Sears is a famous American shop name. For a long time it was a huge store that sold almost everything for the home: clothes, tools, furniture, fridges, washing machines. Many families in the US ordered from the Sears catalogue — a thick book of things you could buy by post — long before they walked into a mall. In the twentieth century most large US cities had a Sears; though actually that picture is out of date. The company shrank, many shops closed, and younger Americans may know the name from their parents, or from the old Sears Tower in Chicago, more than from a store they still visit. It is not a Taiwan chain. When an English text says Sears, think of a big US department store, the way an older American would.