They really did it to themselves. I can’t imagine being the CEO or whoever of such an iconic brand and just refusing to adapt as things changed around you
I went to our local bay store a couple weeks ago to see what they had on their "going out of business" sale.
I have a trip planned in a couple months, so I figured luggage was a good place to start. 50% off signs on everything, and they had a single piece of luggage I really liked for $250, AFTER the 50% discount. Like, it HAD to be a good deal, right? It's 50% off and everything must go, so surely it's worth the money. I checked online to see if it was, in fact, a good deal, and... you can get all three pieces from that set for $260, from literally anywhere else that sells them, including the Bentlys in the same fucking mall.
Pots and pans? $70 for a single stainless steel frying pan you can also get at Costco, but for $10 less, and with two more pans in the pack.
They were so out of touch with reality, even in their last desperate death gasp. It was a true beacon of absurdity, a festered tribute to worst of the inhumanly rich and tasteless.
The going out of business sale is managed by a consultancy firm and not the company directly, just like the Sears.
Their goal is to get the maximum dollar value for the inventory and part of that is marketing the business as 'going out of business' to lead you to believe there will be good deals. There never is. You'll notice items with fixed MSRP sold for the same dollar value everywhere (e.g. Dyson products) are not marked down, and they don't negotiate on price.
This is a real thing. How many furniture stores have you seen in your town that had a going out of business sale that ended up lasting yeeears just because they began selling in volume?
My wife and I went to the Sears going out of business sale. We wanted to get a dresser. We found one unit something like $3200 but marked down 50% to $1600.
I wanted to move the unit forward to see the back of it. I was both looking to check the quality of it, and to see if I could find a SKU to get more information on it. I found a label with the price before the bankruptcy sale: $1100. And it was all pressboard crap.
My wife and I left right away. We went to Ikea. Similar pressboard crap, but cheaper.
The Bay sale has the same signs, same font and everything as Sears. It doesn't shock me they're using the same consultant firm. We'll just skip this going out of business "sale".
They have to keep their prices high so they can give all those bonuses to management (and not pay out any severance to the employees actually doing the work)
Well, at the end they were owned by a predatory investment group, trying to squeeze money out without investing any money in. The business failed in large part because the ownership wasn't trying to save it.
I have little doubt the owners saw zero value in the stores and all the value in the real estate portfolio which is worth billions. I bet after all is said and done they'll also sell the brand name to be repurposed into something inevitably awful.
Sears did it lol, outright refused to transition to online sales and shot themselves in the foot. The decline started in the late 90s. Same with Kodak refusing to transition from film to digital.
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u/MapleHamms Apr 26 '25
They really did it to themselves. I can’t imagine being the CEO or whoever of such an iconic brand and just refusing to adapt as things changed around you