Huh? Kmart and Sears have been merged for several years.
Sears lost its way when it decided to compete with Wal-Mart and K-Mart to a lesser degree.
Sears’ strength in the modern era is its profits from credit card financing. In fact, the sale of its Discover Card division was the only thing that kept the retailer afloat at one time.
Merging two bad businesses won’t make a solid new company. Wal-Mart will continue to gain market share at their expense. Idiots.
For years my folks bought every thing in the way of appliances out of the big book.
Then Sears screwed up and got away from selling out of a catalog.
Their appliances used to be the best on the market.
I still have my dads set of Craftsman wrenches and there about 70 years old and I would not trade them.
Craftsman used to mean Made in USA. Then they came out with the Companion tools, which means Made in China. I bought a highly recommended Craftsman compressor a while ago. Made in Mexico.
Does it matter about their flagging sales? Thanks for Eddie Lampert, SHLD is making 30-40% of its profits from hedge fund activities.
At least locally (Southern California) they just don't compete against Macy's and Penny's for the real business that is conducted in the malls of America: selling clothing and cosmetics to the the gals. They cannot compete with Target or Walmart price-wise in the appliance and general goods arena.
Although they have the best hardware selection by far that is just not enough to carry them. Their stores look like ghost towns even at Christmas. I give them 5 years tops.
However, buy from Target, Walmart, Lowe's, esp. Best Buys if you want.
But none of them can give you the service or satisfaction you can get from Sears.
Try to return something at Target or Best Buys. They stick to the mfg warranty, period.
Try to get service, it's farmed out.
I worked for Sears for 20+ yrs. I rarely shop there for most things, but often used tools and especially appliances, absolutely.
They will match prices and you can be assured they will stand behind and service what they sell.
Sears lost my biz whey the quit carrying a $20 Craftsman 100’ steel tape. I went through $600 worth of replacements over the years before they wised up and stopped stocking it.
Sears is a “discount chain”?
In recent years, I’ve grown to like Sear.
Shopping at Sears even 10 years ago was a pretty awful experience.
But about five or six years ago, I was looking for some lawn furniture. I went this place and that, and found either really good stuff that was really expensive, or stuff that was beyond cr@ppy, but at reasonably priced.
I was googling, and Sears popped up. So I looked. Decent-looking stuff for reasonable prices. Went down to the local Sears, found someone on the floor very knowledgeable who spent about a half hour helping us figure out what suited us best. Spent less than a grand, got it delivered to the house. Six years later, it’s still all like-new, and quite attractive.
When we wanted a grill, we went back, someone else gave us very good assistance. It’s given great service to date.
Then I needed a new riding mower. The fellow who sold us the lawn furniture was there, and very knowledgeably helped us select one that met our needs. I’ve been very happy with it, AND very happy with the fact that for a reasonable price, Sears comes out every spring, changes out the blade, changes the spark plug and the oil, and generally tightens up anything that needs tightening, replaces anything that needs replacing, and making it good for another year of mowing the lawn.
To these, I’ve added a pressure washer, a shop vac, a table saw, a freezer, and a few other odds and ends.
All were reasonably priced, all have given excellent service, all are still in great condition, and Sears has also done a good job of providing both warranty service as well as routine maintenance.
Sears made a huge mistake in my opinion when they closed down their catalog operations in 1993. They could own the internet sales business if they still had their catalog stores, distibution centers and shipping operations in place.
They gave up on catalog too soon even thought it lost money only on paper.
it’ll take more than that to save the 2 kmarts near me.
they are filthy
and overpriced.
When the merger first happened I predicted that they would end up with Craftsman tools, Lands-end clothes and Sears appliances in Kmart stores .
I still think that is the direction they will move
Cramer’s friend has yet to attract more than a few cars at a time to the Sears parking lot here. The K-Mart has been closed for several years now even though they always had a lot of cars in their parking lot. What does Sears need to do?
I have a suggestion: have a salesman somewhere so if you want to buy something they can handle the action.
One store I never shop at is moving inside another store I never shop at . . .
Now, if (say) Boston Market were to open shops inside Hobby Lobby stores, I would totally be in. ;)
It’s taken a while, but Sears stock is finally starting to move. $100 down $16 today.