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Sears
Sears began as a mail-order watch business founded by Richard Sears in 1886, and its subsequent mail-order catalog, offering everything from clothing to entire mail-order houses, made it one of the most significant retail forces in American history for well over a century. Sears pioneered numerous major retail innovations, including the Craftsman and Kenmore private-label brands and, for a time, held the title of largest retailer in the United States, with its catalog serving as a genuine lifeline for rural Americans without easy access to city stores. The company's dramatic decline through the 2000s and 2010s, culminating in a 2018 bankruptcy filing, became one of the most widely studied cautionary tales of legacy retail failing to adapt to e-commerce and changing consumer habits, despite its historic dominance for most of the 20th century. Sears's combination of its historic mail-order catalog dominance and its dramatic, closely watched later decline has made it one of the most historically significant department store chains in American retail history.
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JCPenney
JCPenney was founded by James Cash Penney in Kemmerer, Wyoming in 1902, originally as a single dry goods store called the Golden Rule, built around a business philosophy explicitly named for treating customers as the founder would want to be treated himself. The chain grew into a major national department store brand known particularly for its middle-market positioning, offering more accessible pricing than higher-end department stores while maintaining a broader merchandise selection than discount retailers. JCPenney's widely publicized and ultimately unsuccessful 2012 attempt to eliminate coupons and sales in favor of simplified "everyday low pricing," led by former Apple retail executive Ron Johnson, became one of the most closely studied retail strategy failures in recent business history after it alienated the chain's price-conscious core customer base. JCPenney's combination of its century-long middle-market department store legacy and its widely studied 2012 pricing-strategy failure has made it one of the most instructive department store chains in American retail history.
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