SEARS closing locally

[mohavesam]

Now PLEASE don't post a Sears bashing comment. Let that thought pass...

Here we have one indoor mall, and today it has three anchors. Sears owns their building, and pays a huge chunk of taxes which will be made up by the residents of this community (about 48,000). They also take an auto service center from the few in the area.
It means the only indoor mall in a hundred miles will have a solid vacancy, and impact dozens of small local retailers, from durable goods to food n coffee houses. The mall was on the mend. Now notsomuch.

Yes, Sears has become a textbook example of how to take a hundred-plus year old company to a top-heavy, peter principle management structure that employed no one smart enough to simply survive, but it still sux. the closing puts longtime employees on the unemployment roles. Good people, no more paycheck.
THIS is what is wrong with America. "...and reruns all become our history..."

 

[Colonialgirl]

Sears went DOWN HILL when they made the BIG switch from FULL TIME employees who got a small percentage of their sales to PART TIME staff who didn't care how much you spent or even thought to suggest what other items you might need. I worked for a Sears supplier (Paints) from 1964 -1979 and SAW it happening.

Upper management went from OLD TIME SALES people to phd's in accounting.

 

[hittman]

Same thing happened with the Sears and Sears Auto Center here about 5 years ago. Our mall was anchored by Bergners, Sears and JCPenney. All 3 are now long gone and so are KMart, Best Buy, Ruby Tuesday.

 

[WAYNO]

I don't cheer the great old stores closing.

I do miss the wares they provided back in the day, when if the Mrs. wanted to shop for clothes, I could tag along just to look at the sporting goods and tools. And we'd likely both buy something.

 

[blackhawknj]

The Sears at the mall near where I live closed a year ago, also the local K-Marts.
Recall an article I saw in the NY Times on the disappearing of selling as a profession, trying to demote employees to mere cashiers, relying too heavily on part timers for whom the loss of the job was no real tragedy and who showed the company the same loyalty the company showed them-i.e. none.

 

[6GUNSONLY]

I miss our Sears store - the old downtown one, not so much the one at the mall. The old one had a REAL sporting goods department and a counter with candy and nuts for sale that made the whole store smell delicious. Good days, long gone...

 

[jussbad]

Wayno
Well said. Really used to like Sears.

 

[Pat-inCO]

We saw the same thing happen in the city where I lived in CO. K-Mart closed down
(I'll guess) about ten years ago, JCP moved out of the mall and Sears closed up.
The Sears tools are still available at Ace Hardware.

What I saw was a slow, yet steady deterioration in their marketing and especially
in their service. The standing joke was about the Sears corporate help lines and
the attitude of the people (in Chi) you would get to talk with. None positive.

Same thing happened about ten or fifteen years earlier with monkey wards.
(even if you can still find drivers that got their license from monkey wards catalogue) :roll:

 

[Taterman]

Today, I just read the Sears near me is closing. It is/was an anchor store in a large indoor mall. I don't even think there are any more left anywhere near here now.

 

[powder smoke]

The only thing that stays the same is things change! ps

 

[rkrcpa]

They announced in the newspaper today that our Sears store is closing. can't say I'm surprised.

 

[Cholo]

The one near me in Chattanooga closed about 2-3 years ago. It had been failing for over 15 years. One of the worst business strategies I can recall was when the failing K-Mart bought the failing Sears in '04.

Gee, who would have ever thought that business venture would fail :roll:

 

[eveled]

Anyone remember the Sears catalog? You could order anything from that catalog. Even kit houses at one time.

Think about it. They were Amazon long before the internet. They could have easily been Amazon if they’d have just modernized their catalog.

 

[kramden]

I remember when Sears and Montgomery Wards were the big dogs. It was a real treat as a kid back in the 50's to go to Sears or MW. They had everything under the sun. And Sears in particular had real QUALITY stuff. I remember their employees had terriffic profit sharing . People that had spent a lifetime at Sears had a very nice nest egg at retirement. Sad to see what happened to them. Kind of a scenario of America if the liberals continue to gain power. The greatest will become garbage.

 

[coach]

The sears near me outlasted the mall it was attached to for about 15 or 20 years. It too finally closed last year. It was apparent the last few years it was a goner.

 

[PAShooter]

I shopped at Sears for more than 50 years. I was always satisfied with their products, auto, tools, lawn, appliances, and even clothing. It was my go-to store. I heard yesterday that they are closing locally, they will be missed.

 

[MADDOG 521]

The computer is the downfall of store closings. I do believe that in person store shopping will return but I don't think it'll happen in my life time. Amazon has opened a few brick and mortar stores and they are well received.

 

[Ale-8(1)]

Anyone remember the Sears catalog? You could order anything from that catalog. Even kit houses at one time.

Think about it. They were Amazon long before the internet. They could have easily been Amazon if they’d have just modernized their catalog.

This is the thing that really gets me. Sears was an original innovator in the mail-order-everything business model, and they simply refused to adopt the new, improved version of the process. Talk about a lack of "future vision".

:roll: :roll: :roll:

 

[Montelores]

"Legacy" businesses which are infrastructure-heavy have a history of being difficult to re-direct, especially when financial leverage is mis-purposed.

A good, brief read from a reliable website.

Monty

The Bottom Line

It would be easy to read this story as a triumph of e-commerce, or to reflect on the irony that Sears was a first-mover when it came to online shopping, with its proto-internet joint venture Prodigy. But even recently, Sears has been ahead of the curve in that area. According to Bloomberg, Lampert "showered" the online division with resources while the rest fought over a shrinking pie.

Nor did competition with Amazon alone precipitate Sears' decline. When sales and profits began to fade, in the mid-2000s, other big-box retailers—particularly Walmart—were thriving. In 2011, the year Sears lost over $3.1 billion, Walmart made $17.1 billion.

Perhaps the might-have-been next Warren Buffett should have listened to the original, who told University of Kansas students in 2005, "Eddie is a very smart guy, but putting Kmart and Sears together is a tough hand. Turning around a retailer that has been slipping for a long time would be very difficult. Can you think of an example of a retailer that was successfully turned around?.."


...Kmart was Lampert's first majority stake, and he proved to be a better speculator than a manager. A 2013 Bloomberg article excoriates his Ayn Rand-inspired approach: In 2008, he split the company into 30 divisions—which swelled to 40 a year later—each of which reported profits separately and had to compete with the others for resources. Lampert was both strict with money and distant, seldom leaving his home in South Florida.

Divisions found themselves acting like separate companies, even drawing up contracts with each other. Compensation costs rose as each division hired its own senior management. These executives, in turn, had to form their own boards, and their pay was determined according to an in-house profit metric that led to cannibalization as some divisions cut jobs, forcing others to step in. The appliances unit found itself being gouged by the Kenmore unit, so it bought wares from LG, a South Korean conglomerate, instead.

The combined company's profits peaked at $1.5 billion in 2006, then dwindled to nearly nothing by 2010. The company lost $10.4 billion from 2011 to 2016. In 2014, its total debt surpassed its market cap...

https://www.investopedia.com/news/downfall-of-sears/

 

[Watchman]

I quit shopping at Sears when they (significantly) cheapened the quality of their Craftsman tool line.

One day, every store will be Amazon.
One day, every restaurant will be Taco Bell. :wink:

 

[tinman]

I quit shopping at Sears when they (significantly) cheapened the quality of their Craftsman tool line.
One day, every store will be Amazon.
One day, every restaurant will be Taco Bell. :wink:

.............ditto............



Don't know about the rest of the Country but the "Craftsman" brand is now being offered at local Lowes stores.

 

[Bull Barrel]

Sears sold the Craftsman brand a while back.

 

[steveodtw]

The Sears store in Oakland Mall, Troy, Michigan used to be the highest grossing store in the US. As of last year, it's gone. I just read that as of 1/1/2020 Michigan will have one K-Mart store left, in Marshall Michigan, in the middle of nowhere. The K-Mart World headquarters building in Troy has sat vacant for about a decade. Internet is King, I guess.

 

[fiasconva]

Our local Sears went down the tubes in Dec and one of the two last remaining KMarts in the state will close by mid Dec. I have had both good and bad dealings with Sears over the years but still sad to see icons like those two go.

 

[Bull Barrel]

And if you think about it KMart used to be S.S. Kresge & Co. They were direct competition to Ben Franklin and Woolworth's, both gone.

 

[redhawker]

Sears was the Amazon of their time (long ago) but they became, basically, just another big-box clothing store so what was the point of going there anymore over any other big-box clothing store?

 

[blackhawknj]

Yes, the irony is that Sears was the Amazon of its day, it took advantage of the then cutting edge technology-railroads-combined with a well organized and laid out catalog that let customers order from their homes in a rural society and delivered to their town, if not their door.

 

[Virginia Boy]

If you were a kid, growing up in the 50s, as my older brother & I were, you looked forward
to the Sears & Roebuck Christmas catalog, coming . We would just about wear it out.
There was such a collection of toys, that you wouldn't see anywhere else.

 

[smoke-eater]

Our local one closed about a year ago. Lots of memories there. Back in the late 1960's/early 70's, as a youngster, I loved gazing at the Ted Williams rifles and shotguns on display. I'll always miss it. Where's a guy supposed to go to buy his tighty-whiteys and socks now?

 

[Selena]

Truthfully... I didn't know that Sears still had any stores open. Hmmm, I wonder if they might have a replacement yoke for Gramps' David Bradley hay wagon...