> Sears' customer service has been terrible for a couple decades, but [...] was great in its heyday.
Wouldn't "worse customer service" be the change that allowed other retailers to eat Sears' lunch, then? You say Sears' clientele were not willing to pay a premium for whatever extra Sears was offering, but by your own words they haven't actually offered anything premium for a long time.
More expensive and better is a viable value prop; more expensive and worse is not.
Yes, but I think it takes a while to switch a company's atmosphere, and they also have or had a ton of defined benefit pension liabilities on the books that other retailers didn't.
Sears catered to the giant American middle class, and while I'm sure that mismanagement was a huge part of its demise, I also think the declining spending power of the American middle class also contributed.
Wouldn't "worse customer service" be the change that allowed other retailers to eat Sears' lunch, then? You say Sears' clientele were not willing to pay a premium for whatever extra Sears was offering, but by your own words they haven't actually offered anything premium for a long time.
More expensive and better is a viable value prop; more expensive and worse is not.