The Sears Essentals experiment comes to a painful conclusion

submariner · 08 Jan 2012 00:40

Sears Essentials officially drifts into the "History" column...

There were 4 Sears Essentials stores in San Diego (Carlsbad, Claremont Mesa, Mission Valley and Spring Valley). The Carlsbad and Claremont Mesa stores are on the list of closures and now the Spring Valley store (probably from the 70s) has turned back into a Kmart. The Mission Valley location (late 90s or 2000s era) is also reverting back to a Kmart in March of this year.

Sears Essentials > Kmart Reversion (San Diego - Mission Valley, CA) by dirtyblueshirt, on Flickr

storewanderer · 08 Jan 2012 22:32

It has been a pretty confusing thing from the start.

But I wonder, is every single one closing? Sears seems to have a way of keeping multiple formats going even if there are very small store counts left...

J-Man · 15 Jan 2012 21:07

The Sears Essentials in El Monte (formerly Kmart, and I believe a long-ago regular Sears) is also slated for closure. I believe there are still some Sears Grand format stores in operation-- like the one in Rancho Cucamonga.

Jeff · 18 Jan 2012 16:13

The Sears Essentials in El Monte originally opened in the mid 80's as a Tianguis market, a short lived mexican warehouse style market by Vons. When that closed, Kmart moved into the space, then they converted it to a Sears Essentials. Apparently WalMart is interested in the space to make a new store in the city.

Sears originally was part of the El Monte Mall. It closed in the 80's and the mall was converted into Longo Toyota. The Sears store became HomeBase before the chain closed. It is now the collision center for Longo Toyota.

Jeff · 18 Jan 2012 19:09

Just read today, another one is biting the dust:

Sears Holdings Corp. is closing another Sears Essentials store in Orange County.

Sears Holdings, which also owns Kmart, said it will convert the Sears Essentials store in San Clemente back to a Kmart location next month. The Sears Essentials store will close Feb. 19 and reopen Feb. 22 as a Kmart. This San Clemente location opened in 1976 as a a Kmart and converted to a Sears Essentials in 2005.

“This store is converting back because we are listening to our customer’s preferences concerning our product offerings and they have stated that they prefer the products and services offered by Kmart,” said Kimberly Freely, spokeswoman for Sears Holdings.

bobsjers · 21 Jan 2012 22:59

Those new stores were horrible. I wrote a letter to Sears the first time i walked in. There were aisles of mostly nothing. The first ones did not carry clothes for plus size people. It was laid out poorly. A lot of empty hooks and shelves. That store was finally converted back to a KMart. The other one in South Jersey closed. The only thing that didn't change were the rude cashiers.

On the NJ talk station, the host called it a cluster f@#$. I guess the FCC was not listening. lol.