10 iconic American brands that vanished - and who may be next

After years of declining sales, the stalwart kitchen storage company Tupperware announced it could be facing possible collapse last week.

Executives cautioned the brand had 'substantial doubt about its ability to continue as a going concern' in the face of a cash crunch and pressure from creditors after years of declining sales.

Experts suggested a number of financial missteps plus the proliferation of reusable containers used in increasingly popular food delivery services could all have played a part in the long-standing brand's decline.

News of Tupperware's potential demise comes as FedEx is reportedly mulling over doing away with its signature staff delivery drivers in favor of outsourced package handlers. The moves could relegate those mainstays of the market to the memory banks of Americans.

Tupperware would be far from the first iconic brand to vanish. Below are ten of the most distinguished brands that have been extinguished over the years.

A Tupperware party is seen in 1963, as the food boxes exploded in popularity abroad

Tupperware sales have been in decline since peaking in 2013. A bump in sales during pandemic lockdowns sharply reversed last year, and the company is facing insolvency

The last remaining Blockbuster location in Bend, Oregon. The brand once had 6,000 stores

Blockbuster

The movie-rental shop which secured itself in the hearts of millions of Americans who perused its aisles started with a single store in Texas in 1985.

The store used a then-novel computer system and barcode scanners to streamline its rental process, which allowed it to stock about 8,000 titles compared to the few-hundred its competition could handle.

Within three years the company had received $18million in investments and began buying up local video stores and reshaping them in Blockbuster's yellow and blue image.

By 1994 there were about 6,000 stores across the world, and Viacom purchased the company for $8.4billion.

Though competitors like then mail-based service Netflix began to edge into the market in 1997, followed by the kiosk-based platform Redbox in 2002, Blockbuster continued to expand and reached a peak of about 9,000 stores by 2004, according to Insider.

The same year, Blockbuster cowed to customer demands and did away with its long-reviled late fees in an attempt to lure them back from Netflix. The move cost the company around $200million in annual revenue, according to the Harvard Business Review, at the same time it was sinking a similar sum into launching an online platform to try to rival Netflix.

But the gains made by Netflix proved to be too much, and by 2010 Blockbuster had filed for bankruptcy.

Today, a single Blockbuster location remains in Bend, Oregon.

Toys 'R' Us declared bankruptcy in 2021 after 75 years supplying toys to children

Toys 'R' Us

Once a mecca for kids across the world, Toys 'R' Us shuttered the last of its dwindling primary-colored doors after 75 years in 2021.

The company was founded in 1948 by Charles Lazarus, a World War II veteran who predicted he could cash in on the baby-boom already burgeoning from fellow veterans of his generation.

Initially focused exclusively on baby goods like clothing and furniture, by 1957 Lazarus expanded the brand to include toys and adopted the name Toys 'R' Us.

The company became the stalwart toy store across the US, eventually adding offshoot brands like Babies 'R' Us and Kids 'R' Us, and even opening a store in New York City that had an entire Ferris wheel inside.

But by the 2000s, stores like Walmart and Target had started to chew into its revenue, and over the next few years the company made several attempts to go public that were later aborted.

Then as the offerings from Amazon became more expansive, Toys 'R' Us found it increasingly difficult to keep up with its competition.

By 2016 the company was running 1,600 stores worldwide, but unable to get ahead of its debt Toys 'R' announced in 2018 it would liquidate its inventory and close all of its stores, according to Insider.

Over the following years, the company made a few sputtering comebacks in different formats.

Tower Records was known for its wide selection of music and knowledgeable staff

Tower Records

Founded in 1960, generations of Americans were raised on music purchased at Tower Records.

Originally a lone record store in Sacramento, California, the company began expanding into the sale of books, posters, and other music paraphernalia.

The company kept expanding across the world and grew with the changing formats of music. Tower went from selling vinyl records, then introduced cassette tapes, VHS movies and CDs into the 90s.

But big-box stores like Walmart, Best Buy, and Target, began to seriously discount their music selections in an effort to draw customers in, according to NPR - and Tower could not compete with the markdowns. 

With its sales already plummeting, the death knell was struck for tower when MP3 formats became especially popular with the introduction of the iPod in 2001.

Faced with enormous debt and gutted sales, Tower Records filed for bankruptcy for the first time in 2004, and finally closed for good in 2006.

RadioShack oversaturated the market with its own stores, leading to its bankruptcy in 2017

Radio Shack

A mainstay store for all things audio, Radio Shack was started by a pair of Boston brothers in 1921 who wanted to cash in on the growing hobby of amateur radio operations.

The brothers focused on in store sales of audio equipment and parts, and expanded to a mail-order and catalogue-based operation.

Throughout the 20th century Radio Shack opened stores across the country and pioneered the sales of cutting-edge equipment, offering turntables, amplifiers, and speakers by 1947, calculators and computers by the 70s, cell phones and satellite television by the 80s, and internet services by the 90s.

Radio Shack was finally felled by massive brands like Best Buy, and online sales for components on platforms like eBay and Amazon.

The company also did itself in by oversaturating the market with its storefronts, according to Investopedia, sometimes operating up to seven stores within a five-mile radius.

Radio Shack filed for bankruptcy in 2017 and closed nearly all of its stores that year. 

Sharper Image was devastated by a lawsuit over an air purifier which left the company crediting back millions to customers who had bought it

Sharper Image

Though the gadget company maintains a presence online, Sharper Image was once a mainstay in nearly every mall across America.

The business started in California as a vendor for jogging watches, but expanded its selections over the years to include everything from massage chairs to brooms-vacuum combinations, to scooters and air purifiers.

It was one of the store's air purifiers which would contribute to its undoing. In 1999 they introduced their 'Ionic Breeze' purifier which promised to cleanse spaces of allergens - and came with a price tag of up to $300. About 3.2million customers purchased the purifier, only to complain that Sharper Image's claims about the machine's abilities were far overblown.

A class-action lawsuit followed, and while Sharper Image denied it had falsely advertised the product, in 2007 it agreed to give $19 credits to every customer who bought the air purifier - a loss that amounted to about $6.8million.

About a year later in 2008 Sharper Image filed for bankruptcy, with court filings showing the company had just $700,000 in cash to its name, according to Reuters.

A shuttered Borders bookstore in Chicago in 2011 shortly after its bankruptcy declaration

Borders Bookstore

For 52 years, Borders Bookstore was a mainstay on the American bookselling landscape. Founded in 1971 in Ann Arbor, Michigan, Borders started off as a rare and used books seller.

Like Blockbuster, the company was an early adopter of computer systems to organize their inventory and sales, giving them an edge on the competition that persisted for about two decades, according to The Ann Arbor News.

After having added numerous locations and new books, in the early '90s Borders began selling CDs and movies at their stores. By the 2000s there were over 256 'superstores' and more than 1,000 standard stores across the country.

Around the same time the company began slowly rolling out an online platform, but by then it was late to the game as retailers like Amazon had already overtaken the market. The company was profitable for the last time in 2006, and over the next four years hemorrhaged $1billion in income, according to the Associated Press.

By 2011 the losses had grown too high, and Borders filed for bankruptcy and began liquidating its inventory.

Pan Am invented the golden age of air travel and made flight available to the masses

The airlines was devastated by lawsuits following the bombing of a 1988 flight over Scotland

Pan American World Airways

The original airline, Pan Am epitomized and pioneered the ritz and glitz of international travel.

Founded in 1927 as a mail carrier and local passenger line in Florida, the company began expanding routes to South America and finally across the oceans.

Pan Am stocked its fleets with shining Douglas passenger jets, and sharply uniformed crew members, and in the process invented the golden age of air travel. They were the first to fly Boeing jets that would make international air travel affordable to the common public.

Then in 1988, a Pan Am flight from Frankfurt to Detroit - with stopovers in London and New York - was flying over Scotland when a bomb planted inside detonated. It happened less than an hour after the takeoff from its stopover in London. 

All 243 people, including 190 Americans, onboard died, and another 11 people died when the wreckage crashed into a residential neighborhood in Lockerbie. 

The airline was forced to pay hundreds of millions to the families of victims, and then shortly after Pan Am was heavily affected by the oil crisis and economic troubles caused by the Persian Gulf War. By 1991, it had filed for bankruptcy.

The Lockerbie bombing suspect, Abu Agila Masoud, was taken into US custody in December 2022. 

Saab was known for its unique designs, but was eclipsed by competitors like BMW and Audi

Saab

Originally established in 1937 as an aerospace company to build warplanes for Sweden, after World War II the brand began making cars for the post-war market.

Throughout the rest of the 20th century the brand became known for its unique designs. In 1978 it introduced the Saab 900 model, which became its most iconic model and would continue to be produced and seen all over the world until 1998.

But after the brand was purchased by General Motors, its new parent company put the relatively small output of Saab on the back burner as European competitors like BMW and Audi continued to win over customers.

After years of falling profits and numerous changes of owners, Saab declared bankruptcy in 2011.

One of Circuit City's distinct red 'plug' shaped entrances at a shuttered location in 2008

Circuit City

Known for the large red 'plug' shaped entrances of its stores, Circuit City was once America's largest electronics retailer.

Founded in 1949, the store was known over the years for its extremely well-trained and knowledgeable employees - who made much of their pay from sales commissions - leading to top tier customer service.

But Circuit City failed to aggressively join the online market while its competitors were establishing a presence, and around the same time the store removed its commission-based sales structure leading to a sharp decline in customer service.

Amidst falling sales, the 2008 recession devastated the company, leading to its bankruptcy declaration that year.

The brand was later purchased, and a number of electronics stores bearing its name - but not its plug entrance - remain today.

Teavana's storefronts were closed as traffic at shopping malls was devastated by the internet

Teavana

Once a mainstay known for handing out free samples outside their stores in malls across America, by 2018 Teavana had closed nearly all its storefronts.

Founded in 1997, the company was inspired by craft wine and beer making and aimed to bring the same attention and cultivated detail to tea, according to the Atlanta Business Chronicle.

The company was purchased by Starbucks in 2012, but six years later its 379 locations were closed as mall traffic across the country had steeply declined with the consolidation of online shopping.

Teavana remains alive today, though only through limited products still available at Starbucks locations.