The demise of Sears was foreseen long ago. It started when Sears stopped being a consumer oriented business and wanted to become a huge conglomerate.
They did this by building dependency among their suppliers, then threatening to cut them off unless they slashed their prices, and then, after hurting them, to buy them out at a discount. Then while keeping the good reputation and status of that brand name, to ruin it by slashing quality.
Many good American businesses were destroyed this way, and Sears made a lot of enemies.
At the same time, Sears ended its long held a hire-to-retire policy that created strong loyalty among its employees, instead firing those with seniority and hiring cheaper replacements. So their service quality withered.
Then, much to their surprise, this started to hurt their business. Granted, those responsible had either been promoted to upper management or moved on to ruin other corporations.
But Sears was ready to blame everybody but themselves for their decline. The big merger with KMart, of a failing business bought up by another failing business, was just the icing on the cake.
Yet it is a long, slow, terminal illness that afflicts Sears and will eventually kill it. A tragedy, really, but that’s what you get when you hold management vipers to your breast.
>>>The demise of Sears was foreseen long ago. It started when Sears stopped being a consumer oriented business and wanted to become a huge conglomerate.
I used to buy Lands End clothes... until Sears bought them out. Things went to crap after that. Now, It’s Duluth Trading Company... for me, it’s everything Lands End used to be... quality, service, selection, sizes that fit...