I should have wrote that it's just one factor, but at the end of the day, people opted for lower priced goods rather than the service that Sears offered, which I assume was partly due to the decent compensation they provided.

Another example of a low wage industry where paying employees more doesn't work in the grand scheme are hotels. People like to stay in newer, renovated, upscale hotels. Well if one hotel pays more than it has to, then it's owners save less capital with which they can purchase other land and build a new hotel on, or to renovate an existing one. So the hotel owners that pay the employees as little as possible and work them as much as possible end up with more money to invest in new builds or renovations, and customers end up going to those hotels, while the hotel that paid its employees well will lose business.

Unfortunately, good customer service only goes so far, especially when your clientele can barely afford it and they readily chose to forego it to save money.