Posted on 10/12/2018 9:51:15 PM PDT by robowombat
Source: Reuters
Sears is planning to close up to 150 of its department and discount stores and keep at least 300 open as part of a plan to restructure under U.S. bankruptcy protection, people familiar with the matter said Friday.
The plans, which remained in flux Friday afternoon, would leave the fate of Sears' remaining roughly 250 stores uncertain, the sources said. The future of the stores could hinge on Sears' negotiations with landlords over their leases.
(Excerpt) Read more at msn.com ...
It’s sad that this store chain has
gone from offering virtually any
type of goods, to bankruptcy, in
a relatively short period of time.
I bought my first rifle from a Sears
Roebuck catalog in 1967.
Sears is a textbook example of what happens when MBAs take over a business.
.
Sears quit selling guns a few months after you bought your rifle.
DBM. ( death by management.. which, having bled the company white, now wants to seize the little value that remains). Imho
Sears is a textbook example of what happens when MBAs take over a business.
Not just MBA. Sears is run by a hedge fund guy. He’s dismembering the company bit by bit.
In the early 1960’s Sears seemed to be a multi-store shopping mall all in one building. Some how there arose actual shopping malls. It just seemed
Like Sears was yesterday’s news. Sort of like the Saber Tooth Tiger or the Wooly Mammoth. Just not there any more.
The board laughed them out of the office....just like Blockbuster laughed at Netflix.
Sears could have been Amazon. They already had the legendary catalog And yes, the lingerie section rocked growing up in the early 80s. All they had to do was make the leap to cyber space and not bought Kmart. Which was the dumbest decision since Atari made the ET video game.
I’m in marketing at the ground roots. I have a feeling I could have Sears back in the game within two years. Their problem is those MBAs you mentioned didn’t, EVER connect with the Heartland, because they don’t understand it at all.
Pity. It wouldn’t be that hard to make Sears exciting again.
Montgomery-Ward sold long guns into the 70’s. I bought a 30-30 levergun from them some time after 1975.
Exactly. Once the business is about running the business they forget what business they were in.
I have always liked Sears, but for the longest time when I enter their store near me, I can walk a pretty good distance before I run into any people — customers or employees.
I don’t think that’s exactly the problem, or at least not going far enough. It’s not that they don’t connect with the Heartland, it’s that they don’t connect at *all* with their customers. Sears didn’t connect with coastal/urban dwellers either and they *definitely* didn’t connect with internet users. Even today their web site is horrible and their marketing message muddled at best.
Sears is still using their ridiculous ‘80s logo. They do not in any way reference their very own history; they do not in any way inform customers of their importance to the history of America itself. They are a brand which has no idea of its heritage, and what it could be in the future.
Whoever they’ve had in charge of their marketing over the past several years has failed miserably. Period.
It would be a no-brainer to bring this classic brand back to life. But it might be too late. Alas.
My local Sears in the 1960s was a group of buildings spread over a couple blocks. The main building was 3 or 4 floors tall. To one side was another building for greenhouses with yard stuff and plants. At the rear of the back parking lot was another building for tires and car stuff. Another building for miscellaneous stuff. Across the street was a secondary huge parking lot and a building for automotive work. All part of the Sears store. I used to enjoy going there with my Dad in the 1950s, he would leave me at the lunch counter to snack on stuff while he shopped (yes, a lot of department stores had lunch counters in them). Fun store to roam, going up and down the stairs to several different floors. They had everything you could imagine to buy.
Sears made me go away. Used to buy a bit from them.
I doubt I’ve spent $100 there in the past 10-12 years total.
In 1996, I remember the year specifically, I spent over $1,600 that year alone. And another $1,500+ a couple years later. Oh well. Don’t shop there any more.
I recall going into Sears back in the 1970s to their parts and service area. We had a table saw dating to the 1940s that needed some parts to repair it. I brought in the Model and Serial Number, looked it up in their parts catalog (paper then), and found the exact parts I needed.
Took about a week for them to ship the parts to me from their warehouse, but they fit perfectly and did the job. I think that table saw went another 20 years or so before it was retired.
The point is that Sears in those days made quality products and tools, and stood behind what they sold.
They’re also still using their 70s-80s dumb terminal systems, horrible policies, bad inventory management systems from the 80s and more.
Marketing is a big problem for them but they have a lot more and worse problems than just their marketing.
But what finally soured me was they spun off their credit card operations to Citbank. The card said Sears but the billing was from Citbank. Now I was a loyal Sears customer for many years and didn't give a damn about Citibank. They were nothing to me. Absolutely nothing. I had good feelings about carrying my Sears card, my first credit card. Citibank? Meh.
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