Sears, once America’s largest and most important retailer, could very be going into its last Christmas shopping season.

The Sears chain had 2,000 stores as recently as 20 years ago and more than 200 stores when it emerged from bankruptcy in 2019. Now it has just five, after three more closings this past year.

One standalone store in Coral Gables, Florida, could be torn down to build 1,000 housing units. Another four operate in malls – in Braintree, Massachusetts; Concord, California; El Paso, Texas; and Orlando Florida. All those malls are owned by Simon Property Group, the nation’s largest mall operator.

The company, once the Walmart and Amazon of its day, helped change America, from how people shopped to where they lived and more. Now the once-proud chain is in a precarious position; by next year’s holiday season, it could finally be gone.

The five remaining stores are unlikely to revive Sears, experts told CNN.

“They’re phantoms in the night presently,” said Mark Cohen, a former Sears Canada executive who was formerly head of retail studies at Columbia University. “Someone unlocks the door in the morning and locks it at night, but there’s actually nothing to sell in the stores.”

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It’s still mind-boggling to me how a company like Sears could go belly up.

I can’t help but wonder how things may have been different had they not merged with KMart and then let Lowe’s take the Craftsman brand.