Posted on 06/25/2017 8:56:12 AM PDT by ARGLOCKGUY
I haven't been inside a Sears store for more than 10 years, until Thursday, June 22. And, wow, did I learn a lot.
Mainly, I came away with a better understanding of why Sears Holdings Corp. is closing an additional 20 stores on top of the 245 it already planned to shutter. And why it has failed to turn a profit in 29 out of the last 37 quarters and seen same-store sales decline in 11 of the past 12 quarters.
I observed alienating treatment of a loyal customer at the store in Jersey City, N.J., which was also messy and uninviting inside.
When I came upon customer Stephanie Rosso, a resident of Jersey City, she was struggling with four employees to get a simple return transaction completed for a dryer she'd bought and sent back to the warehouse that day with the delivery man. Normally, getting a refund takes about two minutes tops.
We have one in San Antonio. I went there for a water softener and to have it delivered and installed. They gave me a date and time, showed up on schedule and installed it without a problem. Same with refrigerator.
I’ll inly do appliances there.
I had that experience too...It’s been over ten years since I’ve been in a Sears. Dreadful place to shop.
Yeah, I was surprised to see the paint department go, too. The outdoor power equipment section is looking pretty poor now, too, compared with years past. Almost my entire family had Craftsman lawnmowers and edgers (one uncle was a Lawn-Boy man and would own no other mower). Ted Williams and J.C. Higgins were names seen in our tackle boxes and gun cabinets. I even had a small outboard motor from Sears. Not a fantastic product, but I'll bet somewhere, it's still running for someone today. Indestructible.
In some of the stores, they even had professional office equipment specialty departments. Cubicle workstation components, IBM PCs, HP printers and other peripherals - right about the time that Compaq and the other early PC "clones" were ascending and the Atari/Commodore/Tandy ships were beginning to sink. It's like someone there saw the future and reached for it, but they missed the brass ring.
The Man on Page 602
or
Zoot Fenster
or YouTube either, and get back to me.
“If Sears had never abandoned their catalog business, they might have become Amazon before Amazon became Amazon. They could have had millions of customers of many years ready to start ordering on the internet once it was invented.”
Sears had the warehouse distribution infrastructure for that but would have had to have automated as it was all hand picked and hand shipped back in the early 90’s.
There was a massive Sears distribution center a block from my house in 1992. A couple of years later it was closed. A developer bought it tore half of it down for a mega strip center and left 1/2 of the building to turn into rented warehouse space.
I don’t think they’ve ever been able to reach 100% occupancy with it due to the massive size.
And the mom and pop pharmacy with a lunch counter across the street from the sears center had to close as they lost the bulk of their business.
Like most of the kids in America. The pages of the catalogue were more dog eared than the canines on the block or country road (depending on whether or not one lived in the city). The book was truly a ‘Wish Book’.
Probably cut out the picture of the models as well to hang on the walls. In today’s world, the boys would be ogling over the men’s briefs being shown for sale rather than dream of power tools, and sports equipment.
Of course it's abandoned now.
I'm surprised that Spec's hasn't opened a big liquor store there. Must be a really bad part of town, now.
I am guessing Walmart and other big box stores had something to do with Sears decline. Our Kmart store was toast well before Sears closed.
You sound like Yogi Berra—who once famously said “Nobody goes there anymore, you can’t find a parking space!”
The last catalog was in '93 - when the Internet was still a new, mostly text and crude graphics experience with dial-up ISPs. The broadband that they needed for catalog-like images was still years away. I've always thought the screw-up was in failing to continue the printed catalog as a computer-desk reference and supplement to online ordering (using a stripped-down online catalog/ordering desk/whatever). The parts were all there, they just didn't put them together.
I bought a small shortwave/weather radio from their web store a few weeks ago. I wanted a memento, I guess. I already have that covered with Sears - a whole garage full of Craftsman rolling tool cabinets and such.
Love Ace Hardware now as our little hardware closed in our town and *The Andersons (RIP) went out of business.
*store in Toledo, Ohio area just closed after 50+ years. Said the General Stores never made money. I am lost as to where to buy things
(I would guess way up).
Leni
“Today if you can find a Radio Shack still open, you’ll have entered a Time Warp and gone back in time. They are all closed now!”
-
Not so,there are several here in MA.
.
Advance Auto rocks. Had my first experience with them last month replacing an alternator. Awesome knowledge, attention, service, and opportunity for a decent discount.
I never even bought the terribly expen$ive appliance insurance, just paid minor cash for the one call. The money I saved from no insurance was incredible,
The serviceman tried to sell me insurance as they get commissions, but I told him he was my first repair guy in a dozen years.......and after I told him this fact of life he agreed that no insurance was the way to go.
I believe Sears kitchen appliances are now all farmed out to Frigidaire, GE and Roper. They were using Whirlpool for a while, but I think that association ended, but I'm not sure.
I've had Kenmores my entire adult life, they were SO dependable and they lasted so long with a minimum of repair.
Alas, I'm afraid those days are gone forever.
Leni
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