Well, we will see, if Sears goes out of business.
I recall how Montgomery Ward, which had been around for over a century, went out of business.
There are smaller retailers such as Radio Shack which went away as well.
Many local department stores, such as Marshall Field in Chicago, The Broadway in southern California, Woodward and Lothrop in the Washington DC area, found the enviroment had changed. Some of these were merged into the company which owns Macy’s.
At one time, those local department stores were solid local institutions, and it would have been unthinkable that they would ever not be there.
Sears may well join the ranks of retailers where we say, whatever happened to them?
The Detroit Area had a department store chain called Federals. In the late 1970’s, they started to fail and a financial savior came in and bought the chain. He was a very charismatic and flamboyant businessman named Stephen West.
There were lots of news articles and TV interviews with him and everything he was going to do to save the iconic chain.
Suddenly, one night a tragic fire flatted one of the stores. How sad.
A couple months later, coincidentally, there was another fire.
I tried chasing one on my bike. The entire sky was black. I rode 2-3 miles and turned back. The store was about 7 miles from home.
By the third one, it was apparent what was going on and Stephen West faded away. The chain soon liquidated.