Sears was once the largest retailer in the world, boasting over 3,500 stores in the United States.
Source: Business Insider
Nowadays, the department store chain is in a struggle for its very survival, having closed over 3,000 of those stores over the past decade, as of November 2019.
Source: Business Insider
In 2017, the company saw $17 billion in sales — down $26 billion from 2010.
Source: Business Insider, Business Insider, Business Insider
Now, given the 2008 recession, the rise of e-commerce, and the raging retail apocalypse, it hasn't been an easy 10 years for any traditional brick-and-mortar retailers.
Source: Business Insider
Still, other macro trends like the decline of the once-dominant department store format — which big boxes and specialty retailers were able to dodge, for the most part— did hurt Sears, in particular.
Source: Business Insider
For the most part, however, the situation at Sears is emblematic of the decade, not because it represents a gloomy example of the woes befalling the industry ...
... but because it is a case study for the crucial importance of keeping up with the times, especially when it comes to tailoring the shopping experience to suit customers' needs.
Billionaire investor Eddie Lampert, who took over as CEO of Sears in 2013, stepped down from that position in October 2018. He has blamed Sears' struggles on e-commerce, changing consumer preferences, and even negative media coverage.
Source: Business Insider, Forbes
But Lampert himself has been criticized for focusing more on making financial maneuvers than boosting the store experience ...
Source: Business Insider
... resulting in messy, understaffed Sears and Kmart locations that drove away prospective customers.
Source: Business Insider
On the other hand, Sears Holdings spent $5.8 billion on share buybacks between 2005 and 2010.
Source: Business Insider
Speaking to Business Insider's Hayley Peterson in 2017, former Sears executives criticized this handling of the company's struggles.
Source: Business Insider, Business Insider
At the same time, loans from Lampert's firm ESL Investments can be credited with sustaining the retailer for years.
Source: Business Insider
Fellow billionaire investor Warren Buffett, who Lampert was once likened to, has expressed the opinion that the one-time Sears CEO was in a no-win situation.
Source: Business Insider, The New York Times, CNN
In 2005, Buffett was quoted as saying that it was "very difficult" to turn around "a retailer that has been slipping for a long time."
Source: Business Insider, The New York Times, CNN
The year before, Sears had merged with Kmart, and Lampert had become the chairman of the newly formed retail giant.
Source: CNN
Back in 2005, Buffett said he'd "rather look for easier things to do" than reviving underperforming retailers. In other words, in the retail business, lagging behind the pack can be tantamount to a death sentence.
Source: Business Insider, The New York Times, CNN
For its part, Sears has tried to catch up in recent years. In October 2019, the brand launched a subscription-based Amazon Prime-style membership tier.
Source: Business Insider
But not all of these experiments have ended well. Perhaps most ominously, Sears' "store of the future" format — a smaller, modernized store with a focus on boosting the customer experience — closed in April 2019, just six months after opening.
Source: Business Insider
