Re:Sears's History Predicts Almost Everything Amazon's Doing
by adventured on Monday September 25, 2017 @12:10PM
(#15331583)
They weren't hemorrhaging money at the time. Sears was profitable from 1980 to 1990, including fiscal 1990.
1990 is approximately the year when their earnings started to plunge toward losses. Earnings nearly got cut in half from 1989 vs 1990. At the time Walmart was still the #2 retailer, having just passed Kmart (for the curious, Walmart went from $32b in sales for 1990 to $485b by 2015; now Walmart is in a position where their earnings are falling and sales growth has been flat for years as Amazon starts to eat into them).
This NY Times article from January 1991, describes the atmosphere well:
1990 is approximately the year when their earnings started to plunge toward losses. Earnings nearly got cut in half from 1989 vs 1990. At the time Walmart was still the #2 retailer, having just passed Kmart (for the curious, Walmart went from $32b in sales for 1990 to $485b by 2015; now Walmart is in a position where their earnings are falling and sales growth has been flat for years as Amazon starts to eat into them).
This NY Times article from January 1991, describes the atmosphere well:
http://www.nytimes.com/1991/01/28/business/big-change-is-exp...