Mixed feelings...used to spend a LOT of time at Sears with my folks as a kid. Dad LOVED the Craftsman line of tools and I’m pretty sure he had every single one.
I remember Mom buying washers, dryers, vacuum cleaners and every other large and small appliance you can imagine.
What happened, I wonder? I know this has been a decades-long slide, but it’s hard to believe that it couldn’t be reversed when it first started.
This was a publicly traded company, right? This isn’t a ‘Third Generation Thing’ where the family members are just using the brand as a cash cow...or are they?
They merged with K-Mart a few years back, and from what I gather, the current CEO has no retail experience whatsoever.
He’s a hedge-fund manager.
When I was a kid in Sears I would run straight to the riding lawnmower section and drool over the mini-bikes and go-carts in the catalog.......when I wasn’t drooling over the womens bra section that is. lol.
I still shop Sears for appliances. It’s the only place where the salespeople seem to know their beehinds from a hole in the ground, at least at the one I go to. Same with delivery & installation.
I went to sears to purchase a Kenmore side by side. It broke recently and I was told that it was just a rebranded LG.
The way we sold Sears was that any product that was labeled “Sears Best”, “Roadhandler”, “Diehard”, or “Craftsman”, etc. was because they were the best products in the store, and that Sears had contracted with the to make them better than their own product line and that manufacturer could not sell that product under their own name.
It was so easy to sell up because they had better warranties, lasted longer, and there was pride in the product line as opposed to just a bunch of different brands lined up to see which one caught the buyers eye.
They bought dying K-Mart and killed their brand and quality.
Similar here, also my very first experience with an escalator. How cool is that, stairs that move!
I blame Cheryl Tiegs. It all started with her... Click to see where it all started...
I’ve had one kenmore dishwasher at my house here for about 20+ years. i bought it after using one in my last apt. it scrubs the s**t out of everything. thot it was dying recently but it is still running.