@dawardan That would be so much fun! But it's the money, there's only 12 stores (including one in PR), but they're so spread out, it would probably require a couple grand just to go to these places, get transportation to the stores, etc
@@JasonGravesPoser - the cost of visiting all 12 stores is something that Sears needs to invest in order to keep their brand strong. Just like they need to invest in keeping their elevators, escalators, ceilings, and other infrastructure working/appealing in order to keep paying customers coming back to the store.
This place isn't a retail store for customers. It's a Sears museum which will be preserved so that future generations can see what a Sears was once like.
You jest but these videos are gold to historians. Everyone records the important. Not the mundane. Look how crazy the Internet went with just a video of high school in the late 90s.
I remember playing the original Sonic the Hedgehog on a kiosk in our local Sears when I was 10 years old. The Green Hill Zone music is forever burned into my brain.
Big Lot's is like this, too. Big department store that's completely empty at what you would think would be "busy" hours. It almost gives me this liminal feeling of unease. Super fascinating experience.
RE: How do they still exist? I think they have figured out some great way to squeeze tax breaks or gov't handouts that they're stuffing their pockets with behind the scenes, and the physical stores are required for it@@JasonGravesPoser
Watch and jewelry repair in this day and age?!?! still huge lol we all still use analog watches to dress up nice for work, at least I do, so I often have to visit them to re-size my watches :D
i’ve been to this location in the last year. the vibe in there is so nostalgic the first thing that came out of my parents mouth was “this reminds me of the 80s”. such a cool place to see
i think the last thing i bought from Sears was like back in 91. sears was the only place that had old floppy games for sale. i used to love looking at the boxes. They also had ps2 games in 2009 lol
I was just at this Sears a few days back they shut all of them down by me and Sears was my first job! I was honestly shocked to see this store pretty well stocked for a Sears. The ones that reopened in Burbank and Union Gap have a full Toy Department and they look really good!
There are actually 13 nonclising Sears left: Here is a list of those locations: 1 Concord, California 2 Burbank, California 3 Stockton, California 4 Whittier, California 5 Orlando, Florida 6 Palm Beach Gardens, Florida 7 Miami, Florida 8 Tukwila, Washington 9 Union Gap, Washington 10 Braintree, Massachusetts 11 Jersey City, New Jersey 12 El Paso, Texas 13 San Juan, Puerto Rico. There are also 6 nonclosing Kmarts left. Here is a list of those locations: 1 Bridgehampton, New York 2 Miami, Florida 3 Tauming, Guam 4 St. Croix, U.S. Virgin Islands 5 St. Thomas, U.S. Virgin Islands (Tutu Park Mall) 6. St. THomas, U.S. Virgin Islands (Lockhart Gardens Shopping Mall) There is also a Sears Mexico, which is a separate company, and a Kmart Australia, which is also a separate company
I don't remember all the specifics, but in 1985 I had work done on my old beater car at a Sears Auto Center in Albany, NY. They made a mistake that caused the car to fail on the NYS Thruway about an hour or two east of Buffalo. I got towed out and had the car fixed by a private mechanic for approximatedly $400. He mentioned that Sears was very proud of their reputation, and I should show them the repair receipt. So, there I was, at a different Sears Auto Center with the two receipts, one not from Sears. Took about 5 minutes, no hassles, and they paid for the entire second repair that their mistake caused. Those were the days.
I used to work in sales for SAP 5 years ago and I had 7 deals going for big deals with Sears. They all fell through within 3 months after a year of nurturing them lol. Never seen the bottom drop out that fast in sales in my life.
I feel it would have been real last ditch effort if they condensed operations to what they felt was the best region of the country in these last few years. Maybe circling the wagons within a region would have allowed the opportunity to regroup and make a plan for expansion in coming years.
The Sears at the Florida Mall in Orlando, the one you're making the video of....I'm happy to see it's still open! My Mother died in 1995. I'm 38, but I remember going with her many times and enjoying this store when I was young!
The story of Sears downfall is pretty funny. The CEO was an ideologically pure free market libertarian and said that using the "free market" would help make Sears better because of innovation or something. Long story short, it turns out that having the lingerie department purchase racks from the rack department at market rate and have each department running in competition *within the same store* would end up collapsing the company.
my area had a K mart that was kinda like this. it stayed open all the way until the pandemic, when the city converted it into a local vaccination hub... (now its just empty lol) very cool video!
The last Sears left in North Carolina closed last year, coincidentally where I live in Greensboro. It’s still there as a structure because it’s grafted onto a Whole Foods
I used to work in the Auto Center near the beginning and not only were we super slow, about half our equipment worked, and at best in a busy day we would see around 10 customers. Thepay was also abysmal considering it was 2020-2021. about 6 months after I left they closed their doors and sold off whatever people wanted from the shop
RIP sears. I remember going there with my parents over 15 years ago to buy a coffee table. We no longer have it. Or was it a mattress? Hm. Guess I don't remember
There’s still a sears I irregularly visit out at the Westfield Southcenter mall in Washington State. To me, for the amount of stuff they have in there, the store absolutely does NOT have to be that big. I get that they’ve had the lease for what feels like forever to me and my lifespan, and it’s probably best to stay and bleed rather than downsize for a lease you won’t fulfill, but to me, it just shows that sears is nothing like the powerhouse it once was. What was at least an enjoyable browsing through every type of product is now just a retail graveyard. I wonder how long it will take to see them truly disappear. Will anyone be upset to see them go? Or will they have dragged on too long for anyone to care? It’s almost like they’re dead already, hanging on by liquidation rather than earning any sort of profit. Sad to watch. Case studies for years to come for students in economics though.
I guess I need to buy a plane ticket cause my local one kept saying they were ordering the replacement piece to fix my necklace and would get a hold of me when it arrived so maybe I can finally complain that I haven't yet gotten it fixed and that they closed instead of fixing it and maybe now they will fix the necklace for me
Tbh 90% of my stuff came from a sears and i would've went if stuff was on sale, sadly mine closed and the nearest one is hundreds of miles away, Sears could've been so much more and deserved better though.
There may only be 12 Sears left in the US but there are three in Puerto Rico that are thriving! The largest Puerto Rican Sears is located in the San Juan, Plaza Las Américas aka Mall of America. I was there not too long ago and it was so busy! They were advertising credit cards and payment plans options. So I guess there are 15 SEARS left?????
It just doesn’t make any sense that they’re still open with this few stores. With the cost of logistics to deliver inventory from a central location to the few locations left spread around the country, the margins have to be minimal….
Kids, I want you to put on your Sunday's best because we're going to Sears. And when you hear the music "Don't stop believing", you know this particular department store is on its last leg in an ass-kicking contest.
Story time I have about this exact Sears location: A year or so ago me and a group of friends went to the Sears in Orlando because we were just curious to see what it’d be like. We weren’t really planning on buying anything, just to look around and explore. It genuinely seemed like we were the only people there tbh. It was suuupper empty and it was like a Friday evening too. When we went in there were like 5 employees at the most, and it seemed like they were all just in a corner judging us super hard for.. walking around in a store..(?) They were also lowkey following us at a distance. And not in a “Do you need help finding anything?” kind of way, but more in a “These guys look like they’re gonna steal or break something” kind of way. My friend joked that we were being racially profiled, and so to put that to the ‘test’ we decided to go up the escalators a few times and take a few videos. Absolutely nothing harmful, but it was just to see if they’d think we’re doing something suspicious and say anything to us Barely a few minutes go by when we see 2 of the employees come over to the area, and it genuinely looked like middle school gossiping lmao. After we use the escalators to get to the 2nd floor my other friend suggests we go around a corner where they can’t see us, and that will surely make them panic and come over and say something to us, and sure enough one of the employees walked over and was just actually MAD at us for no reason He said something like “You know you guys can’t go up the escalators the wrong way right??” (Which we never did) And every time we denied what he said or asked what he meant by something, he got really defensive/evasive. It seemed like we were about to get kicked out because the employees were just that bored and had nothing better to do. To this day I still don’t entirely know what to make of their behavior or what their actual thought process was, but I think it’s hilarious that this happened in fucking Sears of all places lmao
Hi, 2 comments: First this was strangely really nostalgic and nice xmas video. Good old times. Second you said you were tall and that surprise me. I had always Thought for some reason you were around 5'10 or 5'9 so comes the curiosity. How tall are you? PS I hope you had a great Thanksgiving.
It can be done! They should create space for groceries, that would get people in, once they are in they will be tempted to have a look at the stock they have their and if its reasonable and slightly cheaper than what you find online, they will make a lot more sales,l
Jack of all trades and master of none was the lifestyle of the average guy 50 - 100 years ago where he can repair and do anything, but be professionally stuck as a blue-collar factory worker
Sad to see what is happening to Sears. All they had to do was make all their products available online and allow credit cards to be used for payment online. Which is what Amazon did. It's sad that it was right at their fingertips and let it slip away. At 2:45, I wonder how old that Def Leppard shirt is. I think I had one like that. Bought it about oh, 30 years ago.
O town is my hometown. Sad to see Sears declining like this. I remember being a small child and being pushed in a stroller around this mall. All the same, I'll never step foot in a mall unless I absolutely have to. My Amazon shopping is contributing to Sears' demise. Judging from videos posted by other RU-vidrs though, the rest of the mall seems alive. It's just this Sears that's dead.
Have to have a functioning elevator per wheelchair/disabled access law. Sad to see a place go down like this, I know it's a corporation and they've done bad stuff but objectively it's still like watching a cruise ship with a slow leak still trying to get people to buy a trip aboard.
Throw out upper management and bring someone with new ideas and money. Kmart in Australia was dying but they managed to save it by specialising in a wide range cheap clothing
This is the most disquieting walking simulator I've ever seen. The highlighted 'EA' in the location title makes me wonder how outlandish the parking microtransaction was.
I used to get my watch batteries replaced at Sears for almost 30 years. Now don't even wear a watch anymore. Retired now so no need to worry about what time it is. 😅
It’s amazing to me they even lasted as long as they did. Generic overpriced clothing, very expensive Walmart quality jewelry, the whole store smells like cheap perfume. Fluorescent lighting everywhere. Same thing with macys and jc penny’s. Nobody wants to go to a mall and deal with hordes of third world people in order to buy a Walmart quality article of clothing for double the price of target. It’s just a dead business model.
