“The management mistake that Sears made, in retrospect, was that they never got to a spot where they could stop the free fall,” Portell said.

It has been a slow, painful fall for these once-dominant brands. Sears, in particular, was synonymous with suburban American consumerism. It dominated the retail industry and changed the way people shopped through its revolutionary catalog business — the Amazon.com of its era. Kmart accomplished a lot as well, rising to a spot right behind Sears by peppering the nation with its Super Center big box shops and luring droves of shoppers with the promise of deep discounts, including, of course, the Blue Light Special.

In 1994, Sears and Kmart raked in a combined $111.4 billion, compared with powerhouse discounter Wal-Mart Stores Inc.’s haul of $111.9 billion. All three retailers ranked in the top 15 in revenue, among companies in all industries, in 1995. Since then, they’ve gone in different directions. Sears and Kmart have watched their customer bases shrink amid a never-ending string of store closures. Wal-Mart’s sales grew almost fourfold over the next decade, as the behemoth tripled its locations and embarked on mass international expansion. Sears and Kmart each chose to trudge along, with little change in strategy.