Author Topic: Sad Bastard Sears  (Read 10976 times)

accolay

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Sad Bastard Sears
« on: June 23, 2018, 02:09:27 AM »
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.

Gone Fishing

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Re: Sad Bastard Sears
« Reply #1 on: June 23, 2018, 03:49:13 AM »
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. 

MayDay

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Re: Sad Bastard Sears
« Reply #2 on: June 23, 2018, 06:18:27 AM »
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.

accolay

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Re: Sad Bastard Sears
« Reply #3 on: June 23, 2018, 06:51:23 AM »
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.

Dave1442397

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Re: Sad Bastard Sears
« Reply #4 on: June 23, 2018, 06:54:09 AM »
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.

Roadrunner53

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Re: Sad Bastard Sears
« Reply #5 on: June 23, 2018, 07:43:50 AM »
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.

Debts_of_Despair

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Re: Sad Bastard Sears
« Reply #6 on: June 23, 2018, 07:48:20 AM »
I stopped trying to make sense of it.



https://finance.yahoo.com/news/inside-sears-death-spiral-billionaire-134128865.html


I do miss the price/quality point of Craftsman tools, though.

pecunia

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Re: Sad Bastard Sears
« Reply #7 on: June 23, 2018, 08:00:14 AM »
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.

Roadrunner53

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Re: Sad Bastard Sears
« Reply #8 on: June 23, 2018, 08:09:33 AM »
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.

pachnik

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Re: Sad Bastard Sears
« Reply #9 on: June 23, 2018, 08:18:52 AM »
Sears Canada went bankrupt and closed all their stores earlier this year. 

accolay

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Re: Sad Bastard Sears
« Reply #10 on: June 23, 2018, 08:32:57 AM »
I'm hoping that Kmart totally dies with them so we can get rid of the one blocking our street.

Shinplaster

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Re: Sad Bastard Sears
« Reply #11 on: June 23, 2018, 09:17:11 AM »
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.

FINate

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Re: Sad Bastard Sears
« Reply #12 on: June 23, 2018, 09:30:50 AM »
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.

Gone Fishing

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Re: Sad Bastard Sears
« Reply #13 on: June 23, 2018, 09:45:06 AM »
I stopped trying to make sense of it.



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.

Roadrunner53

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Re: Sad Bastard Sears
« Reply #14 on: June 23, 2018, 10:10:59 AM »
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.

DreamFIRE

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Re: Sad Bastard Sears
« Reply #15 on: June 23, 2018, 12:07:31 PM »

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.

DreamFIRE

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Re: Sad Bastard Sears
« Reply #16 on: June 23, 2018, 12:14:54 PM »
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.

accolay

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Re: Sad Bastard Sears
« Reply #17 on: June 23, 2018, 01:32:26 PM »
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.

accolay

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Re: Sad Bastard Sears
« Reply #18 on: June 23, 2018, 01:59:56 PM »
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?

Sibley

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Re: Sad Bastard Sears
« Reply #19 on: June 23, 2018, 05:26:41 PM »
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.

nick663

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Re: Sad Bastard Sears
« Reply #20 on: June 23, 2018, 08:57:21 PM »
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.

Monocle Money Mouth

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Re: Sad Bastard Sears
« Reply #21 on: June 24, 2018, 03:03:41 AM »
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.

bacchi

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Re: Sad Bastard Sears
« Reply #22 on: June 24, 2018, 10:14:57 AM »
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.

pecunia

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Re: Sad Bastard Sears
« Reply #23 on: June 24, 2018, 10:30:33 AM »
Ad for Craftsman tools.

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.

accolay

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Re: Sad Bastard Sears
« Reply #24 on: June 24, 2018, 11:53:08 AM »
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
Quote
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.

jim555

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Re: Sad Bastard Sears
« Reply #25 on: June 24, 2018, 04:05:51 PM »
They shut a big Sears near me a few months ago.  It will be missed.

nick663

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Re: Sad Bastard Sears
« Reply #26 on: June 24, 2018, 04:22:11 PM »
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
Quote
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.

Zamboni

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Re: Sad Bastard Sears
« Reply #27 on: June 25, 2018, 06:23:24 AM »
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!


Nicholas Carter

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Re: Sad Bastard Sears
« Reply #28 on: June 25, 2018, 10:35:51 AM »
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.

ketchup

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Re: Sad Bastard Sears
« Reply #29 on: June 25, 2018, 11:04:03 AM »
Whenever I see a movie at the mall, I park in the Sears lot since it's always empty.

OurTown

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Re: Sad Bastard Sears
« Reply #30 on: June 25, 2018, 11:13:47 AM »
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. 

wbranch

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Re: Sad Bastard Sears
« Reply #31 on: June 25, 2018, 11:46:55 AM »
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.

GuitarStv

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Re: Sad Bastard Sears
« Reply #32 on: June 25, 2018, 04:48:31 PM »
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.

pecunia

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Re: Sad Bastard Sears
« Reply #33 on: June 25, 2018, 07:15:16 PM »
Guitarman:
Quote
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.

Roadrunner53

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Re: Sad Bastard Sears
« Reply #34 on: June 26, 2018, 05:49:11 AM »
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

Dicey

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Re: Sad Bastard Sears
« Reply #35 on: June 26, 2018, 09:04:29 PM »
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.

marty998

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Re: Sad Bastard Sears
« Reply #36 on: June 27, 2018, 02:18:05 AM »
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.

RetiredAt63

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Re: Sad Bastard Sears
« Reply #37 on: June 27, 2018, 04:38:53 AM »
It happens.  Eaton's was a household name in Canada, no more.

Kris

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Re: Sad Bastard Sears
« Reply #38 on: June 27, 2018, 05:48:26 AM »
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.

OurTown

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Re: Sad Bastard Sears
« Reply #39 on: June 27, 2018, 07:47:07 AM »
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.

ketchup

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Re: Sad Bastard Sears
« Reply #40 on: June 27, 2018, 09:18:38 AM »
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.

accolay

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Re: Sad Bastard Sears
« Reply #41 on: June 28, 2018, 07:43:15 AM »
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...

EricCantonese

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Re: Sad Bastard Sears
« Reply #42 on: June 28, 2018, 09:19:58 AM »
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.

TheWifeHalf

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Re: Sad Bastard Sears
« Reply #43 on: June 28, 2018, 02:27:49 PM »
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.



Debts_of_Despair

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Re: Sad Bastard Sears
« Reply #44 on: June 30, 2018, 07:46:48 AM »
Kind of weird that Sears pioneered mail order shopping and now they have no chance of competing with Amazon, etc.

Roadrunner53

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Re: Sad Bastard Sears
« Reply #45 on: June 30, 2018, 08:16:14 AM »
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.

Johnez

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Re: Sad Bastard Sears
« Reply #46 on: June 30, 2018, 01:01:46 PM »
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....

nessness

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Re: Sad Bastard Sears
« Reply #47 on: June 30, 2018, 02:26:55 PM »
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.

accolay

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Re: Sad Bastard Sears
« Reply #48 on: September 14, 2018, 07:03:43 PM »
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

pecunia

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Re: Sad Bastard Sears
« Reply #49 on: September 18, 2018, 07:53:29 PM »
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.

 

Wow, a phone plan for fifteen bucks!