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 ...
Doubt it. Twenty years ago, I had one near where I was living at the time. It didn't last.
FRiend you’ve got something there, seriously. A kind of Steven King-thing. I really think you should go for it. I mean it.
And just where does this fall in the “jobs created or saved” liturgy?
I was thinking of something more Niven-like kind of sci-fi.
/johnny
That is what we have here as well, but they are having difficulty with Lowes and Home Depot as well as Walmart.
Just closed the last smart in Tallahassee recently/soon. And no, im not following you around threads.. lol.. kmart truly sucked..
Kmart, Sears parent plans to close 173 stores this year
Snip: The parent company of Kmart and Sears, facing flagging sales, plans to shutter a total of 173 stores during the first half of this year.
Well whatever muse you want to pursue I think you definitely should do it. I posted my thoughts about how it was when I was a kid waiting for the Sears catalogue in the mail. I remember how around early November it would arrive and I would POUR over that thing for hours just looking at the toys(Matel, Hasbro and Marx) and when I saw your post it just bought it all back and your idea just blew me away. I mean it man, you’ve really got something there, DO IT!
Sears is a case study in what happens when any organization abandons its main mission in favor of over reaching into areas well beyond its expertise.
Anyone else remember the Coldwell-Banker - Sears alliance?
“and I would POUR over that thing for hours just looking”
Achtung! A friendly tip from the language Nazi: the word you are thinking of is “pore”, not “pour”. At ease, citizen.
Du hast recht!(”You are right’’). :-)
You can't get paint at any sears store anymore.
The last time I was in Sears the sales clerk started in on his “Here’s why you need an extended warranty .. “ speech, memorized, and he was presenting it well but I cut him off, pointed out that I had always had good luck with Sears stuff, thanks but no thanks—and he’s a little miffed:
“Don’t you even want to hear about it?” and I let him know I had already listened to two other employees edify me on this topic. It was obvious the managers had sent them out that morning on a mission.
And I didn’t want to put the charge on my 22% interest Sears card further hurting his feelings. Haven’t been back.
Or to Penneys either, after trying to return a pair of catalog shoes and listening to an employee explain why a credit on these too-tight shoes I had worn only on carpet were my problem, so that I gave them to someone with smaller feet.
USA, USA, USA. Big sigh.
IIRC, Sears was one of the sponsors to drop Rush, so henceforth I will not buy Sears merchandise.
And if enough do likewise, Sears will be closing many other stores.
For years I bought almost all of my clothes at Sears. I'm the kind of guy who would buy a shirt with a built-in pocket protector if they existed.
I stopped buying clothes at Sears because when I went into the store to replenish my wardrobe, they didn't have the very fashionable items I was used to wearing. I'm not sure whose needs they were trying to fill, but it was obviously not mine.
If you compound the problem of not having the right products with having a minimal staff of uninterested clerks you have a recipe for bankruptcy.
Now that Sears has decided that Rush needs them more than they need Rush, I will cease doing business with them completely, with the exception of one additional purchase to use a gift certificate I hold.
There are plenty of substitutes for Sears. Now I need a good substitute for Allstate. Do Freepers have any ideas?
many decafes ago, boys in puberty pored over certain sections of the catalogs for a different reason
I remember those days. It was not the toys or Craftsman tools section, either.
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