Easy to judge in hindsight, but I remember I was looking for a Craftsman tool back in the 90s.
What stuck with me was that the local store didn’t have it and when I went online, I realized that that the web site was worse than useless for either finding inventory in other stores or even basic information on store hours.
About that same time, I stopped being a loyal Sears customer and began looking elsewhere.
Well, I 've got hind sight back to the early 50's when the releases of the Sears catalogues were a big event, the big wish book for the entire family.
In the 1950s the 3 brick and mortar stores in Washington DC I recall weren't that big and on the edges of retail districts. That all changed with the advent of of shopping centers built for the fast growing suburban areas. At first there were the open air malls mimicking an urban street with huge parking areas. The planning was based on build to suit shells for the big anchor stores., with small retailers between at least 2 anchor stores at the far ends. Sears expansion really started in that era. By the end of the 60s early 70s the gold rush of shopping centers pretty much reached a saturation point. I worked for an arch/engin firm in NYC, that was cranking out shell structure for Macy's, Gimbels, Wanamaker, Sears, and Lord and Taylor stores. 90 days from contract to ground breaking. All the over time we could handle, function of the cost of money.
We could see that the boom was over as markets became saturated. That's when Sears should have been watching and adjusting marketing and expansion plans. By then, they were driven by shopping center sales and the catalogue end languished and shriveled. No more mass mailings of NYC telephone book size catalogues. Just smaller catalogues with fewer offerings. Why wait for delivery in pre-FEDEX times, when a short drive could acquire the goods same day.
Sears and other stores were offered reduced leases by mall developers to remain, being the linch pins of viabilty or so they thought. This was two decades plus before the computer explosion and beginnings of the internet. The oil embargo didn't help mall traffic either. That's what I saw, the transition from shopping at Sears being a family event, moms and daughters in clothes and household sections, dads and lads in tools and sporting goods, to the meh mall stores. Brand loyalty kept Sears going well past the moment when they could have altered course. Adapt or die, they and others didn't make wise choices, the gravy train was forever...