SEARS Closing - reflections and how it shaped Metrotown today

Sun Setting on Sears

As I was walking out of the mall and on my way home, the rainy skies cleared up and glowed with a hint of purple as the sun began to set. Looking up, I saw a huge "STORE CLOSING" sign hanging beside the infamous SEARS logo and the symbolism of the sun setting on SEARS. Although it may not seem significant to the average person, to me, the closing of SEARS (or the sun setting on SEARS) have some deep meanings.

2nd last day of Sears.

   For starters, my blog is all about food, travelling and experiences (hence Vantraveller). However, in many places I travel to, retail and local stores are often associated with the local culture. This SEARS in particular is significant because it was here even before Metrotown was built.  SEARS helped shape what is now Metrotown. SEARS has been around even before I was even born. Metrotown used to be an area that people would travel through if they were commuting from Downtown to New Westminster or the surburbs. This was initially what drove the market here so SEARS and other places like Kelly-Douglas were built. This was in the 50's and at the time, this area known as Metrotown today was only populated by no more than a few thousand people. This was also the golden era of department stores and SEARS was one of the first to be in this area. It wasn't until the 80's that the current shopping mall of Metrotown was built and the actual department store got incorporated into the mall. However, it can be argued that SEARS was what helped shape modern day Metrotown only to be driven out by both a failing business and a demand for real estate. The irony being that this SEARS was one of the places that drove the demand here to begin with. More information can be found here: history of Metrotown.

Everything for 90% off

   Because of how long SEARS have been here, it has also helped shape this community. Personally, It was a place that my family visited to buy our couch (that we still use today) 17 years ago. It was a place that I would go and check out on boxing day or when they had clearances because sometimes the deals here were actually good. There used to be a diner in this location (now the Concord Pacific Show room). There also used to be a barber, optometrist and tailor here. Over the years, all of these businesses closed and moved as the core department store business stayed.
   After reflecting, I decided to enter SEARS for one last peek before they closed for good. Upon walking in, everything was already taken apart. It seemed like everything that was not attached to the building was for sale. From fixtures to office equipment (like binders, really old office supplies and more) to mannequins and more were all on sale. There were people everywhere trying to salvage what they can for a cheap bargain (it sort of reminds me of how Ray salvaged parts on Jakku... except the SEARS edition).  Personally, I would not buy any of the things because most of it is not useful to me.  However, walking around the place, you can last ditch efforts made by SEARS to restart sales. 

Sears branded pens

  This is the interesting part. SEARS, before going out of business seemed to have tried to go the Winner's direction. You can see from some of the products being liquidated that they were all SEARS banded things. From Kenmore vacuum cleaners (they store branded it "SEARS" ) to stationary (also store branded "SEARS") to face masks (YES... face masks that was SEARS branded), you can tell that they were trying to reduce the costs by using their own brands and selling lower end products in attempt to bring customers back to the store. Personally, I thought this would have been a good move if they did this much earlier on in the game when people like Amazon were just started. Doing it so late in the game (it's practically a rebranding) seemed to be unwise as something such as re-branding usually take a while for the consumers to click in and finally buy it.

Mannequins anyone?

    Further more, there are other elements at play such as poor management (they switched 7 CEO's in a short time period before they closed down), rise of competition such as Amazon (or e-commerce in general- they had an online store too, but I don't think marketing was executed on it too well) and a dwindling base of loyal shoppers (I find the SEARS customer base tend to be older in demographic) and also the high cost of having brick and mortar stores. There are probably more problems but overall, you can say that it was a multi-faced problem that caused the overall store to close down. That said, during its golden days, SEARS pioneered many things such as the print catalog (this did wonders and may companies such as IKEA still uses this and does it well).
So what now? Since the SEARS lot is not actually part of Metrotown, there are talks about building more condos here and changing Metrotown into a Yaletown style location (More info here). However the biggest take-away from it all (or take-aways) is witnessing the change of the skyline of a city; where this SEARS location helped shape the local community to be booted out by it. Furthermore, it is also the witnessing of how the retail climate is changing and how difficult it is to run a brick and mortar store and perhaps the need to change with time or get booted out. What do you think? Is change good?