Sears Failure Essay

The brand reputation of both Sears and Kmart has been hurt due to the decline of Sears Holdings. People are now expecting for Sears and Kmart to go bankrupt within a short time. Reported by Peterson (2017), “Wall Street analysts have made the same prediction every year for nearly the last decade: Sears is imminently going bankrupt.” Whenever Sears Holdings is brought to topic, statements are made about the financial trouble they are in and about the number of stores that the company is closing. Both Sears and Kmart have been reducing the number of stores they operate at an alarming rate to reduce expenses and eliminate unprofitable stores, and the public has seen the stock price of Sears Holdings drop from 2007 all-time highs due to the recession. Then from the recession it never fully recovered. More recently, the stock price then collapsed from the stabilized point it was in 2015 to the about three dollars per share price it currently has. Everybody can see that Sears Holdings is in trouble. The talk about its “imminent bankruptcy” looms over Sears Holding’s head.

Sears Holdings has gained this new reputation for this lack of recovery after the Great Recession. The Great Recession also made it where Sears and Kmart were slow to keep their stores renovated and not outdated. Sears Holdings thus gained this new reputation of being outdated or rundown, and all due to financial stresses and poor decisions by management to not keep stores updated. The old reputations of the glory days of Sears and Kmart are gone. The Sears Holdings companies brand name reputations have been replaced with reputations that work against them and hold a negative opinion. This will be a competitive disadvantage for as long as Sears Holdings inability to show that bankruptcy is not looming at every turn. Also, to clean up their brand image updating their stores must be a