page_title: Sears
section_title: 1950–1999
hierarchical_section_title: Sears / Early history / 20th century / 1950–1999
caption_attribution_description: The Sears Tower, as seen from the Chicago lakeshore southeast of the Tower
context_page_description: Sears, Roebuck and Co., commonly known as Sears, is an American chain of department stores founded by Richard Warren Sears and Alvah Curtis Roebuck in 1893, and was reincorporated by Richard Sears and Julius Rosenwald in 1906. Formerly based at the Sears Tower in Chicago and currently headquartered in Hoffman Estates, Illinois, the operation began as a mail ordering catalog company and began opening retail locations in 1925. The first location was in Chicago, Illinois. In 2005, the company was bought by the management of the American big box chain Kmart, which formed Sears Holdings upon completion of the merger.
  Through the 1980s, Sears was the largest retailer in the United States; Walmart and Kmart surpassed Sears in sales in 1990. In 2018, Sears was the 31st-largest retailer in the United States. After several years of declining sales, Sears' parent company filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy on October 15, 2018. Sears announced on January 16, 2019, that it had won its bankruptcy auction and would shrink and remain open with 425 stores, including 223 Sears stores.
context_section_description: From the 1920s to the 1950s, Sears built many urban department stores in the U.S., Canada, and Mexico (apart from, but not far from, existing central business districts), and they overshadowed the mail-order business. Starting in the 1950s, the company expanded into suburban markets and malls in the 1960s and 1970s. In 1959, it had formed the Homart Development Company for developing malls. Many of the company's stores have undergone major renovations or replacement since the 1980s. Sears began to diversify in the 1930s, creating Allstate Insurance Company in 1931 and placing Allstate representatives in its stores in 1934. Over the decades it established major national brands, such as Kenmore, Craftsman, DieHard, Silvertone, Supertone, and Toughskins. The company became a conglomerate during the mid-20th century, adding Dean Witter and Coldwell Banker real estate in 1981, starting Prodigy as a joint venture with IBM in 1984, and introducing the Discover credit card in 1985.
  In 1974, Sears completed the 110-story Sears Tower in Chicago, which became the world's tallest building, a title it took from the former World Trade Center towers in New York. Sears moved to the new Prairie Stone Business Park in Hoffman Estates, Illinois, between 1993 and 1995. The Sears Centre is a 10,001-seat multi-purpose arena located in Hoffman Estates adjacent to the Prairie Stone campus.
  Sears reached its pinnacle in 1972–4, after which it was challenged by other retailers such as Home Depot, Best Buy, and Walmart—challenges Sears was ultimately unable to meet.
  In 1988, Sears, Roebuck purchased Western Auto from Wesray Capital.
  In the 1990s a series of pricing scandals were revealed. California successfully sued the company in 1992 for falsely finding things wrong with automobiles in for repair for other reasons. In 1997, criminal charges were made.
  There was a lot of diversification that was needed, but it distracted management's attention from the competition. Management, at first, discounted the threat from Walmart and Best Buy because of lower quality and lack of dedicated salespersons for appliances. However, appliances turned over slowly and contributed weakly to net profit. As it turned out, Walmart reset prices for the country.
  Even though its naming rights to the building expired in 2003, the Sears Tower remained named as such until early 2009. In March 2009 London-based insurer Willis Group Holdings, Ltd., was given the building's naming rights to encourage them to occupy the building. The official renaming as the Willis Tower took place on Thursday, July 16, 2009, during a public ceremony hosted by Willis Group Holdings.
  In the 1990s, the company began divesting itself of many non-retail entities, which were detrimental to the company's bottom line. Sears spun off its financial services arm which included brokerage business Dean Witter Reynolds and Discover Card. It sold its mall building subsidiary Homart to General Growth Properties in 1995. Sears later acquired hardware chain Orchard Supply Hardware in 1996 and started home improvement store The Great Indoors in 1997.
  The cost of distributing the once highly influential general merchandise catalog became prohibitive; sales and profits had declined. The company discontinued the catalog in 1993. It dismissed 50,000 workers who had filled the orders. This was before the internet became an effective tool. With the advantage of hindsight, the timing was poor; Sears already had in place what it took Amazon years to achieve.
  Sears eventually held sales on all items. The dedicated customer would just wait until the item was on sale to buy. In the meantime, the item took up valuable floor space. This was a marketing policy misjudgment.
  After weeks of speculation in 1998, Sears announced it had sold the remnants of Western Auto to Roanoke-based Advance Auto Parts. The business deal was not quite what experts in the after-market automotive industry expected. Specifically, in return, Sears, Roebuck became "one of the largest shareholders" after obtaining a 40% stake in Advance Auto Parts, a
caption: The Sears Tower, now the Willis Tower
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