But shoppers remain underwhelmed
By Alan Wolf, YSN
Bankruptcy, plus years of store closings, have left the once mighty Sears with just 11 locations as of last spring.
But in a first for the company, which now operates as Transformco, a flagship Sears store was actually reopened last month.
According to reports by Los Angeles TV station KTLA and the Toronto Sun, Transformco staged a soft reopening of its Burbank Town Center store, which closed in 2022. But based on numerous Reddit threads, shoppers were less than enthralled by the comeback.
A post by RedRedditRedemption2 described the store as “the saddest thing I’ve ever seen.” Despite a well-merchandised entrance, and a large appliance and mattress section dominated by Kenmore, the store was largely vacant, wrote BeerNTacos, who observed bare mannequins, empty floor space and an entire level dedicated to storage.
“It looks like it’s about to close up, not like it just reopened,” commented another redditor.
At the very least, however, Transformco’s invitation to “Rediscover Sears Burbank” could provide a trip down memory lane. “I might stop by, even though I have no real reason to,” another user wrote. “Just to reminisce about easier times.”
