Long-time Sears’ customers fear store closure in Charlottetown
Jeannette MacEwen has been a Sears shopper for many, many years.
Word of the iconic Canadian store facing a major struggle to survive concerns the native Islander who lives in Fredericton, N.B., but summers in St. Peters Harbour.
“I’ve been shopping at Sears as long as I can remember,’’ says the 71-year-old MacEwen. “I don’t know where I’m going to shop.’’
The large Sears department store in Charlottetown is not among the main stores that are slated to close across Canada. Sears Canada says it will close 20 full-line locations, plus 15 Sears Home stores, 10 Sears outlet stores and 14 Sears Hometown locations.
The announcement came after the company was granted temporary court protection from creditors Thursday under the Companies’ Creditors Arrangement Act.
The struggling retailer has piled up losses and seen its stock dive, losing more than 80 per cent of its value in the last year, despite efforts to reinvent itself at a time when more Canadians are shirking bricksand-mortar in favour of online shopping.
P.E.I. consumers voiced concern over Sears’ uncertain future.
“It is sad, it is sad,’’ says Elizabeth Stewart, 78, of Charlottetown.
“But if you can’t make money at something, you can’t stay open.’’
Stewart says she has been shopping at Sears since it opened in 2005 in Charlottetown at the corner of the Malpeque Road and the Charlottetown bypass.
“It pretty well has got everything you need,’’ she says.
“If it closes its going to be a big loss to seniors.’’
Sadie Bell, 77, of Bell River says she has shopped at Sears stores since she was a child.
“It’s awesome,’’ she says. “You can always get something on sale.’’ MacEwen shops at Sears once or twice a week because she finds the prices and the quality good.
Life without Sears is difficult for her to envision.
“It’s very disturbing,’’ she says.
“You just don’t know where you’ll shop.’’
The Sears store in Summerside closed early in 2016.
The fate of the Charlottetown store remains unknown for the time being.