Loss of Sears jobs another blow to city

With Sears scheduled to close its local department store by the end of the year, Peterborough faces the loss of two former pillars of its business community at the same time.

The Sears Canada liquidation announcement came just weeks after General Electric said its large motors operation in Peterborough will close next summer.

The Sears decision is painful. Nearly 90 people will lose their jobs and Lansdowne Place mall will no longer have a major department store anchoring one end of its retail complex.

But the comparison with GE Peterborough ends at “former pillars.”

Losing GE is a much harder blow. Its engineering division and former nuclear division will remain but 358 motors workers will be unemployed.

The total job hit at Sears will be 87, the majority part-time.

As well, GE’s decision was unexpected. The company had invested heavily here over the past five years on the belief the motors plant would operate for years to come.

Sears Canada has been under bankruptcy protection and closing stores since early this year, the result of a long slide into near redundancy.

One lesson is that all retailers, big and small, need to fight a two-front battle to stay relevant.

On one front, retail stores have to be kept fresh and vibrant and staff need to be welltrained. When shopping online from home is simple people need an attractive incentive to do otherwise.

On the other, traditional retailers also need a well-designed, user-friendly site for e-shoppers.

Sears fell behind on both fronts. It may have gone the way of Eaton’s anyway but failure to invest in its stores and promote its on-line shopping option sealed its fate.

A market for bricks-and-mortar retailers still exists. Statistics Canada says e-commerce accounted for 3.4 per cent of sales last year compared with 96.6 per cent for traditional stores.

But those numbers are changing fast. Sales growth was much stronger for e-commerce and that trend is accelerating. Amazon leads the e-commerce revolution and its Canadian presence will continue to grow.

The Peterborough Sears store will close by the end of the year. What will replace it?

Something, according to two experienced local commercial realtors. Sears Canada owns the building and seven acres of parking. Its location next to a successful regional mall should draw buyers.

Whether it will fill up with new retailers is an unknown.

The former Eaton’s at Peterborough Square was converted to other uses. Office space or even apartments or condos might be an option, although the city’s Official Plan requires that large offices be downtown.

Whatever the result, Peterborough will lose another familiar landmark. Change is constant, incremental and unavoidable. The trick is to learn from it and move forward, not back.