Here's what's killing Sears

[RKP5637]

http://money.cnn.com/2018/02/12/news/companies/sears-downfall/index.html



Sears was once the king of retailers. Now it's a cash-starved shell of itself whose very survival is in doubt.

How it got to this point is a sad tale of a once proud and iconic brand.

"This has turned into a slow death," said Sean Maharaj, director in the retail practice of consultant AArete.

Sears literally changed America by changing how Americans shopped, and ultimately lived.

When the Sears catalog first launched in 1888, most people made their own clothes and even their own furniture. Sears introduced mass-produced items instead. New labor saving appliances like washing machines changed the nature of household chores. Its stores helped lead to the suburbanization of postwar America, anchoring malls that helped new communities to grow.

It was the nation's largest employer. It was the Walmart (WMT) and Amazon (AMZN) of its day, combined.

As the 21st century began and Americans began shifting to online shopping, Sears fell further and further behind.

Related: Sears is at risk of default, and shares plunged to record lows

Instead of changing to meet the new reality, it took a step backward, merging with another troubled retailer Kmart, to form Sears Holdings (SHLD).

Its new CEO, hedge fund operator Eddie Lampert, thought he could turn around both companies simply by cutting costs and selling the real estate where underperforming stores were located. Sears and Kmart had 3,500 U.S. stores between them when the deal closed in 2005. When the latest round of store closings is complete, the company will be down to about 1,000 locations total.

The mistake Sears made, say experts, was failing to invest that savings to rebuild the business.

The company that invented at home shopping more than a century ago squandered an opportunity to become a major player online.

At the same time, Sears let its physical stores fall into disrepair. While other traditional retailers tried up upgrade their in-store experience, experts say Sears remaining locations were starved for cash, leaving them desolate, uninviting backwaters in the world of retail.

[msongs]

1. sears is destroyed by corporate predators as well as bad business decisions nt

[hlthe2b]

2. yes, but maybe a little karmic payback for dumping Roebuck off the "marquee"

[RKP5637]

3. Exactly!!! "corporate predators" n/t

[guillaumeb]

4. 38 years of wage stagnation,

38 years of attacks on unions,

38 years of right wing economic warfare on working families,

38 years of gross under-taxation of the rich,


38 years of replacing productive investment with financial speculation,

38 years of companies moving work to follow the lowest wages,


and all of this combined has transformed a US filled with living wage unionized jobs into a plantation where low wage and part time jobs are the norm.

Sears is a symptom of how the 1%, conducting economic warfare on the working class, has transformed this country.

[RKP5637]

6. And the idiot stooge factor of the US continues to vote them into power. n/t

[guillaumeb]

7. There is that incredible fact. eom

[crazycatlady]

63. I turned 38 a few months ago

I don't know life without everything you mentioned.

[guillaumeb]

66. The US is slowly regressing.

And what is considered possible is also regressing.

A substantial segment of my parents generation enjoyed private, defined benefit pensions. As a retired Federal employee, I have a defined benefit pension.

Today, that is the exception.

[Crutchez_CuiBono]

5. Used to wait w baited breathe

for the Sears and JC Pennys Christmas Catalogs...OMG. The glory.

[RKP5637]

8. As a little kid I used to love looking through the Sears and Roebuck catalog. n/t

[pansypoo53219]

18. my grandma had hoarded a 70's sears wishbook. TIME TRAVEL. got $20+ on ebay.

then i got a sears/roebook reprinted 1896 catalogue. it was great because i found out the price for old stuff i had gleaned at estate sales. how much my cast iron teapot was originally-$4. all the sailor suits for little boys. and this thing called SUMMER WOOL!

[RKP5637]

19. They were sure interesting catalogs! n/t

[Crutchez_CuiBono]

57. Thats NUTS!!!

Its Americana for folks of a gone bye time. They were massive. It was a Walmart in your hand as far as variety...only MUCH MUCH better quality and all American.

[d_r]

9. yes

even with the whole internet in front of them, kids today have no match for the wish books.

[Crutchez_CuiBono]

11. A whole

world of wonder...right there in your little hands. Christmas Wishes and LISTS for parents. Hahaha. omg. Hours of Yuletide fun. But, it's US who war on Christmas...Gd it.

[samnsara]

56. every Easter mom would let us girls look thru the Sears Catalog and we would

get to pick out the fabric for our Easter Dresses! She would sew them up for us. I do miss the catalog.

[Guy Whitey Corngood]

10. Growing up in San Juan, the Sears catalogue was our "Amazon". nt

[ArtD]

12. They once even sold houses

I worked with a guy whose house was built (I think he said about 1929) from a Sears kit.
Apparently, Sears delivered a truckload/trainload of materials but it was up to the home owner get the constructino done.

[OxQQme]

41. Sears catalog home

Sears Catalog Homes (sold under the Sears Modern Homes name) were catalog and kit houses sold primarily through mail order by Sears, Roebuck and Company, an American retailer. Sears reported that more than 70,000 of these homes were sold in North America between 1908 and 1940.[1] More than 370 different home designs in a wide range of architectural styles and sizes were offered over the program's 33-year history.

Sears homes can be found across the continental United States. While sold primarily to East Coast and Midwest states, Sears homes have been located as far south as Florida and as far west as California. Examples have also been found in Alaska. A handful of Sears homes have been identified in Canada.[2]

Sears Modern Homes offered the latest technology available to house buyers in the early part of the twentieth century. Central heating, indoor plumbing, and electricity were all new developments in house design that "Modern Homes" incorporated, although not all of the houses were designed with these conveniences. Primarily shipped via railroad boxcars, these kits included most of the materials needed to build a house. Once delivered, many of these houses were assembled by the new homeowner, relatives, friends and neighbors, in a fashion similar to the traditional barn-raisings of farming families.[3] Other homeowners relied on local carpenters or contractors to assemble the houses. In some cases, Sears provided construction services to assemble the homes. Some builders and companies purchased homes directly from Sears to build as model homes, speculative homes or homes for customers or employees.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sears_Catalog_Home

[appalachiablue]

68. In the 90s we had a 1925 Sears 'Gladstone' model, foursquare. Loved it.

[area51]

69. The PBS "History Detectives" show had an episode

on a Sears home.

[Wednesdays]

42. And a line of cars!

http://money.cnn.com/2017/06/13/autos/sears-motor-buggy/index.html

[dixiegrrrrl]

43. Those houses are worth a lot nowdays.

There are a whole lot of people who want to own one of those houses, they have been selling for premium prices, esp. the last 20 years.

[GReedDiamond]

46. I lived in a Sears home from the 1920s, in Sierra Madre CA...

...for 16 years.

The owner's grandparents had originally owned and put together the pre-fab parts.

It looks kinda like this:

This house was the lower right hand corner floor plan...exactly....cost: $2039.00

Sierra Madre is a small town on the northeastern border of Pasadena CA, right next to the 210 freeway.

Sierra Madre is the "Mayberry" of the San Gabriel Valley.

The house was very small, but nice.

I had really great rent prices for all 16 years.

There are still no stop lights anywhere in SM - only 4-way stop signs.

I recorded two records there.

Owner's daughter grew up and wanted to move in with her fiancee.

So I was kicked out.

Place is prolly worth a couple million or more on the market.

Good 1920s investment.

[KT2000]

13. hedge fund managers

know how to play with and move money around. They are not business people in the sense that they would know how to run a retail company. They are missing the chip that connects them to customers.

[smirkymonkey]

21. They are predators.

Nothing more.

[trotsky]

14. I have often thought this to myself:

The company that invented at home shopping more than a century ago squandered an opportunity to become a major player online.

Sears COULD have been today's Amazon. They were uniquely poised to do so. All it would have taken was some management vision about 20 years ago.

[TlalocW]

16. A similar thing happened to record stores

There were various ideas of setting up pods in record stores so people could go into them, find 15 songs they liked, and they would be put on a CD, but stores and labels didn't like that idea, but if they had gone with it, they would have influenced and had intellectual rights over file formats, technology, and possibly the whole concept of where we are now with music, but they fought against it, and along came Napster, and its various spawn...

Same thing with Blockbuster laughing at Netflix's original home delivery system.

TlalocW

[uponit7771]

44. +1

[LeftInTX]

60. I dunno...I think record stores were doomed

Too many issues with copyrights...file formats etc...

Streaming and downloads are what people want.

Likewise radio stations are going bye-bye. I used to listen to Classic Rock, but the local stations are all commercial and play the same songs over and over. Now I listen to NPR. If I need music for trip, I hook up an internet radio station on my phone. (Very few commercials)

[TlalocW]

61. Right, but this was before that

Before people had even heard of the internet. IF they had gone that way, they would have been in control of the file formats maybe even the intellectual property of it all. They would have had time to adjust and derail anything that came along that threatened them - especially in the beginning where I remember downloading 50 MB file took over a day and a special FTP program that could remember where you were in the download when you invariably got cut off (TROOPS was the file, Star Wars-flavored parody of COPS, by the way).

I mean, I'm glad they didn't, but they could have.

TlalocW

[Yavin4]

28. People who work for large corps tend to think more about office politics and advancing their careers

than they do about innovation and creative thinking.

[former9thward]

48. People who work for large anything think that way.

Including large non-profits and large government units.

[TlalocW]

15. Lampert is a Ayn Randian

He decided it would be a good idea to introduce Objectivism into Sears resulting in different departments only caring about themselves and not the whole picture, the company itself.

Sears is one company whose downfall I've been able to watch in person. A company I worked for in the late 90s, when everything was booming, reserved Sears for a night in December for a Christmas event. They had roaming carolers, small bands, waiters with trays of snacks, and Santa, of course, and then coupons and deals for me and my shopping co-workers. It seemed like no expense had been spared, and while very capitalistic in nature, it felt old-fashioned Christmas-y. That Sears was in the neighborhood I lived in, and by the early 2000s, it was basically relegated to selling clothing returns. You would go in, and there would be boxes everywhere because there were hardly any workers who had no leadership directing them, lights were off, etc.

TlalocW

[RKP5637]

17. It's a very sad story about a once great company. I recall well as a very tiny kid going to the

Sears catalog store the next town over where they would order things in. Too bad how it's been destroyed.

[Bengus81]

20. Sears destroyed Sears.......

Because of their "we got the World by the ass" business mentality. As I mentioned in a different post,I tried to buy a expensive chainsaw from Sears in 1978 and they wouldn't sell it to me because I had the gall of wanting to use a regular credit card instead of a GASP.....SEARS CREDIT CARD. Walked out the door,bought one elsewhere and NEVER crossed a Sears threshold again.

My dad went to the same Sears several years later wanting to buy a rotary fertilizer spreader. He told one of the guys on the floor he needed one just like what they had there on display. Nope...we're out of stock and won't have any in for several days. So...how about selling me this one setting on the floor??? NOPE,then I wouldn't have a display model!!! He walked out,went to a lawn and garden place and bought one. Might have paid a few bucks more,who cares?

How about all the stereo stuff and then later VCR's/TV's that all came emblazened with the SEARS name on them?? Anyone could have told Sears buyers that guys will WANT an expensive receiver with the manufacturer name,not Sears.

Pffftttt,those clowns started dying a slow death a long time ago and it's THEIR fault.

[RKP5637]

22. Yep!!! n/t

[seaglass]

25. Yep. The only items we bought at Sears were craftsman tools (sold in 2017), Levis

for my husband - he liked the fit and they were under $30 and some appliances.

Washer and dryer I will never have complaints about.

When we bought the stove and fridge we got the credit card because there was a savings, that was fine, except the credit card was only good for appliance purchases! I guess they never heard of cross-selling. Dumbest thing I ever heard of.

Their products are mostly mediocre and can be found at better prices elsewhere. When I was growing up my mom bought a lot at Sears but there weren't as many options then. Now there are so many choices I couldn't say who Sears' market is.

[Dave Starsky]

23. Hindsight is always 20/20.

Sears had a mail-order business already running for decades. They had a storage and distribution network in place. They didn't leverage all of that to transition to an internet based model because they didn't know that was really going to be a thing. No one knew that at the time.

Kodak essentially developed digital photography technology but then sat on it because they didn't know that it would ever be the direction that photography was going towards. No one knew that at the time.

It's so easy to be a genius when you're looking at everything after the fact. These companies made the best decisions for themselves at the time they had to make them. And now, like everything else, they will change.

[oberliner]

24. Video killed the radio star

[procon]

36. Yes, I was humming that same tune!

They had an opportunity to stay competitive, but the management took the "Romney" approach to business management. They leveraged out as much easy money as they could than then walked away from the gutted company when it was no longer profitable.

[HopeAgain]

26. Well, they had a pretty good run...

but in the Jungle of capitalism, you will always eventually run into a bigger predator.

[RKP5637]

27. Yep, it truly is savage. n/t

[Yavin4]

29. Walmart defeated Sears by pressuring their suppliers. Amazon finished them off by leveraging tech

into the shopping experience.

[RKP5637]

31. Yep, excellent observation. To me, I don't see anyway for Sears to come back. They've been

out-leveraged and obsoleted at every angle. In short, they missed the boat and it's long gone. Frankly, I don't think their execs care as long as they can suck some money out of what's left.

[Yavin4]

34. This is what happens to large, old corporations

People in Mgt get too focused on saving their careers and moving up the ladder than they are on doing things that will improve the company.

[uponit7771]

45. +1, "People in Mgt get too focused on saving their careers "

[SoCalDem]

30. catalog shopping back then was the internet shopping of today

things changed when more people got reliable transportation and brick & mortar stores were suddenly available to them..

then the "downtowns" were the thing..

and then

discount stores sprang up and peeled off layers of the market

then

malls "stole" from both of them

people now prefer to shop at 3 am in their jammies for exactly what they want in the exact color/size the want....and it gets put on their porch a day later..

Once you are past your teens, shopping is no longer "fun"..especially when money is scarce.

[RKP5637]

32. Yep, well said!!! n/t

[X_Digger]

67. For rural people, those first steps never hapenned.

Few brick and mortar, no downtown, no discount stores, no malls.

Sears and Montgomery Ward were where most of our money was spent (clothes, toys, electronics, kitchenware, at least.)

Our Sears had a tiny showroom but then a loooong counter with multiple people taking orders. We'd start laying away christmas gifts in March to be picked up after Thanksgiving.

[WillowTree]

33. There's a documentary you can rent for cheap....as I recall about $2.......

called 'A Tale of Two Cities: The Circuit City Story' and it's the story of the rise and subsequent fall of the company that was once the Number 1 electronics retailer in the Country as told by the people who actually lived through it. I found it fascinating...….and sad. How the people who run companies can forget what made them successful in the first place and go completely belly-up. Recommended for anyone who has an intnerest in such things.

[RKP5637]

38. Thanks!

[RKP5637]

39. I've worked in some companies like that. The CEOs in their minds could do no wrong as they

took the company under. Some CEOs get an omnipotent attitudes, like how they think is how the world is going to think. Actually, tRump is a lot like that.

[USALiberal]

50. And no matter what kind of job they do, they end up with million$! nt

[RKP5637]

55. Yep, all with golden parachutes worth millions. n/t

[Raine]

40. Thanks..

Sounds interesting, I'll see if I can get it.

[benld74]

35. Hedge Fund Operator CEO

Find me 1
Company led by a hedge fund operator
Where that company
Is a success

ONE !!!!

[Duppers]

47. ExZactly!

From the top down Sears turned into another asshole central.

[underpants]

37. Well they have a very welled managed pension and retiree healthcare

I know a retiree. Very comfortable.

[benld74]

49. My Chicago Aunt

Worked for Sears all her life
She also retired comfortably as well
This was back in the 80’s though

[underpants]

52. The person I know retired in the early 90's

He and his wife have a very nice in stream of funds plus they made some really good investments over the years and were pretty tight with money.

[USALiberal]

51. I admit, I love shopping at amazon. So easy and quick arrival. nt

[PJMcK]

53. The Sears & Roebuck catalogs

The catalogs published by Sear & Roebuck were an awesome collection of their products. For people living in rural areas, they were necessary.

In the pre-internet days of the 1970s, I was friendly with a sailor who had circumnavigated the Earth on his 45-foot yawl. I crewed for him on several offshore voyages and he had a copy of the Sears catalog on his boat. He said that whenever he needed something in a foreign port and he didn't speak the language, he could use the pictures in the catalog to show the locals what he needed!

My siblings and I loved the Christmas catalog Sears published. We would spend hours leafing through its pages while compiling our wish lists.

It's disappointing to see so many of the stalwarts of yesteryear's retailers going bankrupt: Sears, Radio Shack, Toys 'R' Us, etc. I guess their inability to adapt put them in jeopardy.

[samnsara]

54. we only have a small Sears that sells appliances and lawn stuff...its pretty busy all the time....

...we have NO Walmart anywhere in out County!! Yay us!...

An Observation...hubby and I used to storm chase with a group every summer for about 10 years. We went thru a LOT of little towns and hamlets in the Midwest and there were Walmarts in towns with fewer than 5000 population. Every town that had a Walmart had a dead or dying city center. I dont know what came first......

[RKP5637]

58. I think Walmart has pretty much wiped out the small business guys just about every place they go.

And Amazon probably wipes out a lot too.

[LeftInTX]

59. I think Sears biggest retail competitors are Lowe's, Home Depot and Best Buy

WalMart is more like K-mart.

Even when Sears was at the top, it was never very conveniently located. Always in a mall or upscale shopping center. Not that it mattered, but Sears wasn't the type of store to "run in and get something".

I think San Antonio probably had no more than 7 Sears at it's peak, we have 13 Lowe's. We have Lowe's and Home Depot and WalMart just about everywhere. I only have to travel a few miles to grab something from Lowe's. If we need this or that we go to Lowe's. Now when we need appliances, guess where we go?

[Adrahil]

64. We have two Walmarts here, and our downtown is roaring back.

When we moved here, downtown was dead. It used to have classic downtown-like department stores, and businesses. Obviously, all those died, and "Strip Mall Central".... a long road running the width of the town populated by strip malls and chain restaurants... develop on the very north edge of town. So when we arrived, downtown had one successful restaurant, and a couple bars. And lots of empty storefronts. And it was too bad, because these are gorgeous late-19th/early 20th century buildings. However, over the last 7-8 years that has changed.

Downtown is now flourishing with restaurants, bars with an active nightlife, specialty retail, coffe shops, bakeries, healthclubs, etc. It's become hip for younger people to live downtown.

The key is to not try and compete with the Walmart's and chain restaurants. People hitting those places value price over all else, and you can't beat them on price. Instead, offer something unique. Like high quality candies produced on-site, craft beer, great food locally sourced, quality homemade soaps and candles. It has to be something they can;t get elsewhere, at a reasonable price. Our local non-chain restaurants are always crowded. But the chains are there when you need something fast.

[Adrahil]

62. I hardly ever go into Department stores. What's the point?

There's hardly any staff. The selection is thin. The sizes available even more so. It's a terrible shopping experience.

My local sears is awful. It sparse, in disrepair, dirty, and has a feeling of the encroaching grave about it.

[RKP5637]

65. Yep, like many of them. n/t