Croaking of Sears sounds like croaking of chains

So. Farewell then, Sears Canada. It would seem that you are reaching your end.

But you had been an invalid for years, lying in your brown Palladium IV Leather-Look Manual Recliner with Storage @ $999.99 in your polyester fleece Ottawa Senators Adult Slanket @ $29.99 and doing nothing helpful as your business model withered.

Sears Canada is closing 59 of its 255 stores, including 20 large department stores, and laying off 2,900 of its staff of 17,000 to stay afloat as it tries to sell the business. It is now in court protection.

The job losses are tragic but I always wonder why nobody saw the fort collapsing. To be honest, it’s a lot like journalism. Why does Banana Republic not steam its wrinkled clothing? Why is Toronto’s Uniqlo so Sears-like when Paris Uniqlos are gorgeous? Why does Holt Renfrew have horrible washrooms and so little stock? Why does Canadian Tire sell cheap plastic buckets when the local Home Hardware sells metal ones that will last 30 years?

On the other hand, why does Nordstrom have in-store cafés and friendly staff? Why are Club Monaco’s men’s clothes so good, especially the coats? And Canada should have France’s BHV, the best hardware store I’ve ever visited that also sells stationery, purses and lingerie. (Why? Because it feels like it.) But that would be like asking why the Eaton Centre doesn’t have a hardware store. I have no idea.

I have grown to dislike Zara because people buy madly there, instead of choosing things they will love and keep. The fabrics feel waxy. I’m sick of lyocell, polyester, viscose and rayon, the last in particular being harmful to forests. And the lungs of factory workers.

In the West, shoppers are spoiled for choice. But a winnowing has begun among American chains, a cycle of life. Gap was at the top of its game but it’s shabby now. J. Crew is fading.

Chains decline when owners take their eye off the ball. But brick-and-mortar stores decline when shopping becomes unpleasant, when malls die, and when shoppers run out of money, as they did most recently in 2008. Now people short of major money spend their spare cash on meals and vacations, experiences rather than things.

And is the department store dead? Not if it’s central to an area dense with shoppers, surrounded by transit, in a city where we shelter from winter. Malls are awful but they work, as do Eaton Centre and Yorkdale.

Online shopping, well, when it’s good, it’s very, very good, but when it’s bad, it’s horrid. It works for condo-dwellers with a concierge. One browses online but by relentlessly clicking rather than genuine browsing. I can buy my favourite product, a mouldable glue called Sugru, on Amazon now, but otherwise it’s books from Amazon.co.uk and not much else.

If I’m a leading indicator — and I am — Amazon doesn’t sell many books in Canada, at least not to me. Most are available “in 3 to 5 weeks,” which means never. Remember, Amazon doesn’t care what it delivers, though expensive things are favoured. Again as in newspapers, everything is just content.

I can see why it bought Whole Foods, as a delivery hub for dense urbanity. Or even better — for delivery is the fishbone that Amazon chokes on — Whole Foods can be the place where you pick up your Amazon goods, thus letting Amazon out of the expensive, messy, annoying delivery business until drones and driverless cars are a thing.

Tastes change, so shopping changes. Retailers are always looking for that elusive thing, economies of scale, which is why small chains expand too quickly and go under. Each retailer is buffeted by changes in the economy, but individually each has a strength and a weak link.

Sears’ strength was reliability, its weakness its cheap goods that other stores sold more cheaply. Ikea has sanded through wood and it is now too cheap. Billy bookcases have cardboard backs that fall off, Ribba photo frames have no functional hooks (to hang them, I use Sugru), and I can only type “Liatorp” with a shudder and a call for a stiff drink.

Everyone is shaving costs now, not just retailers. Airlines cut an inch of seat here, a free drink there and customers are left with few enticements.

In the end, Sears Canada had very little to offer. And one day we may say the same of Amazon.

hmallick@thestar.ca