From the very moment that news broke about K-Mart's owner buying and purchasing SEAR's Roebuck and Company I felt that the death Nell was sounding for all SEAR's stores. This was a man that either had good intentions but little to no experience or knowledge in making retail work. Not only was SEAR's suffering from online competition but SEAR's suffered from it's own self inflicted problems brought on by decisions that were made in order to try and compete with Online and emerging retail trends such as open malls etc.
SEAR's was failing due to many things such as reduced "motivated and experienced" workforce meaning much fewer number of employees to help customers. SEAR's was also, mostly, located in Enclosed Malls that themselves were seeing unprecedented declines in the American retail market and Sears as one of the anchor stores was tied to the same sinking ship at a time when Sears was being hit on multiple fronts.
Now the only question, surrounding Sears and K-Mart is how long till they enter total obscurity and become only a memory. K-Mart will always be a story about how they failed to compete against WalMart. WalMart, starting out, was always smaller with less inventory than K-Mart who was everywhere and growing what with their unannounced "blue-light" savings specials that often brought people in to shop. Walmart knew they were smaller and fighting for market share but they competed in areas that K-Mart was grossly deficient in.
Walmart's customer service was exceptional and their return policy was such that they would take back anything for any reason. It was so liberal that it was abused often but it brought in customers who felt better about buying form WalMart where they could return what they got for whatever reason, than their aggravation from dealing with K-Mart's stingy return policy and dealing with their countless numbers of rude and non-caring employees. Then WalMart made the decision to build, construct, and open Supercenters where multiple shopping needs could be accomplished with one trip to one store.
Ironically, today, WalMart, from it's lofty position on top of the hill, is facing similar threats from online but also from a much growing number of much smaller stores such as Dollar Tree and specifically Dollar General stores. Dollar General Stores is attempting to knock off the big guy (WalMart) with huge numbers of stores such that people can make a short, quick, trip, have great parking options and be able to get in and get out quick with what they want.
K-Mart, and Sear's by association, was destined to fail and close because they had no one in leadership or ownership with any clue as how to succeed in the Retail market. Obstacles became permanent blocks to business due to the owner not caring or knowing about how the retail market works and why Sear's was so successful for years.
It's sad to see so many employees lose their jobs and sadder to see such a major established company, like Sears, to fall on such hard times. As one anchor store of most malls Sear's was unable to help slow the demise of the traditional enclosed shopping mall but rather could be said to potentially contribute to the demise that many feel was eventual.