Sears failed in Canada due (in large part) to an inability or unwillingness to evolve with the changes in consumer demands and shopping preferences. That said, it seems like at least at one point in time they had their finger on the pulse of niche shopping interests. Cool advertisement. Crazy that Sears sold everything from drag slicks to full blown houses over their run.
While we are here, I needed some AN fitting's for my oil line and fuel lines and looked up the numbers and Wal-Mart had them in Earls. Got them in 2 days and free shipping. Pat
I wish someone would still make a narrow slick in those sizes, I noticed the ad listed Chicago area stores including hammond indiana
My grandparents had one. Hale, MI early 70's. Came in parts on a truck. Spent many a summer up there in that house.
I saw a car with a set of finned aluminum Ford flathead heads with "ALLSTATE" cast into them years ago at Minnesota Dragways. They had to be from Sears.
Yessir, they were re-branded Puch-Allstate. First motorcycle engine I ever saw with two pistons in one cylinder.
Worked at Sears in high school, ordered the front spring for my 29 roadster, and a couple sets of pistons for 283 chevy’s. Standard and 60 over-10 n 1/2 to one’s.
Sears , Wards & Penny's were the Walmart & Amazon of today , what killed them was the Internet & overextension of debts .
Sears had the ability to change with the times and do internet sales but refused. Ultimately killed the giant that they were very quickly Now Amazon is selling tiny homes and they have an auto sales program in beta right now fwiw.
Dad always bought tires and batteries from Sears and the one childhood memory I have is going to the auto center which was pretty big like a parts store (sold parts also) and seeing all the tires with Cragar plastic inserts in the display tires
Sears was a giant catalog store , that put lots out of business . Not much different than internet sales , just a different era to me .
I wonder if Sears Canada did the same? Don’t ever remember speed parts in a Sears catalogue as a kid.
Sears got away from all the catalog sales before everything went internet. Imagine if they had stayed with catalogs and put them on the internet.
Craftsman's "bring it back, no questions asked", tool replacement policy, with genuine made in America tools.
What really killed Sears and Wards and a lot of electronics stores was when they went from professional commission sale people who had worked in those stores for years to minimum wage clerks who had little product knowledge. I won't argue that not going on the internet with their catalogs hurt but Wards at least was pretty well gone by the time the internet got going good. I applied for a job as the auto parts manager in the early 90's. and didn't get it but the store ended up closing in less than a year. Sears went down the dumper after K mart took control of them and used the KMart sales philosiphy that didn't work well for K Mart either.
The Jalopy Journal
