It’s been a pretty sad story up here in Canada too. As a child, I remember our three national department store chains: Eaton’s, Morgan’s and Simpson’s. I can’t remember the exact order of events, but at some point, Simpson’s signed an agreement with Sears and their stores were rebranded Simpson-Sears.
Each national chain would have their daily full page advertisement in the Montreal Star in the 1960’s: Simpson’s would be the back page of the first section, then Morgan’s as the back page of the middle section, then Eaton’s on the back page of the final section (which I think was always the sports’ section).
At some point, Morgan’s was rebranded as The Bay (the venerable Hudson Bay Company that has been around since before Canada was established in 1867).
Each department store had a six or seven storey main building in downtown Montreal, Toronto, Winnipeg and Vancouver. And each chain had an “anchor store” in all the big suburban malls across Canada. I remember these mall stores at Montreal’s Fairview Centre and at Toronto’s Yorkdale Mall.
And of course, each chain sold their own brandname appliances, including vacuums: Simpson’s sold Sears Kenmore, The Bay sold Baycrest (and later Beaumark) appliances, and Eaton’s sold Viking appliances - including vacuums made by Eureka at the Onward Manufacturing company in Kitchener, Ontario.
All of our department stores had thick catalogues akin to the big American Sears catalogue. Which was very convenient for Canadians living far from our big cities as you could order whatever you wanted over the phone.
Eventually, Sears USA bought our failing Eaton’s chain and a few years later Sears filed for bankruptcy here and closed half of Canada’s department stores. The only survivor is The Bay which apparently has gobbled up the American Lord & Taylor chain. Our Bay stores only sell Miele and Dyson vacs now. Pretty sad…
