Posted on 03/15/2012 7:46:39 PM PDT by Altariel
Sears Holdings (SHLD +4.34%) already said it would close as many as 120 Sears and Kmart stores this year in an effort to turn the business around. But that wasn't enough.
The struggling retailer said Thursday it will have to tighten its belt even more. Sears is now planning to close 43 Hometown stores, 10 Sears Hardware stores and all nine stores in the Great Indoors chain. Hometown stores are independently operated, and sell hardware in mostly rural areas.
Sears is also getting rid of clothing in 10 Sears stores -- perhaps in a test run for a chain-wide initiative in the future. Instead, those stores will sell more household items such as mattresses and furniture, the Associated Press reports. Shoppers have requested more choices in those areas, the company told the AP.
Sears has been busy with a number of moves designed to stem the bleeding from its bottom line. It's been trying to spin off its Hometown and Outlet stores, but the closure of 43 of those may show how well that's going. It's also selling 11 locations to General Growth Properties (GGP -1.07%).
Scratching clothing from its lineup could be a very good move for Sears. Most people don't shop there for clothes. They might pick up some clothing as an afterthought, but they visit Sears stores for appliances and hardware.
(Excerpt) Read more at money.msn.com ...
Sears closing 63 stores. Foreclosures on the rise. Gas price at an all time high...And the economy is roaring back. LOL!
Nah... that would never make money.
/johnny
Shoot!!! I love Sears. That damn George Bush.
An unseasonably warm winter?
Easter is coming?
MLB Spring Training?
Nah...
It's because of GEORGE W. BUSH!!!
(is the ‘/sarc’ necessary?)
Our Posts were 6 seconds apart; same message. Glad I was first. LOL!
Sears has been down the tubes for years. The stores are old, outdated, uninviting. Kmart too. It is only a matter of time that they all close. The free market generally weeds out companies that do not keep up with the times and adjust to the markets.
Bush’s Fault!
Great minds and all that...:)
We have a small Sears catalogue store here. They sell lots of lawn mowers, refrigerators, washing machines and basic craftsman tools. Might be the store model for the future.
How is that recovery working out for you?
That sounds like our Sears store too just like in the old days, except that they don’t sell guns anymore like the .22 rifle my Dad bought for me in the early 1960s.
I think the CEO of Sears will regret the decision to pull advertising from Rush.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2854983/posts
It doesn’t help that Sears home service is a nightmare in a van. I had so many issues trying to get my snow blower fixed last year and they would do nothing to comp me on the fact they had to come out 3 times to get it right with weeks between each visit. Granted there was a lot of snow last year so I know they were busy but how they handled it was terrible.
The other part of this has to do with image. I saw an article a few weeks back where it stated that Sears’ rivals spend between $6 and $8/foot on upgrades/updates in their stores and Sears spends between $1.50 and $2.00. I get depressed walking through Sears and typically only go in there for hand tools or to get from the parking lot to the mall. I can’t even get paint at my local Sears any more.
Sears had a chance to do something like that, but it’s now called Amazon and eBay. There is still a way they could enter that market in a big sort of way.
Imagine if Sears would set up an online store in a deal with one of the big shippers like UPS, but designed to also integrate “sub-stores” by a bunch of other catalogs out there. There are hundreds of them, that still send out paper catalogs before the holiday season.
The idea being that all together, it would function like a virtual Wal-Mart. Not just the entire Sears and K-Mart inventory, but that of all the other catalogs, from Edmund Scientifics to the Cheese of the Month Club.
I've often thought of writing a sci-fi short story based on that catalog.
/johnny
RECOVERY!!!
Man, I am so glad the economy is improving!
Right????
That’s what the Magic Sqwauking Box in the living room told me tonight!
How long before you color them gone?
I remember being a kid and waiting for the Sears catalogue to show up in the mail. A bygone era.
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