[HamiltonJay]

Sears is refocusing on service, which is good, but also, far from being a failed business model, Sears is a force to be reconned with. What people fail to understand about sears is they are not a murchandizing company... not any more. THey are a CREDIT company, with some merchandize out front. They have made more money on credit for a long long time now than they have on retail margins.

Sell products, primarily on your own brand of credit card at 18 to 25% interest, with very low payments on the balance per month and it really doesn't matter how much margin you make on the product, and you make a lot of $$ in the process.

They bring their brand of credit to Kmart stores.... they will be rolling in even more $$$. Overall good move for Sears, and one I didn't see coming.

[Pappy Smear]

Good observation on Sears being a credit company. In that, you can say Kmart got bought for real estate. They have some pretty choice properties sitting around the country, and I imagine the Sears folks saw that, and are going to use that to their advantage.

I gave up on Sears awhile back, but after I heard of their generous benefits to the families of their employees/Guard and Reserve troops, I gave them a 2nd look. I have spent more money in Sears in the past year, than the previous 10.

[TheShaz]

If they do SMART promoting and smart planning. This will work. And if it does, great. Somethig to keep Wal-Mart honest. If not, it has the ability to make AOL - Timewarner mess to look like childsplay.

[Miss Marple]

This is very interesting. On the south side of Indianapolis there is a Sear in a very large mall. The K-Mart is located as a stand-alone on a major highway about 3 miles south of the mall.

I will be interested to see what they do with the K-Mart store, which is much more convenient to me than the mall. If they clean it up and move in some better merchandise, I might start shopping there.