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Here is one major reason moderately priced department stores like Sears, JC Penny, and Macys are getting beat up. This mostly affects middle class families, not so much the affluent. The middle class in the US has been shrinking for decades now...
Many malls with more upscale retailers and anchors (and customer bases), like Nordstrom and Neiman Marcus are booming. Many of these malls even have a more "upscale" selection at their Macys stores. Also, outlet malls seem to be doing well and are popular with vacationers and road trip crowds. It goes to show that the wealthy are doing quite well in this economy. Meanwhile the value-conscious costumer base is expanding, so the malls that can't go upscale get Targets, Wal Marts, and Marshalls, or shut down entirely.
what would happen if sear or jc penny failed. nothing, nobody would notice
A lot of malls are partly anchored by Sears and JCP stores. If they are gone, then those malls will likely go down with them because no one wants to shop or open a business at a mall with a huge vacant space.
When The Broadway (was it The Broadway?) went under, Macy's bought their spaces and turned them into Macy's. So, quite a few malls now have two Macy's. That's what happened in SoCal, at least.
I don't think any department store company would be able to step in like what Macy's did when/if Sears or JCP shut down.
The guys who bought both of these companies did so when real estate prices were rising. They never thought they were going to be in the retail business. The objective was buy the companies, flip out the retail parts, sell off the real estate, and get rich quick.
Now, they find themselves saddled with retail operations that they know nothing about, and real estate that can't be sold for anything near to the prices they paid. ( I don't shop in these places, but it seems to me that Wal-Mart, JCP, Sears/KMart, Target, Kohls and a host of regionals are all competing for basically the same dollars and many, if not all, are struggling (Wal_Mart, the industry leader, excepted).
So, the stores die, the real estate withers, and yes, ultimately they will make great homeless shelters as long as the government can afford to heat them.
Do we really think that JcPenney's and Sear's are going to hold on for much longer? Sear's maybe, but JcPenney's is losing to Macy's and Dillards. And most malls won't be able survive if they lose more department stores.
I wouldn't be surprised if JcPenney's folds or mass closes many stores. Many of the middle class and working class cities I know of have more ppl prefer shopping at cheaper strip malls with Wal-Mart, Target, Ross, etc than enclosed mall with dept stores and speciality stores.
Malls seem to be becoming a shopping amenity for wealthier communities, especially outlet malls and lifestyle centers that meet their niche.
I think it's important cities have a healthy mix of suburban and urban shopping. Cities need to have diversity and have a little bit of everything, so to raise competition and get every consumer.
Ask for myself, living in a quiet suburban neighborhood is a must and i want the suburban works. Now, I'm ok if where I live has a downtown. I have friends who love downtowns and don't like suburbia. We equally hang out in each.
I also hear that enclosed malls with movie theaters are attracting the wrong crowd into enclosed malls. This only further detracts consumers to come to enclosed malls in working class communities, and if you notice, it's usually working class communities that have enclosed malls with movie theaters inside the mall.
Is it that Sears & JCPenney dying will sound another couple of death bells for malls... or is it that the gradual death of currently-moribund malls is bringing down Sears & JCPenney?
Honestly, I find no reason to shop at Sears or JCPenney. I don't like Wal-Mart but they generally carry the same stuff for better prices. I've been doing a good bit of shopping at K-Mart recently but that's only because my new home town has a K-Mart and no other department store. I'll seek out a Wal-Mart. I won't seek out a Sears. When I think of Sears & JCPenney, I think of "overpriced stores that require me to deal with a mall". I hate malls. The mall is so 1996, when I needed a place to go for a date. "Hey, ya wanna go to the mall on Friday?" When your date shares your last name and wears the ring you put on her finger, there's no reason to go to the mall unless it's the only place where you can find a specialty store you need. Similarly, there's no good reason to go to Sears or JCPenney. That 48" TV is for sale at Wal-Mart for 15% less. No, I don't want your stupid rewards program - just drop your prices like Wal-Mart does... or sell some better-quality stuff so that you're not just an overpriced Wal-Mart. I'd seek out places like Sears if they did a better job of stocking things I really want to buy, such as American-made goods... but none of these places ever do.
So what'll happen to malls if Sears and JCPenney go belly-up? They'll probably die. However, it seems an inevitable symbiotic death. If Sears & JCPenney die, it's probably because the malls were dying. If the malls die, it's probably because Sears & JCPenney were dying.
Of course, I can always hold out for every shopping mall to replace its dead Sears and/or JCPenney with a COOL anchor store like Guitar Center, Cabela's, Gander Mountain, Bass Pro Shops, Tractor Supply, Camping World, etc. That'd bring me back into mall territory.
but the shareholders of KMart received Sears holdings stock, which is the "new" company. Lampert owned KMart, and was the largest shareholder of Sears at the time.
It is semantics.
Regardless, the poster to whom I responded was asking about Sears and JCP...which are both controlled by hedge funds/investors whose goals was to make a killing in real estate. Instead, they are getting killed in retail, and own real estate which is under water.
Sears in in much worse shape than JC Penney is; start with dirty and cluttered stores saddled with tons of third rate merchandise starting (Sylvania big screen TVs for example), and go on from there.
Their real estate holdings in many cases are a lot valuable than many of their stores are, and after spinning off Lands End a few years ago, don't be surprised if they try to spin off their Auto Service centers, if they haven't done so already.
Put it another way, WalMart, Target, Kohls and Kmart all turned 50 years old in 2012, but the first three are all doing a heck of a lot better than Kmart is.
The decline of Sears/Penney over the past 30 years or so mirrors the fall of the middle class.
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