operators would love to get an Amazon store. We'll see if they expand. It seems that they sell a lot of books so it might not be good news for Barnes & Noble (which is also at the Champions shopping center) if they take off.
I was reading something about Sunrise Records, FYE's new owner, and their stores in Canada. It looks like those stores are open for business now, but some people were complaining that they weren't getting new releases in on time as promised and that they apparently have some distribution problems with certain major labels in Canada at least. Sunrise might have bitten off more than they can chew, especially given the current circumstances, but we'll see.
Ebay is an option, but I'll probably give HBDirect a chance for classical music CDs at least whenever I'm ready to put in an order. They used to be based in San Antonio, but now they're based out of Vermont. I've never purchased from them, but they've been around on the Internet for a long time at least.
Part II:
DeleteSafety and cleanliness are probably big factors when looking for hotels in Mexico. When I've traveled to Canada in recent times, I've stayed downtown where it would be easy to get to everything without driving or needing a taxi. It's expensive to stay downtown in places like Toronto, but it's well worth it because otherwise you lose a lot of time stuck in traffic or trying to figure out public transportation. Canadian downtowns are usually safe so I don't worry so much about that factor.
I stayed at a lot of Delta Hotels locations when I was in Canada. Delta was a Canadian chain, but they were purchased by Marriott a few years ago and now they're opening locations in the US. The first Delta I stayed at in Quebec City was quirky, nice, and had a great location, but the two I stayed at in Calgary were merely sufficient without being what I would call luxurious. The downtown Calgary one was in the middle of a renovation though and they at least offered free in-room wine in exchange for the inconvenience of the construction. The location was great though. At least a couple of malls and nice parks were within walking distance and the Bow River was right across the street and there are some scenic viewing spots for the river and downtown from there.
If you get the chance to go to Canada, the Fairmont chain of luxury hotels up there has some historic locations, many of which were the so-called 'grand railroad hotels' where the train passengers would stop for the night in luxury on cross-country trips back in the day, and they are supposedly very nice and well worth staying at if you can afford the price and perhaps don't mind staying in older buildings (I'm sure the rooms are modern with historic designs). Fairmont operates the famous Chateau Frontenac in Quebec City, for example, which is perhaps the most famous building in Quebec City. The Fairmont Banff Springs Hotel is really nice and historic as well. Those hotels were out of my price range, but it would have been great to stay there. Here's a link on Wikipedia about the Grand Railroad Hotels in Canada if you want to see them. I've never been to one of those historic Fairmonts, but maybe that'll be something to do on a future trip. I have been into the lobbies of some of these historic hotels though and had lunch at the Chateau Lake Louise.
The last hotel I stayed at in the US, which was actually a pretty nice Radisson in Akron, OH, still had CRT TVs during my stay, lol. That makes it seem like it's been ages since I've been to a hotel in the US, but the previous 3 or 4 hotels I stayed at in the US did have LCD TVs. I'm sure any decent hotel has LCD TVs by now except for maybe some in national parks and such.
I find hotels like Comfort Inn to be a good balance between the no-frills motels and the higher-end brands which often don't deliver much more luxury than the mid-tier brands. If you're looking for a great location, however, often you have to pay for one of those higher-end hotels. I'm usually less picky about location when traveling in the US though.
Sometimes cheap motels are okay, but you really have to do your research with those.
For whatever reason, we've had a ton of motels which have opened up in my area in the last decade or so. Most are the sleazy looking type, but a few are from nicer chains like Holiday Inn Express. I doubt there is a huge influx of vacationers, visitors, and business travelers coming to my area. Probably most of the people who stay at those cheaper motels are probably living there for at least the short-term.
The Sears layoffs page has become stale. It is time consuming to shift through the posts on there. I am just checking the Sears job page now daily instead of the Layoffs page.
DeleteI don't have much experience with Stein Mart. A few places I have documented had Stein Mart as an anchor. I can't even remember if I ever purchased anything when going there.
That Champions center has changed a lot over the years. It is a lot like the Town Center developments we see replacing malls in some areas. It has also remained well kept while so many other shopping centers on 1960 have fallen apart.
I hope the Amazon stores do help bring variety to malls. Maybe in the future, the stores will fill in big spaces. With so many retailers going under, Amazon will have plenty of mall space available.
I think FYE was a lost cause. Their bread and butter categories of music and movies just aren't profitable. Collectables seem to be the only category of merchandise they sell that still does well. Collectables unfortunately are being sold just about anywhere these days including Walmart, Target, and Best Buy. Records seem to have slowed down as well.
I usually try to stay at places just under $100 a night and take advantage of AAA discounts. The midrange hotels are usually where I wind up. I rarely use any of the on-site amenities so that usually saves me some money when looking for a place to stay.
DeleteA lot of those newer motels get business from the oil and gas industry, well at least on the East side of town.
The hotels in Mexico we stayed all had LCD TV's. We did stay at one all inclusive Holiday Inn that was fancy. It was a little more than $100 a night, but the free drinks and food more than made up for it.
It will probably be a few years before I leave the country again. When I plan on going to Canada, I will make sure to use your experience to get the best out of my trip there.
There is a lot of history in that Champions Village shopping center. It might be worth documenting for the blog. In the early days of the center, the Randall's Flagship was originally a Handy Andy, a grocer from San Antonio. I can't remember exactly when it became a Randall's other than to say that I think it was in the very early 1980s. It's the only Randall's left in north Houston so that itself makes it rather remarkable. The store used to have a more impressive interior than it has now, but it's still pretty unique for north Houston. I don't think there are many supermarkets in the northern suburbs which have a gable roof/ceiling like that store has. It's probably one of the oldest supermarkets left in the northern suburbs.
DeleteThe most famous anchor at Champions Village back in the day was Sakowitz. Sakowitz was a high-end department store which had locations across from The Galleria and Downtown, but they opened a small store in Champions. Here's a story about Sakowitz with a photo slideshow of the interior of the Downtown store. Can you imagine a department store looking like that today?
Palais Royal used to have a nice store in Champions Village as well. The Palais Royal that was there a few months ago used part of the space the old store used, but the newer one was much smaller and more basic than the old one which felt like a department store.
Of course, aside from the Randall's perhaps, the most important retailer at Champions Village was the Wilson's/Service Merchandise. A lot of money was spent there, that's for sure, lol. I have great memories of that store. The younger generations just don't understand the feeling of waiting for something nice you purchased to come down the conveyor belt, lol.
Crown Books had a store at Champions Village before they moved down the road when the Super Crown Books opened. There was also a Walgreens where Kirkland Home is now. The Hallmark and lighting stores near Randall's have been there forever it seems. Anyway, it is perhaps worth documenting.
I agree that FYE is going to have a hard time staying relevant. Records are still selling well I think, but perhaps the explosive growth in those has leveled off a bit. I was on the Urban Outfitters website the other day and I noticed that the prices for new cassette albums has really increased. Cassette albums were selling for under $10 a few years ago, but now some are around $20. They had a lot of positive reviews though. UO is also now selling a fake Tozai-grade Walkman that is clear. Those were intended to be used by prisoners. I'm not sure how UO got them and I doubt their customers know the intended audience for those, lol. Anyway, I hope FYE/Sunrise can hang in there, but it's going to be difficult.
AAA discounts do help. I have a membership as well. I also do not use hotel amenities aside from breakfast so mid-range hotels are fine with me. Sometimes you get more amenities from mid-range hotels than you do from upscale hotels like free parking, Wi-Fi, and breakfast.
It seems to me in photos that a number of mid-range hotels in the US are building new hotels with smaller rooms than what was normal in the past. I'm not sure if you noticed that as well.
Some of the new motels on Huffmeister Rd. near 290 opened up after the big new hospital opened up. Perhaps those motels serve people who are using the hospital. Aside from that, I can't explain all the new motels along FM 1960 and on other roads around here. In the 1980s and until the mid-1990s, all we had in this area was a single La Quinta motel (which is still around). Now, there are at least 25 motels around here.
Whoops, I may have forgotten to add the link to those Sakowitz photos I was mentioning earlier. I apologize about that. The link to that article is linked here if I forgot to add it earlier.
DeleteThe Champions center has remained a little more upscale than most of the retail on FM 1960. It is one of the few retail centers in that area that is able to replace empty space quickly. Sakowitz was a very upscale store from what I have seen. They were one of the retailers hardest hit from the oil bust.
DeleteThere are clusters of hotels near the medical centers in Humble and Kingwood as well. The hotels are close enough to the airport to get business from travelers as well. Most of those hotels have shuttle service. Houston doesn't seem to be much of a tourist destination, but motels and hotels are still popping up all over town.
I see the link now, thanks for sharing it.
DeleteProbably every store is going to close eventually. Retail companies are mortal. They don’t last forever. People probably thought Montgomery Ward and Woolworth were going to last forever. They didn’t, unfortunately. One day, stores like Walmart, Target, Sears, and even Burlington might close all locations eventually and become the next Wards, COVID-19 or not. It might be 1 year from now, or 100 years from now. If they do, I would like them to have one location left, like Blockbuster does now.
ReplyDeleteYou are absolutely correct, retail companies don't live forever. The few companies left that have passed the 100 year mark are nearly dead. Sears and JCPenney are barely surviving, more than likely they are in the final months of operation.
DeleteMy favorite Sears stores are ones that look like this one and the Pasadena, TX one. Add an attached auto center to the building and have a good electronics department and have the departments not almost empty and it will automatically be the best Sears store, in my opinion. I don’t really care about the logo on the building, lowercase or uppercase.
ReplyDeleteThis style of Sears stores looks really nice almost like an old style cinema without the neon. Too bad these stores were not built in the era when the red cursive neon signs were their normal signage.
DeleteImagine if a high-end mall like the Galleria had a Sears. I wonder what it would look like.
ReplyDeleteThere are a few upscale malls in the USA that have had Sears as an anchor. One local mall that was actually developed by Homart/ Sears and went upscale is the Woodlands Mall. Sears was eventually replaced by Nordstrom.
DeleteI wonder if this will save or help Kmart. https://www.forbes.com/sites/michaellisicky/2020/05/09/kmartdown-to-its-last-34-storesfinds-itself-to-be-essential-once-again/#bf49f15429cc
ReplyDeleteThey did get masks at that store, but they have barely any inventory to sell. The truck deliveries being scaled back is not a good sign, but at least they are getting some inventory.
DeleteIf people are too scared to go back to work and want to work from home permanently after this pandemic is either gone, or has calmed down dramatically, I think stores can profit off it. Stores like Office Depot and Staples will probably become stronger. As for stores like Kmart or Sears, I hope they do well. If they can, they need to start selling more stuff like office supplies, cleaning supplies, sanitizer, and some home electronics.
DeleteOffice stores are definitely doing better sales at the moment because of more people working at home.
DeleteKmart and Sears are zombie stores now. If you were to walk into a normal Sears or Kmart store just 3 years ago, you would be surprised just how much less they have to offer now. I do my best to keep them going, but it is difficult especially since we are now down to 2 Sears stores in the entire Houston area.
I just looked it up. The mercury incident did happen at that Walmart. Very strange story.
DeleteHello folks, I have a question for any of you who were familiar with the Willowbrook Sears. Did any of you ever notice that at least one of the three Sears entrances/exits to the parking lot had this unusual feature?: https://foursquare.com/v/christmas-tree-shops/4bc8fb5a937ca59340f3a492/photos (look at the middle photo in the second row down, the photo of the entrance with the "welcome" sign above it... notice that there is an "emergency exit", which activates a security alarm when opened, on the wall... even though this is the wall in between the two sets of sliding doors at the ENTRANCE to the store!)
ReplyDeleteThis is the Christmas Tree Shops store in Wilmington, Delaware. I can't remember if this chain has come to Texas yet or not, but it basically is a Big Lots-like chain owned by Bed Bath & Beyond. Despite the name, the stores sell all kinds of merchandise. Anyway, this particular Christmas Tree Shops takes up part of a former Montgomery Ward store, so the door in this picture may or may not have existed when Wards was open.
I lived in Houston near Willowbrook Mall in the 90's, but have lived in Pennsylvania since 2001, so I haven't been to this Sears in almost 20 years. The one blurry memory of it that has stuck with me is that at least one of the entrances/exits (I apologize that I just can't remember which of the three entrances/exits I had used when I noticed this odd feature) definitely had this same unusual setup with a so-called "emergency exit" on the wall between the two sets of entrance/exit doors. I definitely remember though that the emergency exit was on the wall that would have been to the right as I entered the store, and would have been the wall to my left as I exited the store into the parking lot.
This seems ridiculous to me... why on earth would any store need to have an "emergency exit" placed right next to a regular entrance/exit, especially an "emergency exit" that definitely does NOT open to the outside of the building? I have a suspicion that some sort of mechanical rooms are what actually are behind these doors, but that's just a guess. Would any of you know what rooms are hiding behind these mysterious doors? I unfortunately didn't think to check for an actual exit door (leading from the mechanical room to outside) along the front wall of either this Sears or this Christmas Tree Shops, and I never had a chance to go to the former Montgomery Ward (same building where Christmas Tree Shops now is) before it closed. I appreciate any help in solving this mystery!
Christmas tree shops have not yet to come to Texas. The Houston area is usually the last area to get a store when a chain expands to Texas.
DeleteI am guessing the package pickup area which has the newer sensor doors was where that emergency exit used to be. I may be wrong since I don't have an up close photo of the entrance near the electronics. The Sears in Port Arthur had a similar setup but there are no emergency doors there.
Some of my readers live close to the Wilowbrook Sears and could possibly be able to clarify which door had the strange emergency exits. The store designers didn't think that one through very well.
I shopped at the Willowbrook Mall Sears many, many times. I used all the entrances to the store, but I can't say I remember seeing what is being described. Maybe I saw it and just didn't think anything of it. I don't know. From the way it's being described, it's possible that the emergency exit is designed to be an emergency entrance for firefighters if they need to get into the store for the sake of battling a fire after hours, but I don't know.
DeleteThe only door I can remember which was a traditional sliding automatic door was the outer door near the men's department. I suspect an automatic door was deemed necessary there for the package pickup department so they could roll bulky merchandise out to customer's cars. Je has a picture of this door on his 1,000,000th view post. I'm not sure if that picture helps any.
Sorry if this post isn't of assistance. I'm not entirely sure if I understand what is being described. Even if I do understand, I just don't remember seeing this at the Willowbrook Sears.
In response to one of the comments above, Christmas Tree Shops actually had a location in Dallas according to this article: https://www.dallasnews.com/arts-entertainment/lifestyle/2010/10/01/christmas-tree-shops-opens-dallas-store/ From what I could find on Google, the location is now a Nordstrom Rack
ReplyDeleteThanks for the comment. I wonder why they did not make it in Dallas.
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