Penney's, Sears circling the drain

Just like the malls where they were once stalwarts, JC Penney and Sears are on death watch.

This piece points out that the traditionally bricks-and-mortar retailers that have grown—Walmart, Target, and Nordstrom—have done so by greatly expanding their respective online presences, which enables them to maintain their physical footprints.

Penney’s and Sears haven’t done that. And despite an occasional glimmer, like Sears’ deal to install tires sold on Amazon.com, it’s probably too late. (I mean, really—don’t you think Sears is in love, but it’s a booty call for Amazon?)

I’ve previously remembered Sears fondly, and a small part of me misses having one close by now. But I wasn’t doing business with Sears at anywhere near a sustainment level. I’d guess I spend more on Amazon in a month than I do in Sears in three years. That’s true about far too many folks to stop the death spiral.

The day is coming when we will tell our grandchildren of ubiquitous and massive indoor shopping malls, anchored by expansive department stores at which you could comprehensively outfit every room in your home, and they will have no frame of reference for such a thing. I don’t know that the idea will have the same quaintness as, say, the notion of purchasing and consuming an ice cream soda at a drugstore, but I do know it will be similarly lost to the past.

This is not a full-throated lament. Despite my inherently conservative nature about some things, I can’t get to sad for this. I stop somewhere around slightly wistful.

Penney’s, Sears circling the drain

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