Posted on 01/09/2014 2:09:59 PM PST by Hojczyk
The store never appealed to me but I hate to see another Obama victim. Especially an American institution.
You sell off the profitable stores if you’re looking to wind down the company and go out of business.
There was a Kmart about 30m from my house. It closed a few years back. Its ‘associates’ were stealing them blind. Repeated attempts to remedy the situation weren’t met with much success because the local constabulary was the same demographic as the associates.
Now we just have Tarjay and WallofChinamart. I despise both. I really hate the mall anymore, even the strip malls.
Kmarts have been trashy experiences for a long time. I visited one in El Paso in the mid 90’s that I literally had to kick aside merchandise off the floor to walk in the womens department. Yeah, I’m gonna buy that stuff.
exactly! I raised my boys in Sears clothing, on Sears bikes, in a home filled with Kenmore appliances, that was in part built with Craftsman tools. Nothing was glamorous, nuttinfancy, but the quality was damned good and solid, dependable. Their credit policy and sloppy accounts department lost many, many customers, including me. I think I would be happy to go back to shopping Sears “catalog” on-line.
I once worked for a manufacturer who made Sears brand merchandise-—the QC was ten times higher for Sears than for Neiman-Marcus.
Sears was using the exact same shelving seen in photo #3 when I worked there...in 1983. :)
Although the writer only visited one store, still, this comports with my (and apparently most others’) impressions of most Sears stores generally.
Sears has some fine brands, but it will be the next Kodak if it doesn’t slash and burn, leaving only PROFITABLE ventures like Craftsman tools, Kenmore appliances, Sears-branded home and auto repairs, etc. No one buys clothing or general housewares there anymore.
Well then, it seems their new policy is to not honor warranties. We gave up on trying to reason with Sears, and had our Chevy dealer put in a battery for half the price. Sears will never see us again. I hope they go under. They deserve it.
I remember when Sears sold the Allstate automobile (a rebadged Henry J) along with David Bradley farm wagons and J.C. Higgins bikes, rifles, shotguns, etc.. Sears had it all.....
We have a Sears Hardware in our town, with a local “Do It” center hardware across the street. The Sears is dead, the Do It is always hopping. The Sears Hardware actually has more stuff, but the prices are crazy. The Do It is a family business and is very friendly; I know a lot of the kids who work there as summer jobs. It’s just like the neighborhood hardware store my dad went to. I’ll either go to the Do It for the basic quick stuff, or drive the extra 10 minutes to go to Lowe’s.
Aye.
First, they don't attract the best and brightest in retail execs. Mainly because of the second issue: These companies are so old-cultured and unnavigable with Byzantine processes and undivorceable fulfillment of shareholder duties, with each department knowing how to protect its rice bowl entirely suspicious of all new thinking and change, they're just unmanageable and next to impossible to rebrand.
Any new CEO coming in would quickly find themselves the caretaker at a cemetery. Any motion of 'we need to tear this part down, consolidate over there, and streamline this element over here within this timetable I drew up' would find horrible rot and rust underneath every component across the enterprise with every hammer swing revealing more and worse.
Only a dictator with plenty of capital behind them could turn the ship around. Sears hasn't got the minds or the money and doesn't look like it's going to attract either very soon.
Anyone worth their salt would rather construct something new.... Like, oh, Amazon Prime.
Tht reminds me of being a teenager in the late 80’s working at a Best buy type store in MA called Lechmere.
At first on a typicle Tuesday night there would be three of us working sporting goods, three in seasonal, three in housewares etc etc.
By 1988 there was one of us working both sports and seasonal, one in housewares, one covering both stereo and records, one guy in TV’s...it was horrible.
eventually Montgomery Ward bought them out and both went out of business shortly after.
It’s too bad because in it’s prime Lechmere was a GREAT store and a great place to work as a teen.
I STILL have friends from that place, just got off the phone with one of them as a matter of fact.
LOL.
I got one for you.....a brand you’ve never heard of.
It’s a Czech brand called ETA. My vacuum was made in the early 1970s, so it’s about 40 years old. And it still works great.
The best part? ETA is still in business, and I can still get parts for my commie-era vacuum cleaner. ETA says they will continue to make parts for the next 20 years for the model I have, which they estimate is the maximum lifetime of the product.
It made be commie-made, but I have to say, it’s surprisingly durable and well-made. Noisy....sure. Sounds like a 747 at takeoff. But it sure works good.
:)
The problem with the brands is that the manufacturers seem to change a lot. I had a repairman recently tell me that Kenmore, Whirlpool and Maytag washers all (currently) use the same motors. I don’t know anything about LG. At one point I thought GE “made” LG, but no???
The only thing some of these businesses have to hang some hope on is the fact that many Americans are completely addicted to eating out and will spend their last two nickles doing so. The retailers are not so lucky.
That information is probably dated. I was looking at combination wrenches and socket sets. Many of them were China or Taiwan manufacture.
I don’t believe the liberal elites who run Sears ever shop there... if they did the stores would have been fixed years ago.
When I was a kid I would cut the pictures of toys out of the Catalogue and put them on the mirror and “play” with them.
I know, I know...
ROFL. When I read that, I thought to myself: "Isn't modernizing a mannequin a lot like modernizing a garbage can?"
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