Sears shuts California stores after revival efforts fall short

Daily Mail​

a day ago

Sears' once-mighty empire is set to shrink even further as it shuts another store in California. The closure of the Burbank store in Los Angeles on August 31 will leave just six Sears stores in the US, down from more than 3,500 two decades ago.
The Burbank store has struggled with low shopper numbers since opening in 2023. Soon after it opened, visitors branded it the 'saddest thing I've ever seen' with empty shelves and stained carpet. News of the closure comes as liquidation sales continue at another nearby Sears in Whittier, a city about 20 miles south-east of LA. It will close Saturday after nearly three decades.
Business began crumbling in 2010, and by 2017, Searshad only only 695 locations. The vast majority have now shuttered since the company filed for bankruptcy in October 2018.
Sears was on the brink of closing all its stores for good before CEO Eddie Lampert (pictured) submitted a last-minute bid valued at $4.4 billion in 2018. He upped the bid to $5.2 billion and saved 400 stores. Over the past year, Sears closed its last Washington store, shuttered its only remaining New York location. 'It's a landmark, it's something you grew up with, it's something you could trust,' Barbie Talamante, a former Sears staffer, said of the closure in Tukwila, a city ten miles south of Seattle, WA.
Discount stores and big box retailers like Walmart have siphoned off Sears' customers over the last several years. Sears is not the only retailer in danger of closing for good after years of declining customers and sales.
JCPenney has also been under fires. In 2020, it closed 30 percent of its stores after filing for bankruptcy. The chain had been operating 846 stores before the pandemic caused severe financial damage. It shuttered seven stores in May, and will lay off hundreds of staffers by closing a warehouse in Texas.