Sears, the store that changed America, declares bankruptcy

CNN ^ | 10/15/2018 | Chris Isidore

[Huskrrrr]

The silvertone line of guitars and tube amps were not half bad. They are still popular on eBay.

[central_va]

Loved the Sears catalog.

[caww]

Current Owner bought Sears/K-Mart just to let it bleed out for years now.

[Tijeras_Slim]

You’d cringe if your mom was going to take you shopping for clothes as Sears.

I'd swear those jeans they sold would stop a .22 even after 12 washings, it was like wearing denim stove pipes.

[chrisser]

The cause is simple: BAD MANAGEMENT.

IMHO, you are exactly right. Sears made the kinds of mistakes that only a group of MBAs could make.

They could have been Amazon, and they had decades where they could still have turned it around and beaten Amazon. Even now, they have most of the infrastructure in place and have the one thing Amazon lacks - nationwide retail presence.

Instead they destroyed one of the greatest companies in history.

It's sort of a testament to the original company that it took so long for the incompetence to run it completely into the ground. It's been something like a 40 year slide into oblivion with red flags and consumer complaints lining the path.

[Loyalist]

I’ve seen that claim made a lot, but I think it ignores the advantages Amazon started out with by not being a traditional retailer.

No Sears board of directors in the mid-90s would have countenanced running years of losses developing an unproven method of commerce at the expense of its existing brick-and-mortar business model.

Amazon had the freedom of not having to convince people with a vested interest in a profitable business model to blow it up and start over, and of getting to define its industry in the process, much as Sears had over a century before.

Sears could be Sears once, not twice.

[Smittie]

I had a Sears lawnmower for 19 years and would still be using it if it didn’t get drowned in Harvey last year. I have a new one but I don’t know if it will last as long. I hope it does...

[Drew68]

Target should be next and none of their virtual posturing with perverts in the bathrooms will save them.

Target is reporting their strongest sales growth in 10 years. My local Target is always full. It helps that my local Walmart is a dirty cesspool of empty shelves, no cashiers, and people getting robbed in the parking lot.

Target is where the normal suburban shoppers go. Walmart is where the toothless white meth-heads with neck tattoos panhandle and overweight black women commandeer all the motorized shopping carts.

I hate Walmart and I've never seen a tranny in the restrooms at Target.

[bigdaddy45]

Target’s doing fine. People still shop at Target. They keep their stores updated and sell what people want to buy. The last time I went to Sears it was just downright depressing.

[who_would_fardels_bear]

If they had eliminated all of their stores so they could get away with not collecting sales tax, then they might have had a chance against Amazon.

Life isn't fair ... especially when government picks winners and losers.

[bigdaddy45]

Put the bong down. That would make no difference whatsoever.

[be-baw]

“I’m not exactly sure what these mom and pop stores would sell”

That’s the billion dollar question. Their brand has been catalogs, appliances, tools, toys...once upon a time they even sold decent clothes.

Decent clothes at a fair price. I like that concept. I’ve been shopping on lot lately but I’ve yet to find a reliable store to buy clothes online. Sounds like a market that needs to be exploited.

[rjsimmon]

Sears got out of catalog sales in themid-90s

Biggest mistake ever.

Disagree. Arthur Martinez saved Sears by getting rid of the catalog. He found that less than 5% of sales were coming from the catalog and that it took considerable resources to produce and distribute. People liked looking at the catalog, but not buying from it. He focused on Craftsman, Kenmore, and the Sears credit card business.

[grania]

In SE MA back in the 90s, the bad decisions were having an irreversible effect. They rented instead of owned most of their stores there. They lost a few leases, and didn't have the foresight to open another store to serve those markets. It's seemed from then on they did almost everything wrong.

And now they have a CEO who seems to be deliberately destroying any chance of coming back in some viable form.

[cyclotic]

The Detroit Area had a department store chain called Federals. In the late 1970’s, they started to fail and a financial savior came in and bought the chain. He was a very charismatic and flamboyant businessman named Stephen West.

There were lots of news articles and TV interviews with him and everything he was going to do to save the iconic chain.

Suddenly, one night a tragic fire flatted one of the stores. How sad.

A couple months later, coincidentally, there was another fire.

I tried chasing one on my bike. The entire sky was black. I rode 2-3 miles and turned back. The store was about 7 miles from home.

By the third one, it was apparent what was going on and Stephen West faded away. The chain soon liquidated.

[Buckeye McFrog]

Walmart is where the toothless white meth-heads with neck tattoos panhandle and overweight black women commandeer all the motorized shopping carts.

I'm headed there this evening after work. So, how long have you worked for the Target PR department?

[Paladin2]

Apparently, Stanley/DeWalt/Black and Decker/et.al. bought the Craftsman Brand.

[Reno89519]

We’ve been boycotting Target for about three years. The couple times I’ve had to shop there, noted that it was empty compared to WalMart. And last I read, not just my eyes confirm Target is not doing well.

[Paladin2]

Walmart clientele vary widely by location.

Walmart have apparently long had a computerized merchandise selection for individual stores. A big part of what has made them successful.

[Reno89519]

Seems like they’ve been failing for 10+ years, many more. This is a slow-motion business failure. Odd that they couldn’t, in all the time they’ve had, turn this around, re-tool, whatever.