I think I know why one of these stores is on this deathwatch list...

[jaderabbit]

Forgive the lame link, but this is where I found the story about major chain stores expected to close down many--possibly all--stores.

This is interesting to me because I was just in #1-Least-Likely-to-Succeed, aka Sears, the other day. Having suffered through a few seasons of really cruddy kids' clothes that couldn't stand up to washing, I decided

Comments

[cynodd]

Huh? Lands' End and Sears are related? I think the reason Sears is going down is they affiliated with people who don't know how to use apostrophes, and flaunt it unapologetically.

Sears going down makes me sad. I feel capitalist nostalgia for them. :(

As for the others on the list... My $0.02

Circuit City - I almost never shop there. And the one time I did in the last five years, they were a mess.
Pier 1 - I've commented to people in the last few years that Pier 1 just isn't what it used to be. It no longer seems to really have funky imports. Instead, it's trying to look like Crate & Barrel inside. That isn't what I went to Pier 1 for, so I stopped going there...
Cost Plus - and started going to Cost Plus World Market. :( I don't want them to go out of business.
Tuesday Morning Corp. - Never heard of them.
Gap - Never shop there. Haven't since the 80's, which I shopped there about twice.
Blockbuster - I don't use Netflix, but I don't use Blockbuster, either. We basically decided to just start buying movies, so we wouldn't have to return them. We do so pretty infrequently since Cupcake arrived anyway.
Rite Aid - I go to the pharmacy at the Meijers, so I pretty much only go to places like Rite Aid for cards and toiletries, when I don't want to handle a Meijers.

P.S.

[cynodd]

Time Magazine had a really scathing article on Bennigan's demise this week in their "The Moment" column: "Americans who want to peruse oversize menus for oversize portions of unremarkable food in unremarkable settings may soon have to check out Applebee's or Chili's. Or Ruby Tuesday or T.G.I. Friday's. Or the scores of other family-style restaurants serving deep-fried mozzarella sticks beneath hypnotically rotating ceiling fans."

Funny enough to forgive the sentence fragment. (You see, I'm gearing up for the Freshman comp.) :)

Article here.

[jaderabbit]

I love Cost Plus, too. I'm sad to think of it doing poorly. I've never been a big Pier 1 fan; the last few times I was there, it was pretty much Wicker Hell.

I don't really know what the relationship between Lands' End and Sears is. Maybe someone else will provide the answer in the comments.