Business & Personal Finance

(image courtesy of Wikipedia)

In early 2018, after 65 years in business, the remaining Sears Canada stores will close their doors for good. Sears started off in a partnership in 1952 with Canadian department store chain Simpsons Limited in Toronto as a mail order business. This move helped Simpsons expand its mail-order business and allowed Sears to open its first store in Stratford, Ontario in 1952 under the Simpsons-Sears banner. A second location in Kamploops, B.C. opened in 1953, followed by a third store in Vancouver in 1954. After that, numerous Simpson-Sears stores began opening across the country.

After the Hudson's Bay Company acquired Simpsons in 1978, the Simpsons-Sears partnership was dissolved and all stores became solely owned by Sears.

In 1984, the company formally changed its name to Sears Canada and launched its e-commerce website in 1998, becoming one of the first Canadian retailers to have an online retail store. In 1999, it bought the iconic bankrupted chain, Eaton's, including all the flagship stores and gradually converted them to Sears stores.

What seemed initially like a success story, Sears' fortunes seemed to change quite quickly when, in 2009, it cut 300 jobs and then began to sell off leases to its stores in prime locations. When the company's CEO Calvin McDonald abruptly stepped down in 2011, it began to appear that all was not well with the retailer. Despite this, Sears Canada rebranded its logo for the first time in 32 years in 2016 by adding a maple leaf. The rebranding failed.

On June 22, 2017, the retailer was granted court protection from creditors and announced plans to close 59 locations across the country. Then, on October 10, after failing to find a buyer, Sears Canada began seeking court approval to  liquidate its remaining stores.

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