eating their seed corn
Sears had all the infrastructure in place with their huge catalog operations to be Amazon, but just didn’t capitalize.
Sad indeed I used to shop at Sears but not anymore.
K Mart couldn’t even run a store in Detroit it closed down years ago. I haven’t been in a K Mart in over 10 years.
Had Sears jumped into online sales early they could be sitting where Amazon is now.
I haven’t been in a Sears in many years, and my area doesn’t have a Kmart or a Sears.
With 731 stores they could easily sell have of them in the areas that are the poorest performers to stay afloat for awhile. However, their problem is really with the products they carry. Not worth the prices for the quality. They did have a good run of 130 years though. Perhaps they will move to become more of a Amazon type of store. In the early days they used to have a very large mail order business.
Sad. Used to be a manager for a Kmart store in Ohio 8 years ago. Bummer deal.
Biggest mistake Sears ever made was buying KMart
It’ll be a sad day when Sears closes the last store. Our grandparents may remember they even sold pre-fab houses (I wonder what the prices would be nowadays):
http://www.searsarchives.com/homes/1908-1914.htm
I remember thinking...wouldn't it be great if Sears went bankrupt? Well, 35 years later, I got my wish!
While Ford sends even more jobs to Mexico.
We had a huge Sears about a mile from my home where I grew up. Multi-story, main building took up most of a block, with lesser buildings surrounding it and across the street, and lots of parking lots. Automotive stuff across the street, not including tires in a back parking lot. A gardening supply building next door. My dad would take me almost every weekend. They had a cafeteria inside where I could get hotdogs, popcorn and soda. Anything you could imagine was for sale at Sears. Get your clothes, appliances, tools, plumbing items, car repairs, gardening items, etc. About the only thing they didn’t have was groceries. All gone. Sears indeed was a great store.
I knew it wouldn’t last once they quit selling mail-order firearms.
“A sad end to a once great “Anything and Everything” store in Sears.”
==
Growing up Sears was the goto store for a whole lotta things
Maybe 15 years ago I was shopping for a particular item in Doughlas, Georgia. There was a Wal-Mart and a K-Mart only a few hundred yards from each other.
I didn’t find my item but noted that the Wal-Mart had a huge parking lot which was nearly full. The K-Mart also had a large one but there must have only been 20-30 cars in the lot.
I was later talking to the manager of another K-Mart and mentioned to him my observation and fear that K-Mart was going to have to close pretty soon.
He agreed with me that there was a real problem but said they would not close at least for a while. He turned out to be right but I have no idea how they made it this far.
Our local town used to have a Sears, Wards, Penneys, Oklahoma Tire and Supply Co(OTASCO), Firestone.
Now they are gone. And who remembers Woolworth? They used to be on all larger town squares!
Earlier this year I needed a socket set and got one at Sears. Come to find out, Craftsman is now made in China. I won’t be buying Craftsman tools anymore, and that was the only reason I had to go to Sears. Eddie Lampert has totally destroyed Sears, and now, the Craftsman brand.
And Sears has nobody but themselves to blame.
I frequently TRY to give my business to the local Kmart, but they almost always disappoint me. They either don’t have what I need, or they have it at a higher price than Wal Mart.
I like their major appliances - refrigerators, washers, dryers, etc., and of course their tools