20 Famous Stores From The 1970s That Went BANKRUPT!
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- čas přidán 19. 08. 2024
- 20 Famous Stores From The 1970s That Went BANKRUPT!
Delve into the history of 20 renowned stores from the 1970s in the USA that faced financial struggles and ultimately went bankrupt in my new video, "20 Famous Stores From The 1970s That Went BANKRUPT!" Uncover the reasons behind their downfall and bid farewell to these beloved stores that are now just a memory. - Zábava
I am 66 yrs old and remember many of these stores well. Back then, people actually combed their hair, brushed their teeth, and put on clean clothes before going shopping.
Hard to believe that Bradlee's & Caldor have bit the dust-They were fantastic places to shop.
I worked at Service Merchandise in 1985, the year I graduated from high school!
Now we're stuck w/ crappy Walmart.
There's always uppity Target.
The soon to be King of all Retail will be Amazon.
Walmart is the worst. They need some competition.
@@wernerhuehn674 yeah... Amazon.... be a Walmartian in the comfort of your own trailer park!
Woolworth was the best! The popcorn smell
I’m mad I never got to go to one. I heard it was such a cool store
Left out some of the largest chains like Woolworths and Woolco, once the largest reatail chain in the world ! Eckerd Drugs which was the largest drug store company in America. Recvo ?
Eckerd drugs was based in Florida it was acquired by 2 drug stores CVS For the west coast and JC Penny east coast for there thrift drug division 😮😮
What about SEARS? They were far bigger than all of these stores!
There's a whole video about Sears.
I used to LOVE looking at jewelry at Service Merchandise!!!
Service merchandise still got a TV playing 33 years old
K Mart better than Walmart
@@nonenonnenopenonenomorefor5556 “was”. …..I do agree!!!
Absolutely agree. I still have a comforter from Kmart, that I bought 35 years ago and it’s still perfect. The comforter I bought at Walmart 20 years ago fell apart in a few years.
I loved Bradleys in the 80s during college. Hills was also a favorite. Good stuff for low prices.
Same for me loved that store!
Zayre was cool
Isn't ironic how most of these businesses has to closed down because of BAD MANAGEMENT who didn't know how to adapt to the changing times.
Agree noticed the same, and unfortunately that led to reign of mega profit
That and the Walmart/target.Etc
Indeed
Disagree to some extent. Market pressure to scale and a lack of enforcement of anti trust made it only possible for one or two players to survive. Need enough market share to be able to bully your suppliers on price. Not to say some suffered from bad management. But for the most part it's structural to the macro economy.
I was just thinking the exact same thing.
What about these stores ? Newberry, TG&Y, Sprouse-Reitz, Cornet, Wonder World, Gemco, Kress, Spiegel, Pay-Less.
There’s still a kress store in PR
I loved Service Merchandise and Linens-N-Things.
Almost everyone I knew after high school was married with rings from Service Merchandise.
MISMANAGEMENT is the key word for why these stores folded. I grew up with Zayre, Ames, Service Merch, JC Penney, Sears, and Montgomery Ward.
Montgomery Ward still puts a catalog out! I really miss Service Merchandise, Paysavers, Zaire’s, Bradley’s, Kmart, caldor ,A&P (which we still call it in MV)Rich’s …
Oh wow i remember Millers Outpost and pick n save 😮
We had Bradlees and Anderson Little too...Who remembers Cook’s and King’s Department Stores?
Yep. Cook's Markets. There was one in Holtville, CA & Brawley, CA.
LedHed Pb 207.20 🎶 🎸 🎹
I started my retail career at Cooks.
I worked for G.C. Murphy's for 3 or 4 years in the 1980's. I loved it. I was the head cashier. It was so much fun.
Department stores were always fun. I would shop at all the local ones. I really enjoyed the stores with electronics and records. Now we have none of that here, only Walmart and their low quality products.
Costco, too. I always get lost in those huge stores. And one has to walk for what feels like a mile inside just to use their restrooms. There's also Home Depot and Lowes -- HUGE stores, also Ace Hardware. Safeway still exists.That was my dad's go-to store. He owned stock in Safeway. We had Montgomery Wards out here, too.
Anyone know if Victoria's Secret is still in business? I found some nifty bras in their Missoula, Montana store.
Bradlees was good. I shopped at Mrs. Bee's in the 1980s when living in New Hampshire. Monkey Ward and Service Merchandise were nearby as well. Kmart too. I think Walmart killed them. Then Amazon was the final nail. You know, I still have some Christmas decorations for my tree bought at Bradlees.
I remember EJ Korvettes I use to go to the one that was across from Macy's on 34th street in New York. I brought my first record there.
Connecticut guy here, a kid of the 1980’s my mom shopped at Bradlees and Caldor. I miss those stores. We rarely went to Ames 😔
Nescott drugs, Woolworth and Woolco. A&S.
Ames, Caldor's, Lechmere, King's, Bradlee's, Zayre. All gone.
All were located in Massachusetts. Kinda sad when this happens.
Growing up in the eighties in rural VT/NH, Ames and Bradlees were our stores. We didn't have Walmart or Kmart. Miss those stores very much. Walmart sucks.
Every small town had a Murphys and Western Auto. esp. where I lived in Western Pa/Md. I remember a shopping mall that started out with Grants, then Hills, then Ames. There was also a Gee Bees. Two others way back were Kings and Westons. They were all in my area as a kid, but now long gone.
Pantry Pride, Cooks Discount store, Woolworth’s, McCrorys, Zayres, service merchandise, A&P, Foxmore, Tampa, Fl where I grew up.
I remember going to Montgomery wards, and Woolworths and K-mart. I miss them we even had a Sears but that went out of business and I miss it. Because of the stores that I mentioned I grew up with the store Sears. To bad that all of these stores went out of business.
Zayre actually turned into an Ames before eventually closing altogether I still have a zares and Ames shopping bag 😂
Though I'd feel bad for the employees, can't wait for Wal-Mart to go the same way as these stores. If I have to drive miles out of my way to spend a couple dollars more for the same item instead of stepping into a Wal-Mart, I will gladly do so. The customers are what make me despise Wal-Mart so... the cream of the crop of humanity.
Worked at Caldors as soft goods children’s, hosiery, shoes and ladies department manager. You forgot some though…. Right out of college in 1979, my first job was at Toys R Us. Store manager, great training program and merchandising techniques. But retail back then hired women who had equal responsibilities and training but crappy pay and no advancement. After ten years, I moved to corporate accounting in tech companies, and retired recently from that work. Oh and don’t forget Crazy Eddie! His prices are INSANE!!!
Lol
Growing up in the Northeast ( Philly/NJ area) in the 80s and early 90s. I remember Bradlees kinda being like our Target. Kmart was kinda like our Walmart. Caldor was kinda in between. I feel like so much has changed over the decades and not for the better.
Do you remember Clover? I think it was affiliated with Strawbridge and Clothier. I loved that store! They all became Kohls when Clover went out of business, still miss shopping there
It's not pronounced Lech-meer. It's pronounced Leach Meer. The one in the photo was in the Springdale Mall on Boston Rd. in Springfield Ma. My family used to go there and I remember going in as a little kid and seeing all the tv's and such. The store at the other end used to be a toy chain called Child World . Their stores were designed to look like a castle on the outside. It's why if you look closely at the corners of that part of the mall, they appear rounded. Eventually it was replaced by Bradlees. All of it, including the mall itself are gone now.
For all of you who live in the North East US, here are a few that were not included. Let me know if you remember any…
Mammoth Mart, Kings, Mars, J.M. Fields, G. Fox, Sage Allen, Top Notch Supermarket, and Finast Supermarket.
Mars was a local grocery chain here in the Baltimore area.
Corvettes and pick well
J.m.fields…
Maybe it's the nostalgic Boomer in me, with a little ADD...but I miss Caldor, and Linen's & Things days, when stores were smaller, not so overwhelmingly "Big Box", with 8000 options for buying! We went to Caldor practically weekly, and my big thrill, as a kid and young teen, was to shop the weekly records sales, depending which artist or record label was on sale that week. I'd wait for that flyer in the Sunday paper! Linen's & Things reminds me of buying things to set up my first home...I loved the things I got there.
I worked part-time at Caldors in the late 80s. At Caldors we were manually entering the SKU numbers while other stores had scanners and there were constant price checks. Plus, the management was pure evil. BTW we called it "leach-mere" vice "letch-mere." At the time Lechmere was the best place for CDs.
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Forgot to say, my oldest sons favorite “gikie” blanket, I bought at Caldor in 1995… he was pissed because when he went to camp ( it was just a bunch of knots) but they threw it away never went back to camp…lol
Growing up in the 70's in Long Beach,CA I remember Two Guys and Zody's before Target moved into the closed Two Guys location.
At its peak Western Auto sold a lot more than just car parts ... they sold everything ... appliances, furniture, electronics , anything for the home
As a kid , I loved going in to look at bicycles and mini bikes.. Got my Western Flyer bicycle there
In Southern California where I'm from there used to be a store called White front.
Yes, we had one in our area (north San Diego County), and I've mentioned it in my comment. Seems this video is concentrating almost entirely on northeastern, eastern and midwestern stores, and very little on those out west, particularly the west coast.
I remember Gold Circle that's a name i have not heard in a long time
The common denominator in nearly all of these closures was mismanagement. A properly managed store can still thrive despite fierce competition.
Sears is a classic example of how poor management led to its decline. Sears used to pride itself on customer service, but that went out the window in its later years. I recall entering a Sears store in the 1980s and needing help finding what I was looking for. When I asked the employees there, one man rolled his eyes and another scoffed. Very disrespectful, and deserving to lose customers, which it did.
I notice in this video that you focus mainly on stores in the East and Midwest. Only a very few of our beloved stores in the Western U.S. are covered. I've never heard of most of the ones you featured.
Also, I notice that you don't even mention some of the popular smaller boutiques and specialty stores such as Fashion Bug and Payless Shoe Stores. You did mention Bed Bath and Beyond, but not Target or Gemco (which was a membership store), nor Walker Scott, which used to be very popular here in the western U.S. You failed to mention K-Mart, Value Fair, or Vons supermarket. J.C. Penneys also went out of business. There was White Front, a linens store in southern California and possibly elsewhere. It didn't last long, either. Also, Woolworths, Thrifty Drugstores, Sprouse-Reitz, and Mervyns.
You've left out a LOT of our favorite stores that no longer exist. Maybe you can upload a second video to cover those? And how about giving the western regions equal coverage? You seem to be fixated on the Northeast, East and Midwest, as though those are the ONLY areas in the U.S. that count.
2:30 Service Merchandise is an excellent store model perfect for these times.
It's un-lootable! 2:56
In fact larger cities might benefit by a "Neo Showroom Mall" concept, borrowing from the Service Merchandise model combined with Amazon. Basically in this mall, small storefronts would exist simply to allow consumers to view and test items they see online. Some items would be available right there, in a Service Merchandise manner, while others can be looked over and just like Service Merchandise did, they would be "incomplete" so that theft would render the item useless. I bought a Timex digital alarm clock once from there. The display model was empty and had no cord. However, like most smaller items it had a chain on it and it was harnessed to the rack to keep it from leaving the area, where it's invoice number was on a card with a description of the item.
I'm not familiar with about half these stores. I guess it's because I live in south GA. I certainly remember a few...like Western Auto and the A & P. It's sad that so many things are gone...most especially, SEARS!
They forgot to include Consumer Distribution...they operated from the late 50s until 1996
I used to shop at these food stores in Indianapolis in the 70s.
Preston-Safeway, Marsh, Eisner and Standard,
ALL THE HARD WORK I PUT INTO HILLS AND FISHERS BIG WHEELS STORES!! THAT WAS SOME GOOD TIMES BACK IN THE 80'S AND 90'S
I've lived in the US for almost 50 years, and I only knew Montgomery Ward, Miller's Outpost and Western Auto. The others are unheard of. "Famous"? I think not.
In the Mid-Atlantic, all the A&P’s became Super Fresh markets for a decade or so before they closed as well.
Does anyone from the south remember, “Gibsons”?
Yes I do 🙋🏽♀️ I lived in Washington, Iowa in the 70’s it was my favorite place and the only place to get clothes unless we went to Iowa City
Yes while in Highschool I work at a Gibsons in Wilmington NC. Back in the 70's.
A store I used to love was Clover. They closed up shop around 30 years ago, and until recently I had a few things left over from them. They were probably too small for this video.
Does anyone remember K-mart, Zodys, or Roscos? Or was that only a So-Calif., thing? How about GemCo or FedCo? Lol... I use to help my mom; fill in Blue-chip (or Green chip) stamp books!
Montgomery Wards had close to 1000 stores at it's peak. Had 250 when they closed in 2001.
Wow. Sounds like Ames was the kiss of death.
Ames was corporate raiders that snatched up profitable stores, restructured the ownership to take over well funded pension plans draining them into insolvency, sell assets to pocket money into the hands of bankers and stock traders and then spin off what remained of the store using "leveraged buy outs" to put the stores into crippling debt. This still makes my blood boil.
linen and things have an online store .you can shop for all that was in the stores
I miss Mays it was on 14 Street Union Square in the 70s, also Woolworth, and S klains. 🥺🥺🥺😞😞😞😞☹️
I never heard of GC Murphy or Gold Circle...I'm in the Northeast.
Kmart is alive and well in New Zealand and Australia...they're building new stores out here.
Um I’m confused too, Pick n Save is where I shop, owned by Krogers
Kmart, Sears
I remember most of these retail department stores especially the ones that were here in my state of Oklahoma at the time and there are a lot of stores
that aren't included here in the video especially here in Oklahoma that have
closed down namely Montgomery Ward near my hometown this was an
awesome video of these now defunct stores thanks for the memories.
🇺🇲🏪🏪🇺🇲
First Montgomery Ward, then Wards. Not Montgomery Wards. 🙂
Montgomery Ward was mentioned in this video.
I recognize only a few of these names. I grew up in the Pacific Northwest and I don't recall many of these at all.
I live in lechmere....the store and the original train station gone. But the new train station moved across street
I can remember The huge number of people who used Hill's layaway at Christmas time!
Buffums and bullocks,may company,robinsons may are all no longer around. Orbachs,fedco, shrouds.
If these stores were all so dearly loved and missed muchly, why did they go bankrupt?
Ownership passed to corporate raiders, who either shut it down to eliminate competition, or gutted it to temporarily raise their profit margin.
Bad management, which raised prices, slashed wages, and eliminated quality.
Over-diversification, which had hardware stores selling home appliances, and grocery stores selling flowers. By trying to do everything, they wound up being good at nothing.
Like the guy who made this video spinning in circles for 22 minutes - and then not saying anything.
The internet, and people insisting on shopping online instead of visiting physical stores. It may be convenient, but it sure has its drawbacks. For one, shopping online only allows you to see pictures of the merchandise. You can't hold it in your hands, feel it, inspect it up close, or determine its quality. You really can't be certain of what you're getting until it arrives, and that can result in disappointment if it isn't what you were expecting.
If we are lamenting the loss of beloved retail businesses, it's really our own fault as consumers. We began to snub them when the big box stores came into being. If we had been more loyal, many of those stores might still exist.
And why is it that so many of them fell into poor management? What kind of people have the business schools been turning out in recent years, that they seem capable of only running businesses into the ground?
And why is it that good customer service has largely become a thing of the past? That's why a lot of these stores are gone -- they stopped caring about their customers and focused on shareholders, instead, not realizing that if it weren't for their customers, there wouldn't be any shareholders, either.
What about Jeans West and Whitefront ?
You kept saying Midwest, but the only two I ever saw in Wisconsin and Minnesota were Service Merchandise and Montgomery Ward.
And nothing of County Seat? I guess you only covered large department store retailers.
I used to be a janitor at Two Guys Dept in 1975
I guess the nail in your coffin is when Ames buys you
I really miss two guys
Need to do a part 2 of this
Um... Pick N Save is live and well here in NE Wisconsin. And why mention a chain with only 27 stores? What about Kmart, Kresge's, ShopKo, Prange's, Prange Way?
I think the company you are talking about is not the same company in the video.
Kresges.
LedHed Pb 207.20 🎶 🎸 🎹
Actually it is not. It was bought by Kroger. Rounds no longer owns it
@@gregwasserman2635you’re right, however they are using the grocery store logos.
Anyone remember Spurgeon's? They had about 80 stores at their peak in the '80's.
what stores are not going out of business?
Montgomery Ward was created in 1872
I used to love looking at old catalogs from the 1800s-1900s of Montgomery Wards. And the Prices.
LedHed Pb 207.20 🎶 🎸 🎹
tss trader horn bohack pathmark huffman koos robert hall modells hermans crazy eddie the wiz pantry pride waldbaums pergament rickels newmark and lewis just to name a few
I miss K-MART
It is called families taking all the cash out of a business then dumping it on stupid stockholders.
montgomery ward is now wards online
Peir 1 imports they finally went out of business in 2005.
We had one of those in the Carlsbad (California) Mall. When I lived in Oceanside, I visited that mall frequently. Rode the bus right there and back. North County Transit.
That hurt my heart, loved that store
19 inch JVC
"Lechmere"
"Leech - Meere"
I’m confused, Which Pick N Save Does Kroger own?
Caldors and Bradlees
Your segment on Pic N Save is completely inaccurate. You’re speaking of Pic N Save but mixed in details of Pick N Save, which is still very much in business.
GREED 😢
Ames andLiechmeres
Not Lech-mere. Its said Leech-mere
Duckwalls!!
Open, Open, Open, Open…lol 😊
It's pronounced LEECH mare, not lech mare.
Howard Bros ? Selber Bros?
I remember Best Products, Their Parma, Ohio store ran from 1973 to1997
Basco