Is it “so-long” for Sears Canada?

It’s been the source of almost everything in many Canadian homes for decades, but it’s future doesn’t look good. Sears Canada has gone to court to get protection from its creditors so it can restructure and avoid bankruptcy.

Fifty-nine stores are going to close. The regular Sears stores at the Thousand Islands Mall in Brockville and Galeries de Hull in Gatineau are on the list. The Sears Home Store locations that sell furniture and appliances in Ottawa East and Kingston are shutting down, and the Sears Outlet clearance store in Cornwall is also closing.

Sears Canada’s financial problems mirror those of its American counterpart, which has also been closing stores and has had financial challenges in recent years. The Canadian branch started in 1952 as Simpsons-Sears, a catalog partnership between the Sears, Roebuck Company and the now defunct Simpsons department store chain. Separate Simpsons-Sears department stores soon followed. The partnership between the two chains ended in the late 1970s and it became known as just Sears Canada during the 1980s. The arrangement brought all of the Sears brands like Craftsman tools and Kenmore appliances to Canadian homes.

What’s led to the decline of a once-mighty retail giant? Changing shopping habits have seen a trend toward online shopping and through sources like Amazon, especially among younger consumers. Sears is perceived to not have adapted to this very well. There’s also a perception that the fashions are designed for older age groups. Many of the stores are in older malls and haven’t seen major renovations in 20 years or more.

I asked a group of college seniors recently if they ever shop at Sears.  None of them had. A couple said their parents might browse at Sears sometimes, and one said it’s where his grandparents shop. This is a huge change from decades past when everyone of all ages ordered from Sears or made it their main destination on a trip to the mall.

Everyone else I asked had a Sears story. The common themes were that it was the place their mothers bought all of their clothes from, and that the Christmas Wish Book catalog was very popular reading material. Military families on Canadian bases in Germany could order from Sears. Mrs. Taylor from Ottawa said her husband would mail the order from the base on a Tuesday and it would usually arrive by Friday, courtesy of an air force transport plane. Brad from Kitchener, Ontario said he bought his first guitar from the Sears catalog. It wasn’t the best quality and he had to jam a pen into the bridge of it in order for it to remain playable. Madeline said she enjoyed working at the Sears order center in Belleville, Ontario and got to talk with customers from all over Canada.

The selection both for order and in-store from Sears Canada is not nearly as big as it once was. My copy of the 1979 Fall and Winter Catalog has everything from bathroom fixtures to hunting gear. The catalog made department store shopping accessible for people who lived in rural or remote places far from a Sears store. The internet has changed all of that. There are more ways to shop from home, with a bigger selection of goods and prices.

Will Sears Canada be able to adapt to a changing retail marketplace, or is it too late?

Tags: business, canada, Sears