Sears в Мексике: История и Современность

Department store chain in Mexico

the Mexican chain of department stores

Sears Operadora México, S. A. de C. V. (ˈseaɾs) is a department store chain located in Mexico, operating 92 stores all over Mexico as of 2022. Sears México is operated by Grupo Sanborns, a division of Grupo Carso.

On 26 February 1947, the first Sears in Mexico was opened in Colonia Roma, Mexico City (now the site of the Plaza Insurgentes mall) by Sears, Roebuck and Co. In the initial three days after opening, approximately 110,000 customers visited the store, with total sales reaching about $600,000. During its first week, the store faced challenges in maintaining inventory levels, necessitating the delivery of additional goods via three flights from a Texas warehouse operated by the parent company. The store's entry into the Mexican market has been viewed by some as a catalyst for changing consumer patterns, influencing a shift towards different economic priorities. In its first year of operation, the Mexico City store did around $16 million in business, almost twice as much as was expected by its parent company. However, just a few months after opening, in order to prevent a drain on the nation's foreign currency reserves, Mexico barred some nonessential imports and raised tariffs on others. This impacted the Mexico City store, which was at the time importing around 90 percent of its merchandise. Even though Sears unveiled a new lowercase logo in the United States in 2010, Sears México changed its logo to a red variant of the 1994–2004 Sears uppercase blue logo in 2013.

In 2004, Grupo Carso bought Dorian's Tijuana, S. A. de C. V., a mid range department store chain present mostly in northwestern Mexico, established in Downtown Tijuana in 1959. Carso operated it as a subsidiary of Inmuebles Borgru, S. A. de C. V., which was in turn a subsidiary of Inmuebles Carso, S. A. B. de C. V. In that same year, Dorian's purchased 5 department store locations from JCPenney, the U. S. based retailer which had been operating in Mexico since 1995. In April 2009, Dorian's brand was jettisoned, and 13 of the 14 Dorian’s locations were converted to Sears: The exception was Downtown Tijuana Dorian's flagship which was closed in May 2009 and is now the "Plaza de la Tecnología", a market hall of consumer technology vendors.

Despite the bankruptcy of its former parent company, the closing of many stores in the United States and Canada, and the subsequent sale to ESL Investments, Sears México still remains open for business due to different ownership. In July 2021, it was announced that the Mexican company was considering renaming its stores to distance itself from its failing former parent in the United States.