Did Disney ruin Sears stores?

[JaxDad]

It went downhill when Roebuck left.

 

[hopemax]

My Mom worked for Sears for 13 years or so. We knew it was going downhill when her Store Manger was so frustrated by the orders coming from corporate, he quit to become "just a regular worker" at a local hardware store. And that was back in about 1992! Shows you how long inertia can take before the whole thing comes crashing down. My Mom quit a couple months after he left. We have talked for years at how ironic it was that Sears shut down their catalog department 1 year before Amazon was launched, because "people no longer wanted to shop by mail." We were from the PacNW and found out about Amazon really early on and watched the transition from books to everything, just like Sears used to be known for.

Speaking of Sears...we went there last week and checkout was a disaster. It reminded me a lot of my last experience at Circuit City before they went under. Shoppers present and ready to buy and only one register open, and the person being checked out having an issue that takes 20+ minutes to resolve. Then yesterday, I realized our artificial tree was dead dead, and we needed a new one. After looking at about 7 other stores, the only one I liked was at Sears. So we went there again, knowing it would be bad. 90 minutes, and at least half of that was AFTER we paid for the tree (the first time) and were trying to pick it up later, we finally are able to drive home. So it's likely our last ever purchase from Sears.

 

[LAB81018]

Sears executives did it while trying to enrich themselves.

https://www.cnn.com/2018/10/30/business/sears-share-repurchase/index.html

 

[Oliviaxxx]

Sears closed by us last year. I miss it. It was a good store if you were looking for some basic clothing. A lot of good stores are going out!

 

[goofyernmost]

I agree and would add that it seems to me that consumers are not interested anymore in what Sears was known for, service after the sale. People don't seem to want to fix anything anymore, they just buy something new. If you needed a new grass catcher for your Sears mower, not only could you get it at Sears, they HAD it in stock in your store. And when we needed a new fridge, they had it in stock, and could have it delivered the same day. Not like Home Depot and Lowes where they need a few days to order it for you. When my food is soiling in my dead fridge, I need a new one NOW. And it was Sears that delivered it, not some third party contractor.

Well, they had quality merchandise, but, still were always getting caught up in the bait and switch scams over and over again. When I was first married, all we really had was a Sears Credit Card. It was only good at Sears. All my appliances (Kenmore) and all my tools (Craftsmen) were top of the line then K-mart bought them out and they replaced all that quality stuff with lesser quality. On top of that they signed their death certificate when they did away with the catalog and went to just in store sales. Timing was everything, they decided or financially couldn't switch over to internet sales and I would have thought that it would have been a piece of cake to just transfer their catalog to online selling. But, they didn't, so now I would guess that within 5 years, they will disappear completely. This was once one of the biggest most successful retail businesses that ever existed. They, like Kodak, refused to recognize the future and were swallowed up by it.

They tried the bait and switch with me once when I was looking to buy an upright freezer. They advertised one at a really good price so I went in to buy it. It was just your basic freezer, but, it was still the good quality Kenmore that we had been used to. They had a sample on the floor that I was looking at when the salesman told me that those weren't available in the store stock, but, a higher priced one was available. I said can you order one in for me, I'm not in any hurry and they came up with a million reasons why I should upgrade. For one thing the upgrade had a thermostat control so you could set it up to be colder. I asked if the one I was looking at originally froze things and they said, of course it did. Then, I said, good that's the one I want. Then after pointing out numerous other things they told me that it would take over a month to get the one that was on sale. I said, that's ok, I have to wire up an outlet for it anyway. So after about an hour of haggling I managed to get them to sell me the advertised freezer. That was on a Friday and the following Monday it was delivered to my house. We had that freezer in three houses over 28 years. It froze wonderfully, and never had an issue in all those years. When I finally sold the last house I had no place to bring the freezer too, so I left it in the house. Last time I saw it it was quietly freezing away. But I never forgot how much they tried to make me buy the more expensive one. And they got a reputation for trying that often and were even caught and fined for it at least once, if I remember right.

 

[tvguy]

the salesman told me that those weren't available in the store stock, but, a higher priced one was available. I said can you order one in for me.

It has been 4 years since our last Sears appliance purchase, a washer and a dryer. LG. Bought it at 10 am, we were doing laundry in them at 6 pm that night. In stock, and available for immediate delivery.

 

[TipsyTraveler]

Yeah, this one gets a low score from me.

Would you say 2/10?

 

[DebbieB]

My 2 local Sears have closed. So much for the warranty I bought for my tires.

 

[Alicenwonderment]

My 2 local Sears have closed. So much for the warranty I bought for my tires.

I had a warranty on my tires too. Actually I was really mad at Sears because I needed a car inspection and the guy (worker) made it sound like my car would pass inspection. (I had been worried that car wouldn't pass because it might need tires) I was told it would pass but it is right on the border. I figured if I could get the car to last another 6 months it would be good. I request new front tires and go walk the mall while waiting. At 7pm I go back to pick up my car and the car did not pass due to some issues that it wouldn't be worth fixing. I was so mad that when my car failed inspection they didn't call me to see if I still wanted the tires.

Deb, My Sears is closing here and I asked about the warranty on the tires and Sears told me that there are still Sears stores around. (Most are 45 minutes from here.)

 

[Dan Murphy]

with Mexican shoppers.

Mexican??? Is that code?

If you want Pooh stuff, search Sears for Pooh stuff.

https://www.sears.com/search=winnie


Most Sears/KMart stores here in the Chicago area (Sears home base) are now closed. Last one actually in Chicago itself closed during the summer. The Sears store at the huge Woodfield shopping center was mostly empty yesterday, as said by our paper. The mall itself was packed.

 

[GreatLakes]

Eddie Lampert happened to Sears. I think he knew that the sum of the assets was worth more than the whole and has strategically milked all the value out of Sears' properties while ruining the stores.

It was a corporate raid done by the CEO.

 

[dclpluto]

Op has been known for starting threads and not coming back.

 

[missbrooke06]

Eddie Lampert happened to Sears. I think he knew that the sum of the assets was worth more than the whole and has strategically milked all the value out of Sears' properties while ruining the stores.

It was a corporate raid done by the CEO.

Check out the podcast Household Name. They did a really interesting episode on this topic recently and I enjoyed it a lot.

 

[KerryCM]

yup-they started subcontracting our their delivery and repair several years ago but the delivery guys don't know how to properly set stuff up and it caused people to have to have authorized service people out to correct it. their sales staff lost their will to sell as well-i know several people who walked into sears over the past 4 or 5 years fully planning to spend thousands on appliances only to see departments with sales staff that not only made no effort to approach them-they would ignore customers altogether.

They did not sub out their repair services, they started a different division. I know this because my son son is the senior VP of Sears Home Services which is the repair division of the company. It is an extremely difficult time for him right now going through the Chapter 11 process. He has only been with the company for 4 years and was brought in to help reorganize things. He is a young man who rose rather quickly with a major soft drink company and saw this a challenge. Unfortunately, things have not worked out due to many circumstances. I know he will stick with Sears for as long as they need him to, he is not a quitter. He has had many job offers, but needs to see his current one to the end.

 

[tvguy]

Eddie Lampert happened to Sears. I think he knew that the sum of the assets was worth more than the whole and has strategically milked all the value out of Sears' properties while ruining the stores.

It was a corporate raid done by the CEO.

Sears, K-Mart and even McDonalds are all in the same kind of boat. Their business model going back decades was to own the real estate their stores are on. McDonalds has done much better because they own the land and buildings, but have franchisees running them, and leasing them from corporate. Leases bring in more income than operating the stores in many cases. All the closed K-Marts here, the buildings and land are all still owned by K-Mart. They are leasing them out to new tenants like Home Depot.
As for Eddie Lampert, interesting guy. He just lent Sears $500 million of his own money to keep them afloat. Must be nice to have that kind of money laying around to invest.

 

[Floridaman999]

Would you say 2/10?

That seems appropriate.

 

[Dan Murphy]

to invest.

To invest, or throw away?

 

[goofyernmost]

It has been 4 years since our last Sears appliance purchase, a washer and a dryer. LG. Bought it at 10 am, we were doing laundry in them at 6 pm that night. In stock, and available for immediate delivery.

They probably got fined enough and lost enough business that they no longer do that. They are no longer the big kid on the block. The most humiliating blow would have been being bought out by K-Mart. As I said, they were high quality and always offered a great service department even though I never really needed them for anything.

I bought a guitar from them before I got married, another attempt to Bait and Switch. They told me that they were out and the only one left was the display and they couldn't sell that because the case was missing and they weren't going to get any others in. So I said well then, sell me just the guitar and I'll find another case for it. Oh, they couldn't do that because it was a display. So I said if you aren't going to get anymore in then why would you need this display one. They didn't have an answer and then the sales person went out back and a miracle happened, they found another one. That was in 1971, that was 47 years ago, I still have it, it is still in good shape, sounds good and the case is like new. It was sometimes worth the argument. Sadly, however, I don't think they will be around much longer. J C Penney's will probably follow them out the door. Perhaps Sears will go the way of Montgomery Wards and become strictly a internet store.

 

[dotfurio]

Our Sears has definitely gone downhill. First they closed their auto service, then they let go of Craftsman, and most recently they gave up their mall entrance. I think the quality of their products has gone down as well. Our Kenmore fridge has had problem after problem. We were one service away from replacing it as a lemon.

 

[PollyannaMom]

Uh. No. Sears suffered from a steady decline and never really adjusted with the times. The Kmart takeover (and it was really Kmart) made it worse. In the past 40 years they've made some really bad decisions.

However, department stores are still a dying breed. Sears suffered from the same hubris that Kodak did. They didn't change with the times, fearing that they would lose their bread and butter. Kodak invented digital photography but didn't commercially develop it fearing it would damage their film business. Sears was late to the internet sales game. Even then, I could sense a decline in the late 80s. They had made a lot of expensive investments and acquisitions such as Dean Witter that they hoped to attract customers. They eventually divested themselves of these, including Allstate and Prodigy.

But not selling Disney merchandise? Is this some kind of satire? The biggest issue for Sears was competition from Walmart and Target.

My Mom worked for Sears for 13 years or so. We knew it was going downhill when her Store Manger was so frustrated by the orders coming from corporate, he quit to become "just a regular worker" at a local hardware store. And that was back in about 1992! Shows you how long inertia can take before the whole thing comes crashing down. My Mom quit a couple months after he left. We have talked for years at how ironic it was that Sears shut down their catalog department 1 year before Amazon was launched, because "people no longer wanted to shop by mail." We were from the PacNW and found out about Amazon really early on and watched the transition from books to everything, just like Sears used to be known for...

I was going to say the same thing about the irony. Way....way back when, people didn't have a "local Sears store" and would order everything from the catalog: