Abandoned - Montgomery Ward

[Music] what's up guys my name is Jake and welcome to abandoned episode 39 this is the show where we talk about some of the most interesting abandoned places in the world this episode of abandoned is sponsored by Nordby PN start protecting your internet experience today with seventy seven percent off a three year plan when you sign up with the link Nord VPN comm slash BSF and use the code BSF at checkout today I wanted to talk about an iconic American retail enterprise one that became one of the state's largest retailers that eventually declined until its inevitable bankruptcy and abandonment at the dawn of the 21st century let's take a look at the once iconic retail chain Montgomery Ward's I know some of you may be asking as to why this topic isn't in my other series bankrupt and well for right now I'm still trying to figure out what topics go in what show I know it doesn't really matter but since Montgomery Ward had hundreds of vacant and abandoned stores I'm putting it in abandoned anyways on with the video the company was founded all the way back in 1872 by an American traveling salesman Aaron Montgomery Ward the enterprise was founded under the name Montgomery Ward and was created as a mail-order business this was done to sell directly to rural communities which at the time was a niche untapped markets by 1904 the company grew its mail-order business creating catalogues which had grown to a distribution size of three million units sales had now grown to rival Sears at eight point seven million dollars the company had been growing rapidly however by 1913 Aaron Montgomery Ward had passed away leaving the company in the hands of his family the catalog business went public in the Year 1919 and in the same decade Montgomery Ward opened its first physical retail store in Plymouth Indiana this brought the company into the modern in retail markets however as the Great Depression began in America Montgomery Ward's decided to hoard money and focus very little on expansion a decision that actually kept the company out of bankruptcy following the rough economic times sales began to go back up and the new store was proving popular with customers this was the catalyst for an explosion of growth within the company by the 1930s Montgomery Ward's had more than 250 stores as more and more opened revenue exploded with sales rocketing past 300 million dollars Ward's notoriety increased even more with the 1939 holiday season as a company marketing writer had crafted an illustrated poem called Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer which would be handed out to children while visiting Ward Santa obviously this became a Christmas icon and by the mid 1940s Montgomery Ward's had distributed 6 million copies during this time though Ward CEO had decided to stick to a similar strategy as the company had executed previously with the Great Depression following World War two in fear of another recession they had decided to wind down expansions and hoard cash with very little innovations into the 1950s this however left the chain out of a brand new booming retail trend one that Sears had fully embraced during the 1950s American suburbia was on the rise and as a result shopping and stand-alone big-box retail was taking full advantage Ward's biggest competitor Sears had begun moving their physical retail in this direction opening new stores and malls shopping outlets and standalone locations scooping up a ton of property and market share Montgomery Ward soon caught wind of the revolutionary retail trend and immediately began doing the same however Sears had already beaten them to a ton of local markets and in great sought-after locations as a result Montgomery Ward's was now playing catch-up establishing themselves in locations that Sears had passed on or hadn't made it to yet Sears was already too far established and Montgomery Ward's just couldn't catch up in 1973 in an attempt to gain back some market share the chain purchased a Miami based discount retailer called Jefferson Stores Inc the company renamed those existing stores and the brand into Jefferson ward by the mid-70s the company was struggling to keep up with the enormity of Sears so in 1974 the Mobil Oil Company purchased 54% of wards and then the remaining shares just two years later the retailer's new owners poured millions of dollars into fixing the struggling retailer and saw that discount stores would probably be the future so they adopted the Jefferson Ward model into more of their existing Montgomery Ward stores this stretched the employees that were already trained on this store model way too thin it also didn't help that during this time the chain was struggling to please both age demographics of older loyal customers and younger new customers at the same time they couldn't really choose what side they wanted to be on by the early 80s Montgomery Ward began to rebrand some of their existing stores retiring their former logo the new logo would focus more on the wards aspect of the name which many didn't see as the company's true unique identity the company was losing money and began borrowing heavily from their parent company mobile the decision was made to cut off some of their external costs by closing 18 of the stores in the Northeast United States and sell them to Bradley's well we all know how that went however in an effort to compete with Sears as store of the future the company renovated 60 of their existing locations this actually did prove as a positive effects as for the first time in a while the company reported positive profit growth and to continue the trend in 1985 Montgomery Ward's made the substantial decision to shut down their catalog business after 113 years with these cuts the chain was finally producing profit and not drawing from their parent company this left Mobil considering selling the chain while it still remained valuable words had finally reached a stable position their merchandise strategy was working well and they sold a small restaurant chain they purchased in the early 70s to PepsiCo by the end of 1985 Montgomery Ward's had a chain of more than 300 full lines the retailer continued with its desire to diversify from just an alternative from Sears with the addition of new stock and in 1987 the addition of Electric Avenue their attempt to heavily push consumer electronics in their full line stores this was something Sears and JCPenney wasn't doing and it led to lots of exclusive deals with technology brands which in the now emerging consumer electronics markets this was fantastic for Montgomery Ward's just a year later Mobil Oil was convinced to sell the retailer off for 3.8 billion dollars to General Electric as a 50% stake holder by 1989 Montgomery Ward's began a very aggressive marketing campaign with their electronic division selling home computers for very competitive prices this proved to be extremely successful and created a great relationship between wards and computer companies the lucrative electronics division quickly became its own section of the company and soon developed into Montgomery Ward's largest revenue division the company now had more than 500 stores across the United States however this didn't last long by the early 1990s Ward's began to lose focus and sales started to slump however with all of their built cash the retailer acquired a struggling New England retail chain Lechmere this was an effort to expand their reach even more in electronics however in reality it only added debt the poor decisions continued with the reintroduction of Montgomery Ward's mail order catalog a business model that the company had already decided wasn't financially sustainable the chain also acquired a few other smaller retailers during this time pretty much all of which had become liabilities during the early 1990s massive retailers like Ames Kmart target and mostly Walmart began to severely affect Montgomery Ward these discount stores were not only new and offering very competitive prices but expanding heavily by now Montgomery Ward was losing money rapidly and as more and more of their customers transferred over to other retailers sales continued to fall finally in 1997 company filed for chapter 11 bankruptcy Montgomery Ward's closed 250 of their stores in 1999 which was their last-ditch effort to retain some profitability with the liquidated assets and decreased operating costs GE stood by the company during this time as they poured millions of dollars back into the company in a rebranding and renovation effort which resulted as the brand now only known as wards however the crippled retailer was never going to gain back what it originally had and as a poor Christmas season passed in the year 2000 on December 28th the company filed for chapter 7 bankruptcy and announced they would be liquidating their remaining 250 stores and laying off 37,000 employees at the time it was the largest American retail bankruptcy in history after just four months all of Montgomery Ward's locations had been liquidated and closed ending the 128 year old company hundreds of stores went unleased and subsequently remained abandoned the enormous empty spaces now growing mold with leaking roofs show a grim result of what happens when a retail giant crumbles the stores that were left abandoned usually remained so as a result of a failing mall most of them have been demolished since 2001 however a few abandoned stores do remain in 2004 the Montgomery Ward's trademark was purchased by a marketing company based in Iowa and created an online store no physical retail but solely over orders under a new company the brand does still exist today and while nowhere near the magnitude it used to be you can still order stuff off the Montgomery Ward's website right now who knows if this is even sustainable and if the online store is ever going to shut down but what's interesting is that an online store is kind of like a mail order catalog business and in that respects Montgomery Ward's has come full circle it started out as a mail order catalog business became an enormous American retailer right alongside Sears and JCPenney but then lost it all after it failed to stay competitive but now a hundred and forty-six years later company is doing pretty much the same thing it was founded on whether you're shopping at a mall or shopping online or pretty much anywhere actually your devices are almost completely unprotected I've met quite a few people who have been victims of data and information fraud just from having their devices unsecure most people don't take the time to secure their cell phone or laptop but they really should and it's easy for you to do if you know the right tool today PC Meg's top-rated choice Nord VPN is offering a pretty fantastic deal on they're easy to use and easy to set up Virtual Private Network service basically that means up to six of your devices can be secured with military-grade encryption just for BSF viewers Nord VPN is giving seventy seven percent off which by the way is a fantastic deal when you use the link Nord VPN comm slash BSF and use the code BSF at check out a link of course will be in the description it's a service I've been using for a little over two months on all of my devices including my phone it's great for me when I'm traveling and I know all of my information is secure so I absolutely love it please go support them it's a really great valuable service and as always when you do that you'll be supporting me anyway guys my name is Jake follow us on Twitter Instagram and snapchat and thank you very much for watching [Music]

Channel: Bright Sun Films

Views: 858,121

Keywords: ABANDONED 39, montgomery ward, retail, dead mall, abandoned, wards, bradlees, brightsunfilms, mall, sears, kmart, target, walmart, creepy, funny, family store, family friendly, ames, 2001, aaron montgomery ward, mobil, jc penny, wards.com, magazine, retail store, abandoned mall, abandoned store, closing, bankrupt, liquidation

Id: LGR0hZqBEfU

Length: 13min 5sec (785 seconds)

Published: Fri Apr 27 2018