Sears was destroyed by the same process that destroyed Radio Shack, Toys R US and others. Wall street goons buy a company with a lot of real world property. They 'sell' the property to a privately owned holding company and start charging rent on properly that used to be owned. They pack the companies with hatchet men who make sure to make just the right decisions to prevent the company from recovering. After a few years they gut the companies with these added costs and drive it to bankruptcy. In the process they short the stock to nothing and before its over. They pocket most of what is left and never have to pay to the shorts back. They tried that with gamestop but wall street bets happened and stopped them. That came close to driving some hedge funds to ruin but they managed to hide it and move on.
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This same thing happens with non retail companies. One of the last ones was Windstream communications. I have some personal experience with that one. They followed the script I outlined above and destroyed that company. Windstream's management became hard to contact. The people changed constantly. Many of the techs I worked with left for greener pastures and the whole company became a joke. They are effectively gone now.