Posted on 12/04/2014 12:42:34 PM PST by Hojczyk
So does the Base Exchange at Offutt AFB, NE
My parents bought a Sears Cold Spot deep freeze around 1963. It ran constantly and problem-free until last year, when my father shut it down because he no longer had a use for it.
Sears real estate holdings are in the billions. It’s the only thing that has kept them afloat.
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That hedgie was counting on a recovery to pump up commercial real estate pricing... right now he knows that isn’t going to happen... commercial real estate is generally financed with 5 to 7 year balloon notes... he won’t be able to pay the notes as they come due and will “cram down” the negative balances if he can... Can He? If not Sears goes under..
That economy is going great according to Barry
Craftsman used to be worth something, not as much now that they are making some of those in China or something
um, no. People boycotted JCP before they hired Ellen, because they ad homo ads and homo circulars and huge homo banners in the stores.
Worked at a local sears basically to take a years break from my normal career path...got completely burned out from the Corp world...it was going to put me in a early grave...
I had the experience and background to manage the store I worked at...but was a simple clerk on commission...selling lawn equipment...
You comment is right on the mark...
Almost every aspect of the way they operated their business was antiquated from merchandising, to inventory control, to marketing...etc..etc..
sears will be gone in under five years...
Every k-mart I’ve seen has been the same. Mid size towns. Heard that it is the big city stores that are keeping the others open.
Our KM is a zombie store.
It’s open, the lights are on, but nobody there.
And astoundingly it’s been that way for 10 yrs.
They have dusty bottles of motor oil on the shelf of a spec that was superceded 10 yrs ago.
It's still running. Only downside to it is that it isn't frost free. Has to be defrosted periodically. And I'm sure the enviro-whackos would be displeased. It's an energy guzzler. But it keeps everything frozen.
Today you can't buy a freezer that big. And with all that digital and energy saving carp, new freezers (and appliances in general) don't last more than 5 years. For all the money we spend on these appliances, we get garbage.
there is also an old debate in business strategy....
your Sears lawn mower worked and lasted for you, for 24 years!
maybe the quality’s just a little too good ?
meaning, if the quality had been a litle less, so your mower served you well for 8 years, by now you’d have (probably) happily purchased three of them and be on your fourth
or something like that. there’s long been a debate whether its really possible to produce products that are TOO good
anyway its a fun classroom discussion exercise.
what with everything being made in the PRC nowadays, labor costs have gone way, way down
so lots of THINGS like mowers and radios and appliances, have not seen major retail price increases
Ours isn’t quite that big, but my mother was short too, and the depth challenged her quite often too.
They are so dumb.
Should have reflagged all those K-Marts as Sears and competed with Wal-Mart. Become the quality/discount store that Sears used to be.
Nope. They insist on those damn shopping malls.
Idiots.
There is a big market, also, in high-end or luxury merchandise (those fewer number of people who do have good incomes still..... will and do spend much of same...)
You have, without directly saying so, just described the destruction of the middle class in America.
Or the Great Depression.
My one grandfather did okay building high-end homes for people during the Great Depression. My other grandfather often traded his tailoring skills for food.
Local observations like that tend to tell more about the local area than the corporation as a whole.
3 years ago I was living with a friend on his great aunts farm. AujtbAida had bought a similar vintage Cold Spot chest freezer and I think I was the first person to defrost it since his aunt died in the late 1990s. It was a bit of an energy hog as it sat in an unventilated lean-to off the house and that lean-to had a huge solar load in the summer.
They're not bad at all here. It's about the only store I can go into in the mall that doesn't seem weird to me.
Instead...
So much for "the service economy."
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