Sears, Kmart, and Mark A. Cohen

It recently came to my attention that Sears closed what was the last remaining department store in my home state Michigan.

The news of the closure came in July. 

The closure, if I correctly recall, was in August.

This store was located in Westland, the state’s 10th largest city (a population just under 100,000) approximately 15 miles west of Detroit.

I turned 50 last month. I grew up shopping at department stores for clothing. So, the decline in department stores is personally sad to me. I feel for the stores’s employees—especially those who had careers working in them. (I briefly worked at both stores.) Many of them were able to have middle-class incomes, with benefits, and with pensions. Some, depending on the timeline of their lifetime, are still alive and getting to experience them. And getting to experience fears of losing them.

In politics, the topic of realignment comes up. Realigning changes in such things like voting patterns. Realigning periods favorable for one of the U.S.’s two major political parties. But there is also realignment in life. How life has realigned here in the U.S. How people’s livelihoods have been realigning—which, of course, speaks to the declining middle class. The topic of realignment also applies to how we use television. And, given this week’s blog topic, it includes how we shop.

Kmart bought Sears. This goes back to 2004. There are people who thought it was the other way. Eddie Lampert, who made the purchase, was trying to give the impression he would be the savior. (Report: Kmart to acquire Sears in $11 billion deal.) But, I think the stores—and then you can add other well-recognized names also in dire shape—were not able and/or willing to adapt to a realignment in life in the U.S. And they—especially Sears and Kmart—are on the way to their graves. (Side note: In May, I received a letter from Sears informing me I must use my Sears department store credit card by June 30—or the account would become closed. I went ahead and let that deadline pass.) 

Last Friday [September 3, 2021], Sears Holdings Corporation (SHLDQ) closed the day at $0.41 per share. Combined existing stores, effective August 25, 2021, are just under 50. Nationwide. (Sources: How Many Sears Stores Are Left? and How Many Kmart Stores Are Left?) From one video—and you can find plenty of them on YouTube—not only did Sears close all its department stores in Michigan but in all of the midwest. (From How Many Sears Stores Are Left? one listed location is in Illinois; but, it may not be a department store.) Well, the midwest consists of Top 10 populous states Illinois (which ranks No. 6), Ohio (No. 7), and Michigan (No. 10). Approximately 53 to 54 percent of the nation’s people live in a Top 10 state. The last remaining Michigan Kmart store is in the city of Marshall, which is near I–69, which one may access if, say, traveling from Michigan to go south into neighboring Indiana. It is more than 50 miles and approximately 100 miles west of Ann Arbor and Detroit.

Below are videos which feature Mark A. Cohen. He had experience serving as Chairman/CEO of Sears Canada Inc. He was also Chief Marketing Officer and president of Softlines of Sears Roebuck & Co. Cohen is now a professor at Columbia University’s Graduate School of Business since 2006. He is also its current director of Retail Studies. In these videos—which were published to YouTube on 04.28.2017, 10.15.2018, 01.08.2019, and 12.28.2020—Cohen comments not only on the outlooks for Sears and Kmart, and for department stores and malls, but he also articulates how and why.