Posted on 10/15/2018 7:50:59 AM PDT by Borges
Sears was once the nation's largest retailer and its largest employer. In its heyday, it was both the Walmart and Amazon of its time.
Formed in 1886 by railroad station agent Richard Sears, the company started as a watch business in North Redwood, Minnesota. Sears moved to Chicago in 1887, and he hired watchmaker Alvah Roebuck as his partner. The first Sears Roebuck catalog, which sold watches and jewelry, was printed in 1896.
The Sears catalog was the way many Americans first started to buy mass-produced goods. That was an enormous shift for people who lived on farms and in small towns and made many of the goods they needed on their own, including clothes and furniture.
Sears' stores helped reshape America, drawing shoppers away from the traditional Main Street merchants. Sears brought people into malls, contributing to the suburbanization of America in the post-World War II era. Its Kenmore appliances introduced many American homes to labor-saving devices that changed family dynamics. Its Craftsman tools and their lifetime guarantees were a mainstay of middle-class America. Sears truly changed America.
(Excerpt) Read more at cnn.com ...
Not really an excuse as they had a broadly distributed chain of stores...a prudent path would have been to utilize those stores as drop/ship/pick up points, safe and familiar to Sears customers, while they built and tested IT structure and integrated with mail/telephone sales. Just short sighted management in depth. CEO should have vision otherwise you just need book keepers doing the same old same old, not overpaid underperforming MBAs.
It depends on the location.
Wonder what is going to happen to my Sears Pension, about $850 per month?
Idiot CEO did not realize that on line shopping was the future.
Please to be biting my crank
I think every Wal Mart and Target experience varies by location. Of the 3 I most visit (In two differenent cities.) I think all of them are great locations.
The Target across the street from one is practically empty, the other two within a few traffic lights same thing.
Big difference between generations between Sears of my youth and Wal Mart today. There are clothes in Wal Mart I will buy, my girlfriend and kids will buy. No, not just underwear and socks. If you need workout clothes they are the best value in retail.
I laughed at a previous poster talking about Sears Toughskins stopping a .22. Yes, I could fully see that but obviously never tried it. Those pants were so uncomfortable that I refused to wear them, it was like trying to run in water.
Lowe’s has picked up the some of the Craftsman hand tool line. I wonder if they’re made in the USA still, and I wonder if they still have the lifetime warranty?
I’m driving a ten year old Craftsman riding mower and changed the belts for the first time this spring.
“...stop a .22”
Well they were called Toughskins..my mom always got me them for school.
Is that a real poncho or is that a Sears poncho?
And you shop there despite their politics and bathroom for anyone policy that lets pervert males use the women’s restroom? I haven’t followed stocks but last I read, maybe dated, shows revenue down. And visually, like KMart, Target’s parking lots are always empty, more employees than customers. Compare any day and time and you surely can’t deny the difference between traffic at Walmart and Target.
My daughter has a Sears shredder from about 1974 that has finally given up the ghost. She has had the shredder about 10 years, it once chewed up a piece of 1/2” pipe!!!
She also has 3 Sear garden tractors of 1973 to 75 vintage, all 3 still run. I will admit that the one with a front end loader on it needs a tune up. Hoping to get it back up and running at full speed before winter get here.
And I had a Sears push mower I got from my Dad that was about 10 years old when I got it and I used it for about 5 years before I gave it to a group that used it for cutting vacant lots around the neighberhood.
Not a bad run I would say.
Regards
alfa6 ;>}
I used to buy Craftsman tools there. I think the decision to outsource the brand to China was what did them in. Even though they were struggling then, they had a steady business going for Craftsman tools because they were pretty good tools at a reasonable price. Once they lost that, it was downhill fast.
don’t forget chocolate covered peanuts at the candy counter
One of the smart things sears did was have the candy and nut counter.
“Little Johnny, if you’re good while mommy is shopping you can get a bag of candy when we leave.”
They could have become Amazon and Best Buy combined. Denim shirted geek squad guys.
Their traditional mindset that everything they sold had to be branded ‘Sears’ is one of the things that ended up crippling them.
“You’d cringe if your mom was going to take you shopping for clothes as Sears.”
What? You didn’t care for the latest hip fashions directly from the People’s Republic of China?
Ditto. The one closest to me in Greenwood, Indiana will be closing as a result of this bankruptcy. I only ever shopped there for tools and some appliance parts.
Glad we share the same catalog memory Freeper. I hope some good company picks it up and runs with it.
But, I recall that Macy’s filed bankruptcy years ago and they are still in business so maybe there will be a way to save Sears.
“I can still recall......”
Well, I remember a little further back than that (wink).
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