Winnipeg Sears locations not the main draw to malls anymore: Expert

The ever changing landscape of retail seems to have dealt another blow to malls.

Sears announced Tuesday there’s significant doubt about the future with the company looking at selling or restructuring.

READ MORE: Future of Sears Canada in ‘significant doubt,’ company says

And it comes just a week after Sears rival, Hudson’s Bay, announced it’s cutting roughly 2,000 jobs across North America.

Leaving question marks in the place of department stores.

READ MORE: Hudson’s Bay Co. to cut 2,000 jobs by 2018

“I’m not surprised, like I don’t buy things from Sears,” Rebecca Abraham said there are too many others stores she’d rather shop at.

“Basically I park at Sears every time we come, to get to the play place.”

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Malls used to depend on anchor tenants like Sears and The Bay to attract customers to the mall but not anymore according to Retail Expert Rob Warren.

“If you were a retailer you relied on Sears to draw them into a place like St. Vital Centre, and once they were there they’d go to the stores in the mall,” Warren said.

“Now what they do is they go to the stores in the mall and they may walk through the department stores.”

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Warren said Sears will close stores and eventually all of them meaning malls will have to fill more empty spaces.

“This isn’t a bad thing, it’s a continual evolution of retail,” Warren said.

Management at CF Polo Park, St. Vital Centre and Kildonan Place Mall were not willing to go on camera Tuesday but St. Vital said if Sears would close they would fill the space as quickly as possible. What that would be, they don’t know.