Sears might be going belly up

Sears has filed for bankruptcy this morning in New York rather than making its missed payments.

 

End of an era. Sad day. Sears was largely responsible for making the latest fashions, often straight from Paris, accessible to the average housewife living in middle America.

If you want to relive the glory days of Sears, check out these old Sears Christmas catalogs online. It's amazing to think everyday Americans ever dressed this well:

http://www.wishbookweb.com/the-catalogs/

 

They're already gone up here in Canada!

 

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

If you were from an military family, like mine, far from home then Sears meant looking forwards to getting their catalog twice a year.

So, sad to hear this news (but not surprised).

 

There are two new threads (pun intended) about this in general attire and accoutrements!

 

I'm in Sebringville, soon to be Gadshill. Whereabouts in Stratford are you? I used to own on Water St.

 

I grew up during the time where every family had a Sears & Robuck catalog in.. the outhouse!!!

 

Yeah, they need to be merged into this one.

Moderator?

 

My parents just so happened to have been vacationing up state this past weekend, and sent me this pic. How timely.


Good-bye, Sears.

 

Whoever buys the rights to the name at the bankruptcy auction will be online with an ultra-cheesey E-commerce-only operation, just in time for Christmas.

 

Sadly enough, you are most likely correct.

 

I'm quite sure that's been secretly in the works for months, if not years. Someone with the right business plan could make Sears a viable entity again, but I'm guessing their best case scenario will be joining the ranks of low-end junk peddlers like Target and Walmart.

 

If they want to do it right, they need to pitch it directly at Boomer grandparetnts as place to do Xmas shopping for the grandkids. Play up the "Wish Book" angle with lots of hokey nostalgic imagery and clip art from old catalogs, and really saw away on the old "olde fashioned family holiday around the tree" angle. Hire some low budget call center to provide Real Live Customer Service Just Pick Up The Phone, targeting old folks who think Russian hackers are waiting to steal their Visa card number if they order on the internet, and ship out the goods in boxes with big pictures of Santa Claus with lots of holly and wreaths and junk.

At this stage of the game there is nothing left of Sears but nostalgia, and there's nothing to lose by going the whole hog on it. Drek the Halls.

 

That's actually not a bad idea. Given that Toys'R'Us went west this year, people who have known no other toy store are at a loss for where to buy toys for this year's Christmas. There is competition however from both ends. Walmart and Target have been ramping up their toy selection and advertising and the few surviving independent toy stores are making a big play to regain market share. Given the dynamics of the toy industry however, it is probably too late in the year for a rebooted Sears to pull it off. Still, I have fond memories of the Christmas catalogs of the early 1960s

 

I have been tasked with photographing some of the local landmarks. Among them are a Toys 'R' Us and a Sears. I want to shoot them before they get ground into dust.

 

I just noticed this image in the "thread gallery" link in the right margin. If my hairline recedes much farther I might have to use it for my avatar photo.

 

Going back and rereading this thread from the beginning is like watching an old car rust away in a field.

 

It’s a Chapter 11 filing, ain’t it? So they hope to renegotiate terms with their creditors without having to liquidate assets, right?

Surely we got a bankruptcy shyster or two among our ranks who can straighten me out on this if I’m mistaken.

 

Ex-bankruptcy shyster here (still licensed--just not practicing anymore, Thank God). Yeah, a Chapter 11 is a reorganization, a Chapter 7 is a liquidation*. I did mostly consumer work, where the Chapter 11's were usually just a prelude to a Chapter 7 when no viable plan of reorganization could be produced, but business bankruptcies aren't always that way--witness GM and Chrysler.

Edit: *Chapter 13's are also a reorganization, intended for consumers, but some consumers with enough debts or assets can end up in 11 instead.