Sears Is Closing 72 More Stores
CHICAGO (CBS) -- Facing more than $400 million in losses in the first three months of this year alone, Sears is planning to close dozens more stores.
The company has identified 100 Sears and Kmart stores that have not been turning a profit, and has chosen 72 it will close "in the near future."
The move comes less than five months after Sears announced at the start of the year that it would close more than 100 stores.
Over the past year, the company has shuttered nearly 400 stores, not including the 72 now facing closure. Sears reported a $424 million loss in the first quarter of 2018.
Sears has yet to list which specific stores will close in the latest cost-cutting move.
Sears has been a household name in America since the late 1800's, but for decades Americans have been shopping there less and less.
When Sears and Kmart merged in 2005, they had a combined total of 3,500 stores. That number will be down to around 820 after the latest closures take place.
CBS 2 caught up with customers shopping at the North Riverside Mall on Thursday.
For the Brauns, the store symbolizes quality. Jeff Braun said he was reminded of that recently when he found and used his grandfather's 70-year-old Sears table vise.
"He passed away years ago, but we still remember him though stuff like that; and Sears, in a way, is a connection that way to the family," he said.
When Sears became the first retailer to go public more than a century ago, it was valued at more than $1 billion. Today it's valued about a third of that, and some analysts don't believe the company can survive 2018.
