Posted on 01/09/2014 2:09:59 PM PST by Hojczyk
Sears, once America's golden retailer, is a company in crisis.
The company has shuttered hundreds of stores in recent years. The embattled company has been selling some its most profitable stores to raise money.
And now, shares are tumbling after Sears lowered guidance for the quarter and announced that comparable sales in the fourth quarter have slid more than 7%.
Brian Sozzi, chief equities strategist at Belus Capital Advisors, took poignant photos inside of New Jersey and New York Sears locations in October.
"To understand why Sears is in a 'sell stores mode' one must look no further than the stores themselves, where the truth is to be found," Sozzi writes.
His photos show the sad reality of what Sears is today.
(Excerpt) Read more at finance.yahoo.com ...
Okay. But they are on the Internet now, just like everybody else, and have been there for a while. The catalogue sales division was losing millions of dollars a year when they closed it.
Maybe they could have retooled the wishbook catalog and adapted it to the growing Internet or maybe not, but I'm not sure getting rid of the catalog was an obviously stupid idea, given what's happened to all printed paper media lately and given the success of companies like Amazon.com which don't have paper catalog.
Anyway, Sears catalogs are back, though on a much reduced scale.
I’ve seens\ a similar Yahoo photo report on KMart.
Same dingy, dumpy, badly stocked, flea-market looking type of place that is just about worthless.
But then - Sears owns KMart. So there ya go.
Heh.
But having worked at Sears at that time, we were genuinely surprised - and somewhat concerned - when Ward’s went belly-up. A lot of us at that time figured that sooner or later, Sears would go the same way.
-——— But they are on the Internet now——
That is where you can go to buy replacement door latch for the Kenmore washing machine that is 25 years old
Sad to see. When I was a kid, I’d enjoy looking around at their tools and yard gear. Back when I was about 12, they also had a great assortment of mini-bikes. My mother also bought appliances there.. at one time, Kenmore was the gold standard for washers and dryers. Wondering if those are even sold there anymore.
I don't get high on shopping any more so I get whatever I can cheap. Haven't been to Sear's forever; last time I was in Penney's maybe 10 years ago to get a battery replaced in a watch my daughter bought there. She lost hers and I still have mine with no battery again.
This concerns me greatly. Christmas sales were down. And you are right. As we get further along with O'careo middle class will have little to no discretionary income left.
I see what you see coming. A crying shame. I don't support any of the many stores left except W'mart which I hate. I have an item in my cart at amazon that was 51 before Christmas and now 64.95. Cold day in he!1 before I will pay that. And I can really use it.
Hubby got a tool set for Christmas. I was surprised that the whole set was Made in the USA. Only the metal box was made in Mexico. We were pleasantly surprised.
We ordered it online though through shopdiscover.com and got 10% cash back on top.
The big Sears store around here was located in the ghetto mall and finally closed down 3 or 4 years ago. The whole mall is toast now. We didn’t think about the .com store before now. They really need to advertise that more. The bricks and mortar will kill them if they don’t cut most of them right now. Who needs a mall when you can surf a website in your jammies and wait for the delivery man? Amazon figured this out, Sears will have to long term.
They bought dying K-Mart and killed their brand and quality.
We have a Sears vacuum that is about 20 years old. It still works great.
Yep. We bought our LG refridgerator at Sears. And we looked at the Kenmore brands. Also built by LG.
I’m sorry yours broke recently. Our LG is great! For now.
Maybe your LG Kenmore is like the Maytag Washer we bought at Wards years and years ago.
Mrs R2 wanted a Maytag Washer. So we gets one. At Moneky Wards. Less than a year later it broke. We called Wards. They said call Maytag. Maytag said call Wards. Blah, blah, blah.
Turns out it was a Maytag built just for Wards and as such... it was not the real deal with the quality Maytags were known for.
I worked my way through college and grad school at a Sears appliance repair shop, 1973-79. Went from part-time to full-time selling maintenance agreements, then became the TV shop office manager, and then a parts counter man. By the time I left, I was making enough money that I had to take a pay cut to become what I had been going to college to be, a music director.
Sears was the store for my parents' generation. The world changed, and Sears didn't. It will go the way of F. W. Woolworth, W. T. Grant, and John Wanamaker's. And someday, Wal-Mart will follow, and then Amazon, to be replaced by whatever innovator will take its place; barring a medical miracle, I won't be around to see it. (Where I'm going, that isn't a problem :> )
They are retarted, sir
Similar here, also my very first experience with an escalator. How cool is that, stairs that move!
Yeah those were great days! Good old Monkey Wards...
Hand Tools
Rest assured, most of your Craftsman hand tools (those tools powered by hand) are made in America.
A full 80 percent of the Craftsman line is produced in the United States. The exceptions are tape measures, which come from the Dominican Republic, while Craftsman shovels and rakes are often made in China or Taiwan. Close inspection of the packaging often indicates country of origin.
Read more: http://www.ehow.com/about_5549766_craftsman-tools-made.html#ixzz2pwbVZogS
I want to pay for my stuff and go. I don't want to give my phone number, or my email, or any of that crap.
You HAVE to push credit applications on EVERYONE. If you don't you get in trouble. With their antiquated equipment it takes TWO open registers to do an in-store credit ap.
I read that the only thing keeping Sears alive were credit sales.
I doubted I'd ever find a worse place than walmart to work, but Sears was it.
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