Posted on 12/27/2011 5:20:29 AM PST by tobyhill
Sears Holdings Corp will close up to 120 stores in its Kmart and namesake chains, blaming poor sales of consumer electronics so far this holiday season and saying it would focus its energy on its better performing stores.
Sales at Sears Holdings, whose chairman and top shareholder is hedge fund manager Edward Lampert, have fallen every year since it was formed through the merger of Sears and Kmart in 2005.
And so far this holiday season, the drop has continued. Same-store sales at Kmart were down 4.4 percent in the current quarter through Christmas Day, and down 6 percent at Sears' U.S. stores. Companywide, they were down 5.2 percent, the company said on Tuesday.
Sears said that typically, it would keep "marginally performing" stores open to give them time to improve, but "we no longer believe that to be the appropriate action in this environment."
The store closings follow its announcement last quarter it would shutter 10 stores. Kmart and Sears have a combined 2,177 U.S. full service locations and another 500 in Canada.
(Excerpt) Read more at reuters.com ...
I have a bunch of Craftsman lawn tools. They're nice, rugged, last well. I use them pretty hard.
As for their power tools, I don't see a dime's bit of difference between Craftsman and B&D or Stanley. The name looks pretty, that's it.
Strange that no matter where you begin, you wind up in an actively flushing toilet.
Also, makes you listen to the "political discourse" now prevelent in the country at this time and realize that not one of them has "the" (or any, for that matter) answer to the current dynamic situation.
A very scary scenario, what?
Sears used to be such a great place to do business. Now I avoid it.
“I think the Sears brand was cheapened considerably...”
I agree. I had a washer and dryer set from Sears. For some strange reason, the washing machine started to rust out. The paint literally started fading and rust replaced it. No more Sears appliances for me.
Actually, Kmart Holdings Corporation bought Sears in 1994.
This has little to do with the economy. This has to do with the fact that Sears (and K-Mart) suck. Been to one lately? I haven’t. They’ve been supplanted by Walmart, Target, Home Depot, Lowes, and Amazon.
Sometimes the old retailers just don’t hold on. See Woolworth’s and Gimbels.
Oops—sorry...2004/2005.
When a struggling chain of department stores was expanding their number of stores in Oklahoma in the early 80s, the head of Sears Corporation was interviewed and asked about the threat from the new chain of stores.
He didn’t seem concerned: “Who do they think they are? Sears?”
At that time, Sears was listed as the biggest department store corporation in the US.
That struggling, growing chain that was challenging Sears? An upstart out of Bentonville, Arkansas — called Wal-something. Wonder whatever became to them? :)
That said, my average price for service is $15 per visit(pet sitter). We had an off pro sitter under cutting the area. All of us pro’s caught on early in Dec. when reservations were slow. The 5 pro’s cut their sitting rate by 20%. While we sucked it up and did it to gain the clients long-term, it was surprising for some who still lost the client...even after highlighting we're insured, bonded, pet first aid trained, vet networked in the area etc. You want to leave your holiday home and pets in the hands of an amateur/stranger/no references? They did.
http://www.longislandpress.com/2011/12/12/pet-sitter-accused-of-staging-plainview-burglary/
Sitters generally don't have high margins and 20% hurts.
Yes indeedie... we have a radio station here, and during the freeway construction season, one of the DJ’s has a saying, “Short term pain equals long term relief”.... well, the time has come for the real short term pain. Government has to shrink. People need to be let go. Regulations brought on by the hippie generation need to go. Build refineries, power plants, and drill, mine or whathave you, without the regulations that make it cost prohibitive. This will drive down the price of energy, and the downward spiral will stop. The elimination of useless regulations, fees, fines and taxes will begin the climbing out of the rut..lower iimport taraffs for any country that will do the same for us... then just stand out of the way
“Sears stores aren’t closing. Sears ownes K-Mart, those are the stores that are closing. “
Actually, K-Mart owns Sears. It was Kmart who bought out Sears.
The big question is: HOW?
And....a REALITY based HOW?
WHAT????
How can this be????
The media told me that Obama had turned the economy around, and that Christmas sales were blow-outs!
That wouldn’t be a Media-created fiction, like Obama, would it?
It wasn’t holiday ales. That is justtheir excuse. The financial markets knew earlier this year that Sears had been planning on closing stores at after Christmas. I think I even psoted about it months ago.
Sears management is incompetent. They operate like a 1970’s retail store. They have failed to modernize even after spending large sums to do so. Sears was one of the first companies to go PC and it shows; incompetence at every level and failures to go with it. Their sales are down roughly 90% over just a few years ago. 90%. No company can survive that kind of loss.
Sounds like you have good sensibilities.
The Christmas season begins on Christmas Eve and continues through at least Epiphany (Three Kings Day) -- i.e. the Twelve Days of Christmas -- if not through the baptism of Christ or the presentation in the temple.
Secular advertising defines the Christmas shopping season, which runs (more or less) from Black Friday to Christmas Eve, nearly in line with the religious season of Advent.
We try to celebrate Christmas along the religious timetable, though it takes a conscious effort.
I literally have not been into a K-Mart in years. I think the last time was when were were going through Raton, NM because it was the only game in town and we needed asprin and dog food.
probably the credit cards before the cc companies cut off anyone who is not working for the government.
More truth than fiction. Or a lot of people deciding the heck with it and thinking when things collapse next year it won’t matter anyway.
Problem is they are not realizing if this continues as a slow unwind...they will file bankruptcy and lose everything.
They are hedging their bets to a fast dramatic crash ...sort of looting things before it happens.
And ya’ know to even think people in the country would believe such a thing just a few short years ago...they would have been called nutcases.
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