Monday, November 19, 2018

Bethesda Sears store in full closing mode (Photos)

The Sears store at Westfield Montgomery Mall in Bethesda is scheduled to close forever in February 2019. They're getting a head start just before Black Friday, however. "Store Closing" signs have been slapped all over the store inside and out. A closing sale is also now underway.

Manufacturers' warranties still apply to appliances and other items, but no returns are being accepted - all sales are final. Some points and promotions will no longer apply here, and you can no longer return Land's End merchandise to this location. Expect to find some deals, but make sure you read all the disclaimers and signage in the appropriate department before buying anything. In addition, this store did not participate in a members-only Sears nationwide event last night at 6:00 PM.

It's a sad end for our venerable Sears store, which will follow the legendary Tenleytown Sears store into the Great Beyond. It takes a hustler like Fast Eddie Lampert to run an iconic American retail brand into the ground.








17 comments:

Anonymous said...

A sad end indeed. We loose our good old 1970’s era Sears store with sticky asbestos tile floors, yellowing ceiling tile, fluorescent lighting and a lousy selection of cheesy clothes. All we get in return is a stupid glass covered winter garden, dozens of new stores, cafes, and restaurants lining an exterior pedestrian plaza with shade trees, benches and artwork. We get a stupid new hotel, a multistory fitness center and several hundred multifamily housing units of top of underground parking, and adjacent to an expanded above ground parking deck with connection to a transit center for easy access to several bus lines and an shuttle to the Metro.

You are right, I still wish we just had that good old Sears.

Anonymous said...

What exactly was "legendary" about the Tenleytown Sears?

Anonymous said...

You know what I will miss after the Sears site is redeveloped?

All those empty parking spaces.

Anonymous said...

@6:07
Lol.
The last few times I interacted with employees at Sears were quite memorable, and not in a good way. From not knowing about the merchandise, trying to sell me things completely unrelated to the question I asked, to outright rudeness, this result seemed inevitable in this climate. I will miss their tool section (at least the tool section they used to have when they still actually stocked items), but at least we have the Home Depot across the street.

Anonymous said...

Eddie Lampert is a Republican who supports Trump.

Steven Mnuchin, Trump's Secretary of the Treasury, previously was on Sears' board, and is a personal friend, and college roommate, of Lampert.

Anonymous said...

With the lure of a "closing sale", the Montgomery Mall Sears was very busy this weekend. It probably hasn't been this packed since the turn of the century.

Unlike other Sears reports I've read from other places in the U.S., this store seemed well maintained and managed. Cleaner than Macy's.

Anonymous said...

It is sad. What's worse, after this weekend, anything good and worth buying, will be gone. Always happens that way.

Anonymous said...

6:30 am Lampert would argue that Sears would have closed years ago without him

Anonymous said...

We just bought two packages of toilet paper on line at Walmart. Free shipping, and a very low price, packed in a huge cardboard box, carefully packed and lined with several large pieces of crinkled up paper to “protect” the fragile toilet paper from damage and to keep it from shifting in the slightly larger box. About four pounds of packing and box for about two pounds of TP. At least the packing and box are recyclable. It was delivered to the concierge at our apartment building, who typically handles about 100 packages a day, and double that during the holidays. You can barely see the front desk in the early afternoon.

Brick and mortar stores are doomed. At least those who sell toilet paper...

Maloney Concrete said...

"Store Closing" seems to be the sign of our times!

Anonymous said...

Change is good, but obviously not in the mind of ol Eddie.

Anonymous said...

^6:26 AM There's good news on the tool front. The legendary CRAFTSMAN brand has been bought by, and now advertised by, Lowe's. You can now play in tool time there. YAH!

Anonymous said...

g:59 AM I do hope you are being scarcastic. If you depend on your TP by mail, I hope you never run short, especially during a snowstorm. You might want to add some Depends to that order if you do. The best B&M stores for your TP, ICYDK is the BM&TP grocery stores that all make a run to before a snowstorm.

I remember Giffords said...

8:01 AM Dyer broke news with reporting on the redevelopment of the Sears site and will keep us updated on the rapidly changing mall!

Anonymous said...

Does Dyer know if the tire store on Elm will be offering Sears tires?

Anonymous said...

7:59

My point was that it is now cheaper and easier to order even a cheap staple like toilet paper, and have it delivered for free, than to go to a real store. Lazy perhaps, but it tells me that if this cheap commodity makes sense to buy online, how can any brick and mortar store survive. Sure a few things need to be tried one, or held and touched before purchasing, but with liberal return policies, almost everything will soon be cheaper and easier to buy on line. Perhaps only perishable food items won’t easily be delivered, but otherwise, why even bother opening a store that is doomed to fail. Not a good sign for local retailers.

Anna said...

It's kinda confounding that a company who way-back-when got it's start as mail order, could completely miss the current parallels and not adapt to a business model they essentially originated.

Lots of memories--
There's several Sears mail-order houses in my family's Kansas history. Most still standing. ;)
And I remember going to small towns across the country, each with their own little Sears catalog store.
Christmas jobs...usually product demonstrations.
I worked at Sears Credit Central approving/disapproving revolving-charge purchases.

Sigh...of well. Onward and upward.