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communications products, and legal Sears, Roebuck and Co. began in 1893 as
scandals like accounting fraud, a mail-order service. Founders Richard
MCI spiraled and Verizon acquired W. Sears and Alvah C. Roebuck sold
the company in 2006. fine jewelry and clothing via intricate
catalogs with hand-drawn artwork and
It’s difficult to unpack what exactly a generous selection. Their willingness
went wrong with MCI. It came about in to ship fashion goods to distant rural
an environment with rapidly changing areas that didn’t have access to Main
technology, and its once revolutionary Street clothing stores and jewelers soon
developments like long-distance projected Sears into stellar success.
communications now seem all but
unimpressive. Overall, MCI may have Though a failure to evolve eventually led
failed to keep up with competitors’ to Sears’ twenty-first-century demise,
nascent technologies—and a $500 million the company succeeded through
fraud lawsuit did little to bolster consumer several transformations throughout its
confidence or MCI’s bottom line. history. A series of brilliant owners and
executives guided Sears past economic
SEARS hardship, founded the company’s flagship

The rise and fall of Sears is one of department store, and expanded its product
America’s finest examples of a seemingly line to include appliances and mail-order
untouchable business crumbling under modular homes. In fact, Sears expanded
the weight of its own legacy. Once the into subsidiary services that survive to
largest and most powerful retailer in the this day, including Allstate insurance and
world, Sears is now known for the ghostly the Discover credit card. At its peak, Sears
stains where its letters once hung on an reported billions of dollars in profits. rewards program was a failure—it In the eyes of most of the world,
empty side of the local shopping mall. just couldn’t keep up with online Sears is a retailer of the past.
But in the early 2010s, various challenges retail outlets like eBay and Amazon. Some may reflect fondly on their Take Reflect on how your
For older generations, this historic plagued the company. Walmart’s erstwhile and now-ironic slogan, Action organization could
keep up with the
cultural staple may bring several unbeatable prices unseated them as Between 2010 and 2017, Sears’ “Sears has everything,” or the latest economic
images to mind: perhaps the Sears America’s leading retailer, and burgeoning retail sales plummeted by bygone experience of sifting challenges. How
are you responding
Tower in Chicago, where the company’s consumer preferences for online shopping $26 billion. Then, in 2018, Sears through their selection at the local to consumer
headquarters perched high above challenged brick-and-mortar retail. Under made headlines when it filed for mall. And yet public nostalgia demand? Could
your immediate
the metropolitan skyline, or the mail- CEO Eddie Lampert, underperforming Chapter 11 bankruptcy. By 2022, would be poor consolation to competitors be
order catalog that families across the stores were ordered to close, controversial only about twenty stores remained Sears’ final executives; they would offering new
nation awaited like a lost pet returning staffing cuts led to internal discord, open, each of which operates likely prefer to hold a spot on products or services
to outpace you?
home to scratch at the front door. and the dated Shop Your Way in-store under independent franchisees. the Fortune 500 in 2023. n

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