The Money Mustache Community
Other => Off Topic => Topic started by: accolay on June 23, 2018, 02:09:27 AM
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Occasionally I visit a Sears store to pick up a tool or the like. It's basically fairly close to where I live. They usually have something I require. I can usually order online and pick up at the store. Sometimes, I'll wing it and go inside the store to pick something up.
After visiting I'm wondering how a sales giant screwed themselves. From visiting it seems like it's because nobody from the top down, from the CEO to the Janitor, gives a fuck. They're operating as they've already lost. They know they're going to close down. It was a really sad. The store is too big for their wares-everything is spread out yet disorganized at the same time. Many of the stock items were missing. There are no sales people to be found. The sales person I found I had to ask if he worked there because he wasn't wearing any identifying information. He worked in the appliance section. Papers and shit were pretty unorganized all over the place around. The stainless steel appliances needed cleaning from fingerprints. After buying the item, the receipts have spit out about two feet (not an exaggeration) of offers and coupons and shit. Almost as if there is a hidden camera comedy show to see my reaction. The salesperson know it does this and asks if I even want them. I don't. They are thrown away.
Their website kinda sucks ass if you're looking for specific items. They've included other sellers besides Sears a la Amazon, but it just ends up confusing your search. That idea about nobody in the company giving a fuck? The filter section includes a filter for "CARFTSMAN" products. The website is organized as if it was made by someone who has never bought anything in their life.
Craftsman tools used to be quality- now they aren't great, not bad, but they work. And I can usually get something I need/want the same day or even look at it before buying. I think Sears screwed up by making their tools cheaply in order to make their tools "affordable" but at the same time consumers start to think they're cheap, so they stop buying them. They watered down the brand by selling it in other stores including Ace hardware. They have too many types of offshoots and shit. As far as I know, it's also all made overseas now too.
Shouldn't have gotten rid of Bob Villa.
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It probably been 5+ years since I have been in a Sears store. Even back then, the lack of inventory was disappointing. They offered to let me order what I needed on an online kiosk, but it didn't work. I noticed that a hatchet in the lawn and garden section was the EXACT same model sold at Harbor Freight, but at 3x the cost. I don't cry over them much.
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It's pretty amazing to watch.
They do have a pretty big presence in Mexico and the one successful store in my metro is in a Hispanic neighborhood (and it would be a huge loss for the neighborhood if it closed and nothing else came in).
I wonder regularly why they don't just contract I their popular locations and admit they are a small chain the serves a specific market.
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I noticed that a hatchet in the lawn and garden section was the EXACT same model sold at Harbor Freight, but at 3x the cost. I don't cry over them much.
They're trying to be basically every other store by selling a run-of-the-mill cheap item instead of their own really good name brand product. It must be hard to keep quality employees at this point. No pride in your product. Knowing your pink slip is just around the corner.
It's been quite amazing to watch the decline of that store since I've lived here for over a decade. Internet tells me they haven't turned a profit since 2010 and lost billions since. I feel like they've made just about every bad decision a store could make.
I guess I'll keep going to continue to poke it with a stick. Not sure where I'll after they're dead. Suppose I'll have to order off the internet and wait for it.
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I get emails from them giving me anywhere from $9 to $13 to spend on anything I want. I hadn't bought anything there in years - I know we bought something at the Sears Outlet near us a few years ago, but that's it.
Anyway, my daughter needed a winter coat, and between the discounts and Sears bucks (or whatever they call them), it came out to under $15, so I ordered it. A few days later, we get a package from Sears containing a really nice men's zip-up sweater and a long-sleeve fleecy shirt. I didn't even bother going through the hassle of returning them.
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So many of these retail stores just haven't gotten with the times.
My first job was at W. T. Grants. It was around for at least 70 years and then went belly up.
Don't these companies have some kind of think tanks and see what is selling and what is not? They try to sell everything thinking they are going to attract everyone. However, the fashions Sears sells are just ugly crap. Are they really making money selling 'fashions' at Sears?
I am not an expert but everything needs to change with the times. In my town we had some local stores that sold womens clothes. Most were frumpy fashions and no young women or teens would step foot in the stores. They closed too.
Even grocery stores seem to change with the times and offer new food categories and trends. I like going to the grocery store and discovering new things I have never tried before.
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I stopped trying to make sense of it.
(https://s.yimg.com/ny/api/res/1.2/LIE0652onywZmLpSr3qJOg--/YXBwaWQ9aGlnaGxhbmRlcjtzbT0xO3c9NjUwO2g9NDQ3/http://globalfinance.zenfs.com/en_us/Finance/US_AFTP_SILICONALLEY_H_LIVE/Inside_Sears_death_spiral_How-bd960bbf18477d1040cab7eddc8586d7)
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/inside-sears-death-spiral-billionaire-134128865.html
I do miss the price/quality point of Craftsman tools, though.
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There was a Sears franchised store near where i live. They had a lot of good tools there. I bought a few.
They closed. In the same building, they opened a Harbor Freight. One of the guys who used to work at the Sears now works at the Harbor Freight. He told me that he is treated better by his newer employer. He doesn't blame the family that had the Sears franchise. He blames the people on top for the problems with Sears / K-Mart.
It confuses me. I've been taught, "Buy American." This is because it is supposed to be better for the American worker. Yet, when the foreign companies open up here, they seem to treat people well. You hear about people committing suicide at Apple (American) factories in China because things are so bad. Wal Mart is an American company and their employees,.........
I worked for a Summer at Montgomery Wards years ago. The world moves on.
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We had a Sears franchised store in our town too. It lasted maybe 5 years and went out of business. Personally, I think they were in a no man's land location and probably no one knew where they were.
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Sears Canada went bankrupt and closed all their stores earlier this year.
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I'm hoping that Kmart totally dies with them so we can get rid of the one blocking our street.
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Sears Canada went bankrupt and closed all their stores earlier this year.
From what I read, Sears Canada was actually doing OK a few years ago. Lampert just hollowed out every dollar he could get, and shut it down anyway. Paid out dividends to shareholders (i.e. himself) while leaving Sears Canada pensioners fighting for their pensions.
We're not shopping in the US for the foreseeable future, but if we were, I wouldn't step foot in a Sears now anyway because of ^^. It's sad - most of our appliances and furnishings when we were first married came from Sears. I still have some Craftsman tools too. My son (35) has fond memories of the Christmas WishBook.
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The small family business I grew up working in was located adjacent to a Sears in a mall. Even way back then, early 80s, Sears was terrible. Disorganized, inventory problems, merchandise mislabeled, sale items not marked properly, messy shelves... and almost all the employees totally clueless. The marriage to Kame-apart was fitting...they're both cut from the same cloth.
It's gotten worse in the past decade, but I also think they appear worse because most modern retailers have gotten so much better. Like the little Italian restaurant that everybody loved in the 70s that now seems sad and run down, Sears never updated the menu and didn't keep up with increasing standards.
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I stopped trying to make sense of it.
(https://s.yimg.com/ny/api/res/1.2/LIE0652onywZmLpSr3qJOg--/YXBwaWQ9aGlnaGxhbmRlcjtzbT0xO3c9NjUwO2g9NDQ3/http://globalfinance.zenfs.com/en_us/Finance/US_AFTP_SILICONALLEY_H_LIVE/Inside_Sears_death_spiral_How-bd960bbf18477d1040cab7eddc8586d7)
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/inside-sears-death-spiral-billionaire-134128865.html
I do miss the price/quality point of Craftsman tools, though.
I read somewhere that there was profit to be made from tearing something down, not just building it up. I'm sure, on some level, there is a huge conflict of interest, and a grand plan to get rich(er) by dismantling Sears.
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They should concentrate on their core competencies and make the stores a smaller footprint. These gigantic mega stores are a thing of the past. Trying to figure out every possible thing a consumer will buy is obviously not working for them. Maybe they can have more to offer on line and less to offer in the stores.
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The OPs account of Sears doesn't match my experience. A few SEARS stores near me have disappointedly closed down, and traveling over an hour away just isn't worth it, so I miss not having one close anymore.
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I'm hoping that Kmart totally dies with them so we can get rid of the one blocking our street.
Wtf?? Then you'll just have a large empty building there blocking your street.
We've had some Kmarts in the area also as an alternative to Walmart, and they closed in recent years, so I miss those. We still have the big empty unused buildings, though.
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I'm hoping that Kmart totally dies with them so we can get rid of the one blocking our street.
Wtf?? Then you'll just have a large empty building there blocking your street.
No, it's a special situation. This particular Kmart was puposefully put in the middle of where the street was circa 1980 to reroute traffic in an attempt to help stimulate an area but instead it stagnated the area and changed the whole flow of people's movement. Our city has already purchased the land underneath so when it dies, it can be demolished and put the street back to where it was and open the area back up again.
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I read somewhere that there was profit to be made from tearing something down, not just building it up. I'm sure, on some level, there is a huge conflict of interest, and a grand plan to get rich(er) by dismantling Sears.
I agree. I think the only people (person) doing this is the CEO, and he never cared about saving it. I think it's the American story now be it retail or manufacturing- the people at the top take the lions share with some story about competition while managing ineptly or not at all and the people at the bottom lose their jobs.
It's sick. I wonder if I were an owner or CEO of a company, would I too become souless and greedy to the point where I didn't care about my employees getting paid a fair wage while I make hundreds of millions? Or is that the new American Dream?
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When I bought my house last year, I needed a lawnmower. I went to the Sears outlet near by, picked out a lawnmower, and since I got a discount by using the Sears Card, I opened on. Put in my address, etc.
Then the fun began. Whoever was doing the credit card stuff for them sent the card to my parents house. In another state. I haven't lived there in 10+ years. Which is bad enough, but it gets worse.
So I call the company and basically ask them what the hell they think they're doing. They're trying to screw me over, sending financial documents/credit cards to another address, and by the way, where the hell did they get that address?!? The guy I'm talking to is trying to change the address, etc. Says he's all done, I say thanks and hang up. Then it gets worse.
My parents call me to let me know that they got a phone call from the Sears card confirming the address change on MY credit card. I got off the phone with them, then called the company back. Asked to speak to a supervisor. No, don't need a supervisor. Told them that since they felt it was appropriate to try to expose my financial information to identity fraud, I most certainly did need a supervisor and transfer me NOW.
They hung up. I called back, demanded to speak to the highest ranking manager there, because they're trying to commit fraud and just hung up on me. I got a supervisor at least. Went through the whole mess, demanded to know what the hell they thought they were doing, calling an incorrect phone number when the OWNER of the account was updating incorrect information that they never should have had in the first place. Supervisor fixed everything (again), then I demanded to speak to their manager.
That's where I really got scary for them. See, I'm an auditor. It's my JOB to look at processes and figure out where they're broken. This random manager now had a really pissed off customer, who had a pretty good case to get people fired, and is also an auditor, spell out in step by step detail exactly where they went wrong and the potential consequences of their fuck ups. Sometimes you can tell, even over the phone, when someone is shaken, right? This woman I was talking to sounded terrified. She should have been - that's some pretty serious screw ups.
Moral of the story: do not get a sears, or kmart, credit card.
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They should concentrate on their core competencies and make the stores a smaller footprint. These gigantic mega stores are a thing of the past. Trying to figure out every possible thing a consumer will buy is obviously not working for them. Maybe they can have more to offer on line and less to offer in the stores.
I thought it was the opposite with giant megastores knocking off smaller stores that focused on a single area. For example, Target/Wal-Mart just killed Toys R Us and they were also large contributors to the decline of Circuit City.
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Going to Sears is pretty disappointing. The merchandising is messy. The floor tiles are dirty and scratched. Display fixtures are often broken. It's hard to find a register with a cashier. They're pretty much doing brick and mortar retail all wrong and it shows.
I would still hate to see them go belly up since they employ a lot of people. There would also be ripple effects from them closing down all of their stores. Most of them serve as anchor stores at shopping malls. If they go out of business, some of the malls they occupy may not be too far behind.
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Malls are done, too. They're closing down all over the place. One near me is being bulldozed for apartments and first floor retail (though I always thought putting apartments inside a mall would be cool).
I've ordered a fridge and dishwasher from Sears online and have no complaints. Their online parts store is fantastic; I assume that will be sold off and kept going.
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Ad for Craftsman tools.
https://www.craftsman.com/about-us (https://www.craftsman.com/about-us)
If they are semi independent of whomever purchased them and continue to sell US made tools, they could be successful. There are still a lot of people out there that want US made tools. Other US brands like Snap-On are rather high priced.
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If they are semi independent of whomever purchased them and continue to sell US made tools, they could be successful. There are still a lot of people out there that want US made tools. Other US brands like Snap-On are rather high priced.
The Craftsman brand was acquired by Stanley Black and Decker in March 2017.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Craftsman_%28tools%29 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Craftsman_%28tools%29)
Craftsman tools came under fire in 2004 in a lawsuit accusing Sears of false advertising and consumer fraud for questionable use of the slogan "Made in the USA".[31]
I think Snap-On is high Priced because they are made in the US- They have to pay a real wage to the employees making them.
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They shut a big Sears near me a few months ago. It will be missed.
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If they are semi independent of whomever purchased them and continue to sell US made tools, they could be successful. There are still a lot of people out there that want US made tools. Other US brands like Snap-On are rather high priced.
The Craftsman brand was acquired by Stanley Black and Decker in March 2017.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Craftsman_%28tools%29 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Craftsman_%28tools%29)
Craftsman tools came under fire in 2004 in a lawsuit accusing Sears of false advertising and consumer fraud for questionable use of the slogan "Made in the USA".[31]
I think Snap-On is high Priced because they are made in the US- They have to pay a real wage to the employees making them.
Craftsman used to make pretty good hand tools 30+ years ago. All of them were made in the USA and carried a lifetime warrantied (because you wouldn't need it).
2004 was in the midst of their offshoring/quality cutting of the Craftsman brand and it has only gotten worse from there.
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I agree with the comments about the Sears stores and their lack of organization. I could see it going downhill even 10 years ago.
Another area where they screwed up is appliances. Kenmore, long ago, had a reputation as an affordable and very reliable brand. When our 20 year old Kenmore dryer stopped working about a decade ago, I called the Sears appliance repair. The repair guy was great . . . fixed it for a very cheap part (thermostat). I was thinking about buying another new washer/dryer set, since ours was pretty old, and he basically was like "no, this one will go for another 20 years, probably, and if you do decide to get a new one, then definitely don't get another Kenmore because they used to be good but they are junk now." Umm, okay, thanks!
Sorry to hear about what happened with your credit card, @Silbey! I am very skeptical of credit cards from stores now . . . I decided not to link my Target card to my checking account, and that was a good decision!
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I read somewhere that there was profit to be made from tearing something down, not just building it up. I'm sure, on some level, there is a huge conflict of interest, and a grand plan to get rich(er) by dismantling Sears.
I agree. I think the only people (person) doing this is the CEO, and he never cared about saving it. I think it's the American story now be it retail or manufacturing- the people at the top take the lions share with some story about competition while managing ineptly or not at all and the people at the bottom lose their jobs.
It's this. The CEO of Sears took over the company as the owner of one of Sears' biggest creditors, and is also the owner of one of Sears' biggest landlords. He's basically double dealing himself, which is why this will never happen.
They should concentrate on their core competencies and make the stores a smaller footprint. These gigantic mega stores are a thing of the past. Trying to figure out every possible thing a consumer will buy is obviously not working for them. Maybe they can have more to offer on line and less to offer in the stores.
If Sears stays in business he gets paid as the CEO and as his own landlord. If Sears goes out of business and is sold for scrap he'll still get paid as his own biggest creditor.
I'm genuinely unsure of how this is not a crime.
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Whenever I see a movie at the mall, I park in the Sears lot since it's always empty.
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This was my experience as well. I went in about two weeks ago to buy dumbbells. I walked around the store and it was really depressing. Inventory was spotty everywhere. Employees looked downright depressed. They still have a good selection of mattresses though.
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After buying the item, the receipts have spit out about two feet (not an exaggeration) of offers and coupons and shit.
During college in 2008-2010 I worked in a Sears warehouse/backroom loading big stuff into vehicles, receiving items, full-filling online orders, and other stuff life that. There was a big Earth Day sale for energy efficient appliances and a customer cancelled their few thousand $ order for multiple appliances due to the giant receipt they felt wasted too much paper for Earth Day. The cancellation spit out a giant receipt as well.
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It's kinda sad. When I lived in northern Ontario as a kid, there were no real stores to speak of. Nearly everything that we bought came from the Sears catalog. I have a lot of good memories of the company from that period . . . but have been tremendously disappointed every time I've ventured near one of the stores in the past decade or so. You would figure that a place with such a great understanding of mail order products would have transitioned to the internet age a lot better.
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Guitarman:
Nearly everything that we bought came from the Sears catalog.
Many people in rural areas had that experience. Entire houses were sold from Sears. Sears had good, better and best. People still call the biggest building in Chicago, the Sears Tower despite the name change.
Seems like these big companies are good for one or two generations and then something happens.
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Yes, I am in CT and a friend of ours was talking about Sear's houses. Seems you would pick a house plan and price and they would send all the building materials you needed to build the house. There is some way to identify if a house is a Sears House but I forgot what he told us.
Here is a link: http://www.searsarchives.com/homes/1933-1940.htm
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My first job was at Sears. My young self wisely participated in the stock purchase program. My shares of Sears stock became Sears and Allstate. Then Dean, Whitter was added. Eventually, I sold the DW, then the Sears stock. Each time I netted more than I had ever contributed. I hung on to the Allstate, because my beloved uncle was an agent for decades. Earlier this year, I rolled it into my DAF, and now it's all gone. No more connection to my first regular job. I no longer live in that city, but i know it will leave a gaping hole. Maybe someone will develop it. There is a need for housing everywhere in my state. More likely it will sit empty for years. BTW, it is a freestanding store with a ginormous parking lot. I learned to drive a stick there, as did half the other kids in town. RIP Sears #1298.
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We have an equivalent store here - Myer.
Been a household name for over a hundred years. Now? No one gives a fuck. They simply don't know how to complete with competition from boutiques or from the internet. Bad strategy, bad management, bad products, bad pricing. Just bad all round.
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It happens. Eaton's was a household name in Canada, no more.
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I'm hoping that Kmart totally dies with them so we can get rid of the one blocking our street.
Wtf?? Then you'll just have a large empty building there blocking your street.
No, it's a special situation. This particular Kmart was puposefully put in the middle of where the street was circa 1980 to reroute traffic in an attempt to help stimulate an area but instead it stagnated the area and changed the whole flow of people's movement. Our city has already purchased the land underneath so when it dies, it can be demolished and put the street back to where it was and open the area back up again.
Heyyyyy, Minneapolis.
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I still remember shopping at Montgomery Ward. For you young folks, it was very similar to Sears. In fact, I have a CRT television that I bought at, wait for it, Montgomery Ward. Circa 1989. It still works and I have an antenna hooked up to it. Also a VCR (!!!!!) to play those sweet VHS tapes.
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I still remember shopping at Montgomery Ward. For you young folks, it was very similar to Sears. In fact, I have a CRT television that I bought at, wait for it, Montgomery Ward. Circa 1989. It still works and I have an antenna hooked up to it. Also a VCR (!!!!!) to play those sweet VHS tapes.
Aha! That's where my old shitty minifridge that is always just too cold and uses as much electricity as multiple modern full-size refrigerators came from! It was free with my house. Good stuff.
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I'm hoping that Kmart totally dies with them so we can get rid of the one blocking our street.
Wtf?? Then you'll just have a large empty building there blocking your street.
No, it's a special situation. This particular Kmart was puposefully put in the middle of where the street was circa 1980 to reroute traffic in an attempt to help stimulate an area but instead it stagnated the area and changed the whole flow of people's movement. Our city has already purchased the land underneath so when it dies, it can be demolished and put the street back to where it was and open the area back up again.
Heyyyyy, Minneapolis.
You had me at Nicollet...
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I can't envision a scenario where Sears would not be struggling with the new online retail economy, but Lampert's management of Sears seems like a perfect cocktail of delusion and self-dealing and I think it put Sears in its currently horrific position.
Here's a profile of Lampert if anyone is interested. It's not as negative as it could be, but I think it's still pretty damning:
https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2018/03/the-strange-odyssey-of-hedge-fund-king-eddie-lampert-sears-kmart
The NY Times also did a recent piece on how Sears got to where it is now:
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/11/business/the-incredible-shrinking-sears.html
I don't see a way out for Sears given the hole Lampert dug them into. Lampert himself will be just fine, though. Sears has a lot of real estate that could produce good profits as long as you don't care too much about actually keeping the Sears stores around.
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My sister and I used to have fun playing 'paper dolls' with the Sears catalog, and eagerly awaited the Christmas catalog.
I did quite a bit of research on the history of the Sears catalog houses, thinking we might live in one. Finally decided, probably not, I kept one of the shingles that were on the top half of the exterior - it still had its 'Big Chief' label on it. We talked to the guy next door and he said his brother built it and I think he would have told us if it was a Sears.
Behind one of the baseboard pieces in the then dining room, was his signature. I decided the guys who worked on our kitchen should all sign a cabinet side that will never be seen unless someone decides to get rid of the cabinet.
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Kind of weird that Sears pioneered mail order shopping and now they have no chance of competing with Amazon, etc.
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Kind of weird that Sears pioneered mail order shopping and now they have no chance of competing with Amazon, etc.
Good point! To think how hard it had to be to put together those catalogs too. Obviously, they just didn't have a vision for the future. They must have thought their business model never needed tweaking. They probably had old geezer board members saying 'if it ain't broke, don't fix it'. In some ways that is true. Sometimes trying to change a business model causes problems. There are tons of ways to get positive feedback to see if the changes jibe with customers. Like focus groups or changing a few stores at a time to see customer impact. They needed some seasoned visionaries to examine what is wrong and how to turn the ship around. Seems they still do nothing but shut stores down. How is that improving what is left in tatters? The stores are just turning ghetto. I think they need to seriously downsize their stores and concentrate on what sells the best and stick with a smaller footprint. Unless, they could merge with another company to strengthen their core business.
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I'm no expert, but it seems these stores have way too much fat. Just concentrate on high quality. Halve to amount o stores and rebuild them so it doesn't resemble a 90s time capsule of chipped linoleum floors and shit thrown haphazardly all over the floor. Go to Target for an example of a place that is organized and a pleasant enough experience that I'll be guaranteed to walk out with twice the stuff I came in for AND not be too concerned with with saving a few pennies. Go to McDonalds (the recently remodeled ones) for an example of continuous improvement on the customer experience so that they'll keep spending money. Some of these places look downright upscale inside. Get rid of K-Mart, there is no saving these guys....
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The one thing I like about Sears is that they sell Land's End clothing, which is well-made for the price point. And they accept returns from online Land's End purchases. I won't miss anything else.
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Turns out we were all so wrong about why Sears is failing. It's actually because of all of its retirees and their pensons. Thanks for explaining that for us Eddie.
https://money.cnn.com/2018/09/14/news/companies/sears-pension-retirees/index.html (https://money.cnn.com/2018/09/14/news/companies/sears-pension-retirees/index.html)
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Odd that companies can't survive by treating their long term employees right.
Odd that companies thrive by importing stuff from countries with near slave labor and paying their own employees less than survival pay. Odd that the US government is more than happy to pick up the tab for these underpaid employees subsidizing said company
Some things just ain't right.
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I stopped trying to make sense of it.
(https://s.yimg.com/ny/api/res/1.2/LIE0652onywZmLpSr3qJOg--/YXBwaWQ9aGlnaGxhbmRlcjtzbT0xO3c9NjUwO2g9NDQ3/http://globalfinance.zenfs.com/en_us/Finance/US_AFTP_SILICONALLEY_H_LIVE/Inside_Sears_death_spiral_How-bd960bbf18477d1040cab7eddc8586d7)
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/inside-sears-death-spiral-billionaire-134128865.html
I do miss the price/quality point of Craftsman tools, though.
I'm a fairly smart guy and I can't pick my way through this absurdity. Is this a complicated way of saying that Sears is paying all of its money out to these other companies and leaving the stock/bond holders holding the bag?
The last time I walked into a K-mart (same company as Sears), it felt like nobody knew why they were there. Maybe this is why.
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I stopped trying to make sense of it.
(https://s.yimg.com/ny/api/res/1.2/LIE0652onywZmLpSr3qJOg--/YXBwaWQ9aGlnaGxhbmRlcjtzbT0xO3c9NjUwO2g9NDQ3/http://globalfinance.zenfs.com/en_us/Finance/US_AFTP_SILICONALLEY_H_LIVE/Inside_Sears_death_spiral_How-bd960bbf18477d1040cab7eddc8586d7)
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/inside-sears-death-spiral-billionaire-134128865.html
I do miss the price/quality point of Craftsman tools, though.
I'm a fairly smart guy and I can't pick my way through this absurdity. Is this a complicated way of saying that Sears is paying all of its money out to these other companies and leaving the stock/bond holders holding the bag?
The last time I walked into a K-mart (same company as Sears), it felt like nobody knew why they were there. Maybe this is why.
At this point what kind of sad clueless fuck owns Sears stocks or bonds? There’s penny stocks I’d buy before metaphorically hitting my nuts with a hammer doing that. I can only imagine some ‘bot leveraging it for some arcane tax advantage or a person tight with the vampire CEO who’s got an angle.
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Picture looks kind of like a circulatory system witha big bloodsucker in the middle. Some of these big money people create nothing good, but only destroy what others have built.
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My question about the CEO is, how does one grow to be such a giant piece of shit?
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We are down to just one store in my metropolitan area. I haven't had a reason to go there in at least two years, other than rummaging through the tools in hopes of finding some NOS USA made stuff.
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After visiting I'm wondering how a sales giant screwed themselves. From visiting it seems like it's because nobody from the top down, from the CEO to the Janitor, gives a fuck.
I believe the CEO gives a f*** thus personally makes a tons of money while everyone is drowning.
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Kind of weird that Sears pioneered mail order shopping and now they have no chance of competing with Amazon, etc.
Sometimes what you see is not the real difference. Like how the growth of Walmart was not really due to running each store better, but the run the "system of stores" in a more efficient way than others, using at the time modern technology in and the proximity of stores to eachother to its advantage.
The interwebs with it's volumes is something else. Amazon and Alibaba are really really different beasts than previous retailers.
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After visiting I'm wondering how a sales giant screwed themselves. From visiting it seems like it's because nobody from the top down, from the CEO to the Janitor, gives a fuck.
I believe the CEO gives a f*** thus personally makes a tons of money while everyone is drowning.
I don't think it matters if he cares or not. He makes money if Sears closes or stays open. See the diagrams above.
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I have not been a fan of sears for a long time but I just had the most wonderful experience! My upright freezer broke down Sunday afternoon. We made sure we didn't open it from that point on. The freezer was extremely full. We were very concerned we were going to lose around $800 worth of stuff. So, on Sunday I called Home Depot to see if they had an upright freezer in stock. NOPE, they could order one and maybe in 3 days I could get it. So now I waited till Monday to call some local appliance stores. I called 3 stores. One had a smaller unit which I knew I would hate and would be inadequate. No one had anything else in stock and same old story, 3 days. I also asked every place if they had a rental unit to get us by till we got a new one. NOPE! I looked on Craigslist to see if someone was selling an old freezer for maybe $100. NOPE! So, I happened to look on line at Sears. It said one day delivery! OMG! I found a unit that was basically equivalent to what I had. We were very skeptical of this actually happening. If you all are like us, sounds good but something usually screws up. I was told the window of delivery was 1:45 to 3:45 pm yesterday (Tuesday). So at 1 pm we started unloading the frozen stuff from the freezer and it was still frozen into coolers with ice. We had been working on it for only 20 minutes and I heard a truck in our driveway! They were early by 25 minutes! We took out the last few things and within minutes they were wheeling the unit into the garage. They set it up and that was it! We transferred the food back in after about 45 minutes giving it time to chill down a little.
So, please give Sears a chance! This freezer was delivered about 27 hours after ordering it! It did cost $29 for this overnight thing but no other delivery charges. We also got some other discounts due to a sale I guess.
This freezer is HUGE (20.5 cu ft), not a little cube type freezer. I asked each place that didn't have an upright freezer in stock if they had any suggestions what I could do and they all said no. Not one of them suggested Sears.
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I have found d Sears service to be excellent, so much so I'd consider getting all my appliances from them regardless of price if I didn't know they were going bankrupt.
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The one thing I like about Sears is that they sell Land's End clothing, which is well-made for the price point. And they accept returns from online Land's End purchases. I won't miss anything else.
Land's End used to be great, but the quality has been squeezed right out of it. I have a couple of exactly the same style dress ordered a few years apart. The old ones still look fabulous. The new one is horrible. The fabric is cheap, the zipper is crooked and the seam are falling apart.
A few years ago, Sears had a great deal on shoes. I ordered 4 pairs in my size, 8.5W. The box arrived and contained a 5M, 7N and two size 10M pairs. It was like somebody just grabbed random shoes off the shelf and tossed them in a box. I took them back to the physical store to return them. It took two hours because nobody could figure out how to do it.
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So, please give Sears a chance! This freezer was delivered about 27 hours after ordering it! It did cost $29 for this overnight thing but no other delivery charges. We also got some other discounts due to a sale I guess.
It's only individual employees who work there that are doing the job for you. It's the CEO and the board who are bringing the company down.
I personally have no loyalty when it comes to big business. They're all basically the same.
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accolay:
"I personally have no loyalty when it comes to big business. They're all basically the same."
I am not sure if that is true. It seems to me that there must be some small business growing somewhere. This business would retain the vision of the original owners. Professional managers (MBAs) would not yet have taken over the business. It is run by the folks who worked with the original owner to build it up. These are people who still care about providing a service for the customer. They arre not just turning time into money.
The second generation with the silver spoons in their mouths will hire the professional managers to run it like all the other big businesses.
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My Grandma would get me a sweater at Sears every year at Christmas (1980s). My parents definitely had a Sears Card. The stores were certainly a staple in many communities.
I agree that their website is abysmal. I was looking for upright compact freezers a few weeks ago and the website was not a good experience.
How is the CEOs situation even remotely legal?
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Yes, I am in CT and a friend of ours was talking about Sear's houses. Seems you would pick a house plan and price and they would send all the building materials you needed to build the house. There is some way to identify if a house is a Sears House but I forgot what he told us.
Here is a link: http://www.searsarchives.com/homes/1933-1940.htm
You can still do a version of this today: https://www.84lumber.com/projects-plans/
You can buy the plans or the plans and the materials.
Our local Sears and Kmart were pretty good right to the end. The stores were kept up and clean. DW and I bought all the mattresses at our house at Sears, our fridge, our dishwasher, our washer and dryer, our 42" LCD TV, some of my tools, a lawn mower, and a kitchen table. All those items have preformed well and we are picky value shoppers so the price/quality were good compared to what was available in our area. We used to have a Sears card as did the rest of our extended family.
The Kmart store seemed to frequently shoot itself in the foot as if it wanted to go out of business. When WalMart opened a super store here twenty years ago in a growing town and KMart hardly reacted. WalMart was so successful here that they built a second store and then a third store about 20 minutes away. And two more about 30 minutes away.
KMart kept toddling along when they should have remodeled the store, upped the quality of their inventory or built a "Super KMart". They lacked the efficiency and vision that WalMart has year after year.
They did keep the store clean but it was sort of like visiting the late 1980s. Not necessarily a bad thing. We shopped there alot to avoid the WalMart crowds and the WalMart shopping list creep. I need detergent, I only buy detergent.
I wholly blame upper management. They were late to internet sales. Meanwhile Walmart and Amazon among others ate KMart's lunch. KMart should have been catering to both the Dollar Store customer AND the customer who wants a bit of style and quality. I would have never bought any of their unknown brand merchandise. Who made that appliance or that TV? Why is this thing labeled with a long dead brand? Clearly made some in some far away factory and branded with a sticker promising no hope of support after the purchase.
The websites of Sears and KMart were last I looked very much riddled with third party sellers with hugely overpriced goods. I bought a small saw for my garage on clearance from another store for $150. I could buy more or less the same Chinese saw from Harbor Freight for $200. The Sears site had the same Chinese saw for $500 and up. It doesn't matter if it comes from a third party seller, some regular person who doesn't know how to get the most out of the website will see the $500 saw and decide that Sears is too expensive and move on even though it is from a third party seller. Sears/Kmart needs to rein in the third party prices. If there is some reason the saw is more than 20% more than what we all know they sell for at other retailers then it ought to be filtered out and the customer never sees it.
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Sears was such a big name for so long. I wonder if it will resurface when the present owner has milked the cow until the udderr is completely dry.
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Would be interesting if Sears got their shit together and offered those kit houses again. What better time? There's an affordability and availability issue here in California, there's this tiny house craze, and we have mustachianism going mainstream.
What gets me is that Sears had everything going for it at one time. Even now, you walk in and there are great brands. Go to Walmart and see if you can walk out with decent tools or clothing, you cannot. Walmart, Target, Amazon, did not eat Sears lunch-Home Depot did. Sears has better clothing and tools, a huge selection of appliances, even mattresses. It takes leadership asleep at the wheel to squander all their advantages. I will be bummed to see Sears go down. They have a decent regular guy clothes section that has basically everything I need. I wish Sears would buy Craftsman back,scale back their stores a bit and eliminate categories (I'm guessing a good place to start with floor space might be furniture and mattresses), and rebrand as a premium retailer. I hate Walmart, Target, and would like an alternative to Home Depot and Lowe's for tools...
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I stopped trying to make sense of it.
(https://s.yimg.com/ny/api/res/1.2/LIE0652onywZmLpSr3qJOg--/YXBwaWQ9aGlnaGxhbmRlcjtzbT0xO3c9NjUwO2g9NDQ3/http://globalfinance.zenfs.com/en_us/Finance/US_AFTP_SILICONALLEY_H_LIVE/Inside_Sears_death_spiral_How-bd960bbf18477d1040cab7eddc8586d7)
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/inside-sears-death-spiral-billionaire-134128865.html
I do miss the price/quality point of Craftsman tools, though.
I'm a fairly smart guy and I can't pick my way through this absurdity. Is this a complicated way of saying that Sears is paying all of its money out to these other companies and leaving the stock/bond holders holding the bag?
The last time I walked into a K-mart (same company as Sears), it felt like nobody knew why they were there. Maybe this is why.
Yes. There is a general failure of governance here in that the other directors of Sears are not protecting the interests of minority shareholders.
Could all be legal under your laws, but this whole setup is designed to funnel cash to Mr Lampert.
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Sears sold cars too back 100 years ago!
https://money.cnn.com/2017/06/13/autos/sears-motor-buggy/index.html
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The one thing I like about Sears is that they sell Land's End clothing, which is well-made for the price point. And they accept returns from online Land's End purchases. I won't miss anything else.
Yes, I shop there pretty frequently for that purpose. And I'm pretty happy with the garage door opener and some other tools that I got there. I'll miss them.
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I hadn't purchased anything from Kmart or Sears in years, but have now twice in the last month. We needed a new grill, but DH refused to pay full price since we only need one for two years. We did the rounds early September looking for clearance grills, but no one except Kmart had any and they were marked 30% off. Late September we did the rounds again and Kmart had the same grill marked 50% off. All the other stores still had their grills full price. Then it rang up at 70% off and they were running a promotion that if you spent more than $50, you got $50 worth of points to spend later. So our $80 grill netted us $50 in points which we spent on tp, laundry detergent, etc. Then this weekend DH needed new shirts for a conference. Since we're close to FIRE, he refused to get nice shirts that would last a long time. We walked into Sears just to see and found shirts there. They are running a promotion buy $40 in clothing, get $40 in points. Our $50 purchase netted $40 in points that I'll spend on more necessities. TL,DR - how the heck can they continue to give stuff away. I can't figure out the end game for these promos unless it's just to raise cash and hope that people don't use the points?
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I hadn't purchased anything from Kmart or Sears in years, but have now twice in the last month. We needed a new grill, but DH refused to pay full price since we only need one for two years. We did the rounds early September looking for clearance grills, but no one except Kmart had any and they were marked 30% off. Late September we did the rounds again and Kmart had the same grill marked 50% off. All the other stores still had their grills full price. Then it rang up at 70% off and they were running a promotion that if you spent more than $50, you got $50 worth of points to spend later. So our $80 grill netted us $50 in points which we spent on tp, laundry detergent, etc. Then this weekend DH needed new shirts for a conference. Since we're close to FIRE, he refused to get nice shirts that would last a long time. We walked into Sears just to see and found shirts there. They are running a promotion buy $40 in clothing, get $40 in points. Our $50 purchase netted $40 in points that I'll spend on more necessities. TL,DR - how the heck can they continue to give stuff away. I can't figure out the end game for these promos unless it's just to raise cash and hope that people don't use the points?
Yep... just like items that are free after rebate. Most people do not bother to claim the rebate, same thing here...
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I will be sad when our local Sears closes down. It is only a 5 minute drive and so convenient if I had to, like I did the other day, need to get a pair of shoes or some item of clothing for my kids. At least our local Sears is decently run (though there is always a line to check out, as they have limited registers open.
We walked around the mall and had lunch there, even rode the mall's carousel, but its days are numbered. The mall was bought less than a year ago. Whoever bought it also bought the mall's debts. And has called in the debt, which of course the mall cannot pay (30 million dollars?). It is too bad, because the mall was being creative in bringing in people, having a number of local community things happening there plus a branch of the library, and a food truck rodeo once a month.
It is the same situation. The investor will make money whether the mall opens or closes. In fact due it's location, would probably be made over to be a mix of residential and big box stores.
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I think if this is how it goes, then the demise will be quicker than expected maybe?
https://www.mprnews.org/story/2018/10/27/sears-suppliers-haunted-by-ghost-of-toys-r-us (https://www.mprnews.org/story/2018/10/27/sears-suppliers-haunted-by-ghost-of-toys-r-us)
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Would be interesting if Sears got their shit together and offered those kit houses again. What better time? There's an affordability and availability issue here in California, there's this tiny house craze, and we have mustachianism going mainstream.
What gets me is that Sears had everything going for it at one time. Even now, you walk in and there are great brands. Go to Walmart and see if you can walk out with decent tools or clothing, you cannot. Walmart, Target, Amazon, did not eat Sears lunch-Home Depot did. Sears has better clothing and tools, a huge selection of appliances, even mattresses. It takes leadership asleep at the wheel to squander all their advantages. I will be bummed to see Sears go down. They have a decent regular guy clothes section that has basically everything I need. I wish Sears would buy Craftsman back,scale back their stores a bit and eliminate categories (I'm guessing a good place to start with floor space might be furniture and mattresses), and rebrand as a premium retailer. I hate Walmart, Target, and would like an alternative to Home Depot and Lowe's for tools...
If you have a Rockler nearby, it might be worth checking out for tools. Home Depot and Lowes generally sell rubbish.