The closure of Sears, one of Hawaii’s most venerable general merchandise stores, may not be immediate, but the end is near, retail analysts say.

“It’s kind of like a bygone era,” said Mike Hamasu, director of consulting and research at Colliers International.

Sears Holdings Corp., which owns Sears and Kmart stores, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection Monday and announced it will shutter 142 stores by year’s end, adding to the closure previously announced of 46 unprofitable stores. The four stores left in the islands at Pearlridge Center, Windward Mall, the Prince Kuhio Plaza in Hilo and the Queen Kaahumanu Center in Kahului were not among those listed on the closure list.

However, the likelihood that the stores will remain in the competitive retail landscape is slim, Hamasu said.

“You have a lot of retailers tailored to specific audiences and providing more up-to-date merchandise,” he said. “Back in the ’60s and ’70s was the heyday of general merchandise stores. With the advent of the internet and the rise of the new millennial generation that’s much more tech-savvy, they can do price shopping immediately. If they’re willing to wait for Amazon or the e-commerce vendors to mail (merchandise) to them, they don’t have the need to go into the store to buy stuff.”

Sears, one of the original anchor tenants when Ala Moana Center opened in 1959, closed at the mall in 2013 to make way for a massive redevelopment. But that was not without heartache for many longtime customers like Steve and Angelica Adams of Ewa Beach, who were shopping at the Pearlridge store Monday.

The couple said they have been loyal customers of the department store since they were “little kids,” and reminisced about browsing through the Sears mail order catalog every year to pick out their Christmas presents.

“The wish list came from Sears. It used to be Sears was one of the main brands … and now it’s all these little other companies that you’ve never heard of online,” Angelica Adams said. “I always heard my grandparents and everybody talking about Sears. It’s been around forever.”

Sears started as a mail order catalog in the 1880s, and the retailer began opening stores in 1925 and expanded quickly throughout the 1950s to 1970s. But the company has taken a substantial hit year after year as discount chains such as Walmart, Home Depot and Best Buy, as well as online retailers, take a larger chunk of the market.

“Amazon, I think, is gobbling a lot of this type of stuff,” Steve Adams said. “It seems like all the stores from when we were younger are now kind of leaving.”

Melinda Galindo, 20, walked through the Sears at Pearlridge on her way out of the mall but said the store was outdated for her generation.

“I usually get my stuff from Target, Ross or Walmart for appliances and for clothes at other stores,” she said. “(Sears has) more styles towards older adults. For, like, younger people you don’t really see that many brands here.”

Sears Holding also shuttered the Lihue Kmart in early September, following the closure of a Kailua-Kona location in August. The last Kmart store on Oahu, a 135,000-square-foot location in Kapolei, closed in October 2017.

“Our kids don’t shop at Sears. They’re like, ‘No way,’” said Angelica Adams, whose grown children are in their 20s. “They wouldn’t shop at Sears if they had to. It’s not a ‘cool store,’ but for us there’s a lot of emotional ties to the Sears brand.”

The Associated Press contributed to this report.