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.
They had the greatest mail order operation in history yet couldn’t cash in on the internet.
You are so right about the past. The same brothers who destroyed the heart of the RNC as Treasurer post Reagan made Sears and Montgomery Ward sick and dead.
They instilled in middle management the philosophy that what worked in the 50s would work in the future. Middle management was/is valued two ways. The size of their budget and the number of heads they manage.
Starting with Martinez, top management had good ideas how to modernize Sears. We at the bottom were in sync with top management and had good ideas. Sears and IBM bought Prodigy. Some co-workers had great ideas how to put Sears catalog business online and be the Amazon before there was an Amazon. But middle management did everything possible to destroy Prodigy.
Middle management fought any and all change and successfully sabotaged it. They wanted to still live in the 1950s.
The current condition of the stores is a direct result of the attitudes of middle management in Hoffman Estates IL.
Heat treating? LOL I bought a set of punches and chisels from Sears in the ‘90s. When I hit one with a hammer, they shattered like glass.
We have a little independent sears store locally. tools appliances and a couple of other assorted items. Great store great service
The Die-Hard batteries were the best! I hope I can find them somewhere.
#105 I noticed the wait times at Kohl’s and the pitch for a store card and the long receipt. The men’s shirts are very thin. I buy my shirts at Landsend now and recently pants as they have in between sizes like the 37” waist I needed and the inseam in 1/4” increments. 37 x 27 3/4’ Fit perfect. They look to be made by Docker. No hassle returns either, just fill out the slip that arrives with reason why and tape the return label on the package and drop off at the post office.
Noting says “mixed use” like an $800,000 condo overlooking a Safeway parking lot! :)
_____________________
at our local mall area there is now a large retirement complex overlooking the state’s main highway and the Target parking lot. Gotta tell you, those outa-state-ers know how to live!
I see more mixed uses happening. Brick and mortar is fading. Local large mall was just bought by a church. The neighboring Home Depot must be in heaven. These malls are going to be small cities in a few years.
Millions of middle and lower class American families used to depend on Sears for clothing, tools, car parts and service, home furniture, just about everything.
Yes, it’s a damn shame. I remember my dad taking me to the Sears in Camden, NJ back in the early 50’s pretty much every other week and it was the flagship store in the city. Of course Camden was decent back then too. Times do change.
Oh, well!
Really? What was the point of buying Whole Foods?
Thanks for the tip on Lands End. I used them years ago when I had a corporate account with them. I noticed the same thing about Kohl’s shirts - they are thin and don’t hold up well over time.
It makes sense thought why they didn’t choose to be an online provider for their products. They had too many employees and real estate. Any CEO would have been fired.
Walmart has the lowest prices on basic foods (store brand), far less than Amazon, and does better on household goods (like 91% Isopropyl Rubbing Alcohol, 32 fl oz, $2.58), major appliances, tools and auto and , garden supplies, and clothes but often lacks variety, esp. from Walmart itself, and with many Walmart items not available for shipping.
And its web pages lack descriptions and wastes space (requiring more scrolling) and is slow to fix teach issues (items in cart disappeared, etc.). But its help is easy to reach but not as good as Amazon.
Amazon has a greater variety and web page layout (if still wasting space, Ebay being better), but hinders comparison by restricting the number of items to about 30 (versus 200 for Ebay)..
Both offer free shipping for many items over 35.00 total, but besides Prime, Amazon offers many add ons for orders over 25.00. Walmart shipping is only 5.99 for orders under 35.00, but many many items are from 3rd part sellers, like "UnbeatableSales" (which wants 31.71 for a 35yd roll of Gorilla tape, vs. 8.47 from Walmart yet shipping is not available, and currently 7.99 from Amazon) which have their own shipping charges. Yet as with Home Depot, Walmart offers free ship to store pick up.
Ebay is the cheapest for many basic mass produced Chinese items that Amazon also sells, like bicycle patches, watches eyeglasses, and old car parts, used clothing etc., but other than that then usually Walmart and Amazon are better.
Home Depot has some good online prices but free shipping is only for orders over 45.00, though this applies to most items.
Thank God we are blessed with such variety of items, and funds to (prayerfully) buy them. May they be used to make a positive difference is peoples lives for time and for eternity, to the glory of the God of all grace and truth.
My mother ordered everything from Sears when I was growing up. Mostly our clothes and for up to 7 kids that was a big deal. She also ordered a lot of household things; it was a little strange to come home and find she had redecorated without going to town.
After I married I was a steady catalog customer, always lived in the middle of nowhere. It was easier to order all clothes for my kids and many of ours from Sears and pick it up at the Post Office. Most of my household goods, same thing. I hate to shop to begin with so I loved catalog ordering. My family, friends, and neighbors all did the same.
I think those in charge of Sears assumed all their catalog customers would just go to the store; I didn’t. Sears didn’t have a store within a hundred miles me at the time. I did find some catalogs for things like bedding but nothing to compare to Sears. I also discovered Walmart, but at its best it never compared to Sears and I had to do the hated shopping trip.
I vote for DeWalt. The ordinary DeWalt line you can get at Home Depot is good and they have lasted me for a number of years, but they aren't really for 2000-hour-per-year use. You'll get a much tougher product (with a much bigger price) if you buy the same DeWalt tool from Grainger. The things marketed through HD are intended for homeowners; Grainger sells to the building trades.
Porter-Cable used to be superb twenty years ago--I still have various power saws from them that I bought 20-25 years ago, and they work beautifully despite all my abuse and cruelty to them. But Porter-Cable is not what it once was. Same with Milwaukee. I would not have one of the new Milwaukee power tools anymore. Black & Decker is complete junk. Construction supervisors on building sites will tell you that they give their carpenters a Skilsaw at the beginning of a job and expect to replace them immediately after one or two stick houses are built; but they themselves use DeWalt power tools.
I'm generalizing of course and there are other excellent lines for specific applications. Good luck with your projects.
And in the pre-Internet days it was amazing how fast the news spread about the Man on Page 602. Definitely was not on the evening news.
Word of mouth only. Talk about 'viral'!
I did just purchase a shiny red Sears Lawn Tractor for just under $900, maybe about $1000 with delivery. I got it from the Sears Outlet, was a $2000 model when it came out. I was able to upgrade to a 46 inch deck with that tight turn radius, so my mowing time is now down under 1 hour. I can’t recall on the engine but I think it was a Kohler 21HP. Then again I looked at so many before buying I can’t remember.
Another example of “mismanaged to death” would be Radio Shack.
Back in the 80’s I managed a small store near an expensive neighborhood. Buffalo Bob Smith and Peter Frampton were regular customers.
The store was in a strip center, so we could open and close whenever the company wanted us to. Rent, for some reason, was dirt cheap and the company had a very long lease, so they weren’t inclined to close the store.
Back then, Radio Shack required managers to be in the store at least 1/2 an hour before and after closing. My store was open from 10:00pm to 6:00pm, Monday through Saturday. Doing a little math, you can see that I worked at least 54 hours a week.
The rocket scientist for a District Manager decided that extending my hours would improve sales, so he made me open at 9:00am and stay open until 7:00pm. That put me at 66 hours a week.
Well, it seems that there was a rule that managers were not to work over 60 hours a week. So I asked for a part timer to take over some of the hours.
District Manager: No, you can’t afford a part timer.
Me: Can I close for an hour lunch a day?
District Manager: No, that is against company policy.
Me: Can I get a waver from the rule that I have to be here a half-hour early and stay a half-hour late?
District Manager: No, all managers must do that.
Me: So how do I keep my store open for 60 hours a week, put in the extra required 6 hours a week, and not get fired for putting in too many hours?
District Manager: That’s not my problem, you have to figure it out.
So, basically, if I wanted to keep my job, I had to work off the clock, which if they discovered I was in the store, but off the clock, I would have been fired.
Years later I discovered that some other managers got around this by covering stores for one another and charging the hours of the covering manager to his “home” store. If they were caught doing this, you were instantly fired.
Keep in mind that a large chunk of the money you made as a manager was a bonus based on the profitability of your store, with the majority of it being distributed in July, right after the June 30th end of fiscal year. If you were expecting a large check (I knew managers that got $40K bonus checks) you might be fired on June 29th to keep the company from having to pay your bonus.
Not sorry to see Radio Shack go down the drain.
Did you also get some “horse-doovers” or “Can-Apes” with your Caprice? :-)
Mark
I guess it has been a while... I don't get out much.
Mark
No, no whores de ovaries but I did have a nice key-TELL before dinner.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.