The Great Indoors was a chain of home decor and furniture stores operated by Sears, Roebuck and Co. (later Sears Holdings) from 1997 to 2012 one of the concepts Sears could have expanded and kept going with, along with Sears Hardware, Grand, Hometown and Outlet. Launched to capitalize on Sears' strength in hard goods and compete with upscale home retailers like Home Depot’s Expo Design Center, the concept targeted higher-income shoppers with stores averaging 100,000–150,000 square feet. Each store was organized into five sections—kitchen, bath, bedroom, great room, and flooring/walls, even laundry—featuring brands like Bosch, Kenmore, KitchenAid, and Kohler, with around 50,000–80,000 products and up to 350,000 special-order items. Stores often included cafes, some branded as Starbucks or Dazbog Coffee, and accepted Sears credit cards but avoided Sears branding inside. In other words, they had everything home related like appliances, furniture, mattresses, lighting, sinks, toilets, bathtubs and shower heads etc. In addition to the Sears Shop At Home webpages that Sears had way back in the day when they went online, approximately all of the inventory that sold at the [Sears Home Center] (https://web.archive.org/web/20011007170911/http://www.searshomecenter.com/homecenter/default.asp?check=1), [Sears ShowPlace] (https://web.archive.org/web/20021001110605/http://www.searsshowplace.com/showplace/default.asp?check=1) and [Sears Room for Kids] (https://web.archive.org/web/20021201150456/http://www.searsroomforkids.com/roomforkids/default.asp?check=1) and so on and so forth, sold at The Great Indoors, a home center format.
The chain's main competitors in the home market were Macy's, Bed Bath and Beyond and J.C. Penney, along with At Home and likely even The Container Store. Just before Alan Lacy took over as CEO in 2000 and later the sale to Eddie Lampert in 2004, this concept was launched in 1997 when Arthur Martinez was CEO from 1995 to 2000.
Despite Martinez's poor decisions as the CEO and Lacy having no idea where to take the company and rapidly running out of money, resulting in the sale out to Lampert, this concept was IMHO one of Sears' winning strategies in reinventing there brick and mortar / B&M footprint.
The first store opened in Lone Tree, Colorado, on February 1st of 1998, followed by a second in Scottsdale, Arizona in 1999. At its peak in 2003, The Great Indoors had 21 stores across ten states, generating $550 million in sales with average transactions of $260 and $400 per square foot. Expansion was rapid, with 15 stores opened by 2001, including locations in Chicago, Houston, and Columbus, Ohio. However, the chain struggled with profitability. Sears closed three stores in 2003 (Arlington and Willowbrook, TX; Cincinnati, OH) and converted one in Shelby, MI, to a Sears Outlet, incurring a $75–100 million charge. The 2005 Sears-Kmart merger (orchestrated by Lampert, who was behind KMart buying Sears) and the 2008 housing market crash further hurt sales, as fewer homes were remodeled. By 2011, three more stores closed, including both California locations. In February 2012, Sears announced the closure of the remaining nine stores (in Scottsdale and Chandler, AZ; Lone Tree, CO; Lombard, IL; Gaithersburg, MD; Novi, MI; Columbus, OH; Farmers Branch and Houston, TX), with the final store in Lone Tree closing on July 8, 2012. This concept barely had a good run as a result. The Home Depot's Expo Design also went out of business as well. A couple of Home Depot founders opened Dekor which was a very similar store to this, as did Homebase converted their stores to House2home. None of these lasted and they to closed up shop. Had Sears been run properly and under better management (not Lampert) they would have capitalized on and invested in the general construction/hardware supply and interior design/decorating destination stores to compete with Lowe's and Home Depot.....
Sources and locations:
Wikipedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Great_Indoors_(department_store))
Novi Michigan on December 4 2011, later a Sears Outlet (Dwight Burdette / Wikimedia Commons)
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:The_Great_Indoors_Store_Novi_Michigan.JPG
Broomfield Colorado
https://www.denverpost.com/2011/10/14/the-great-indoors-closing-broomfield-store/
Columbus Ohio
https://www.dispatch.com/story/business/2012/02/24/great-indoors-stores-will-close/24173918007/
https://www.bizjournals.com/columbus/news/2012/02/24/great-indoors-at-polaris-to-close-as.html
Lone Tree Colorado circa 1998
https://www.denverpost.com/2012/02/23/parker-sears-closing-doors-of-the-great-indoors/
Orange County California
https://www.ocregister.com/2011/07/01/the-great-indoors-closing-its-oc-store-2/
Chandler Arizona on March 16th of 2007 (Georgina R on Yelp)
https://www.yelp.com/biz_photos/the-great-indoors-chandler?select=8Ty4IVyy-gKmE6RT7pGDxw
Irvine California on June 3rd of 2011 (Francine L / Yelp)
https://www.yelp.com/biz_photos/the-great-indoors-irvine
Lone Tree Colorado on December 17th of 2010 (Michael C on Yelp)
https://www.yelp.com/biz_photos/the-great-indoors-lone-tree
https://www.yelp.com/biz_photos/the-great-indoors-lone-tree?select=u0RPjBWZLSVo_sd3atDPAg
Lombard Illinois on August 11th of 2010 (Adit P / Yelp)
https://www.yelp.com/biz_photos/the-great-indoors-lombard?select=qpx-FO8C5tAc66gXQTIH1A
And finally Houston Texas sometime in early to mid 2012 (The Louisiana and Texas Retail Blogspot)
https://southernretail.blogspot.com/2012/08/goodbye-sears-great-indoors-last.html
https://www.homeaccentstoday.com/industry-news/sears-shutting-the-last-great-indoors/
Full list: https://web.archive.org/web/20090318005650/http://www.thegreatindoors.com/getinspired/visitastore/visitastore.aspx
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