Posted on 12/09/2016 1:17:01 PM PST by Hojczyk
Sears (SHLD), the 130-year-old American icon, can’t find a way to stop the bleeding.
The floundering retailer has closed hundreds of Sears and Kmart stores, cut costs and borrowed millions of dollars from CEO Eddie Lampert’s hedge fund to keep the business going. Sears invested in its online store and a loyalty program, Shop Your Way, in hopes of regaining its footing, but customers have yet to return in droves.
On Thursday, Sears reported its fifth quarterly loss in a row, and sales continued their downward trend. Sears also revealed that it will accelerate plans to shutter underperforming stores. Jason Hollar, Sears’ chief financial officer, said there’s no guarantee when the company can return to profitability.
Sears, which is based in the Chicago suburb of Hoffman Estates, Ill., traces its history back to 1886. Sears, Roebuck & Co. grew to become the largest retailer in America, competing with retail heavyweights of the day like Macy’s (M) and J.C. Penney (JCP).
The retailer was widely known for its catalogs, but that business fell out of favor by the 1990s. With the brick-and-mortar business also struggling, Kmart—controlled by Lampert’s firm, ESL Investments—acquired Sears in a $12 billion merger in 2005. Sears Holdings is now the 20th-largest retailer in the U.S., according to the National Retail Federation Opens a New Window. .
(Excerpt) Read more at foxbusiness.com ...
Not fast enough…
Maybe if they put guns and ammo back in their catalogs they’d improve sales.
You have a screw loose? Why would you want it to die? That’s un-American almost. I know they probably can’t pull a rabbit out of a hat, but i’d sure like it if they found a niche to survive in.
Sears from from the era that men did the buying. Those days are dead.
Understand from another article that Craftsman tools are now being made in China.
This is what happens when the corporate drains it.
Sears had the Amazon of all time locked up. They did nothing with it.
Just like Motorola has been reduced to a phone.
I don’t like to see the old icons go away but I’m sure not going to lose any sleep.
Management killed these companies.
seams to be headed down the same path that Montgomery Ward & J.L. Hudson went down.
A catalogue store should have been a natural to transition to Internet sales. Their tools were pretty good, and their prices were reasonable. Their appliances were also reasonable, often the best prices around and a decent selection. There is no excuse beyond bad management for their failure.
I agree: bring guns back and identify the things they do better than other stores. Stick to their strengths, and give up on “the softer side of Sears” to the extent that they are competing for very low margin business.
Are Craftmans tools made in China now?
That’d be a fine idea. Mine is that they do that and also announce that they are a retailer and will not respond in any way to BS social movement complaints.
Concentrate on guns and ammo, basic hardware and tools, and no more clothes than you’d find at Tractor supply.
And make service, quality, and American made products a religion.
There is room for a store to be the home of traditional America. No two dads advertisements.
They have little to lose, they should try it and be amazed.
its too bad but....
the middle class, so called, has been hit VERY hard .. especially these last 7 or 8 years
very hard, indeed.
rich people want premium or prestige goods, they go elsewhere.
poor folks and those 100 million suffering unemployment don’t shop much at all, and when they do...they look for value (which is better at WalMart or Costco sometimes or the local dollar store for some stuff, not Sears ...prices at Sears are really rather HIGH~! I don’t shop there anymore)
Who would have thought being like a JC Penny would be a good idea...
“and when they do...they look for value”
Value is more than just cheapest to the n-th degree. I walk through Walmart now and all I see is aisle after aisle of the absolutely cheapest foreign garbage.
There is room for a retailer who reaches out to the people who put Trump in office and moves even slightly away from the Target/Walmart level of crap.
Most of them are, yes. But they’re still charging Made In USA premium prices for them. Which is especially bad when you can go over to Harbor Freight and pick up literally the same item with a HF sticker on it instead of a Sears sticker for half the price.
Not with their current idiot management, they can’t.
Answer: Yes.
They’re still alive???
Someday our children and grand-children will be attending the deathwatch of the high-flying corporations today such as Microsoft, Apple, Google and Amazon. Hopefully in my lifetime, I get to attend the deathwatch of Facebook. I don't like the Facebook company very much.
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