Sears Canada is closing more stores to cut costs and to bring its full-line department store business back to prominence. What does this mean for natural product retailers?
These closures could affect natural product retailers. For example, a mall minus one large department store equates to less shoppers, which, consequently, means less customers for natural product retailers located in the mall.
“We want to fix Sears as a mall-based department store, as a destination for home products in the home stores,” says Brandon Stranzl, executive chairman of Sears.
As sales continue to decline, Sears is adding pressure to CBRE, a real estate firm, to find different uses for the retailer’s weakest stores, such as its clearance outlets. Sears is also reducing the size of its internal network as a way to reduce costs.
Currently, Sears owns 10 outlets, 40 home stores, as well as 95 traditional full-line department stores.
