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Failure of Sears will they fold soon??

J

JOCCO

Well-known Member
We have talked this over in the past. 3rd Quater results are in and they are bad. Does anyone see much hope for sears and all it holdings? They are talking about closing stores and selling brands etc. For me I don't see much hope, they do not serve much purpose today and there business model has been flawed far to long. One article said the bankrupt filing could happen by January and some suppliers were cutting off shipments or going COD. Sad to see a once great institution on the ropes. For those that think they will continue what will it take to revive them? I welcome your input.
 
I quit buying a lot there when it started having "China" stamped on the back of the tools.

Plus I have reached the stage of my life where I have danged most everything I need.

Gene
 
There's no hope, and hasn't been for quite some time. This will probably be the last Christmas I will receive any Craftsman tools from my parents.

Right now I suspect that the only reason they haven't filed for bankruptcy is because the executives are still getting paid. These executives are going to walk off with millions of dollars in their pockets for riding a doomed company into the ground. They came in promising to turn things around, and failed. They probably knew there was no turning things around, and took the job anyway.

Of course it's right in their contracts that it's not their fault, so they get to keep all the money they made, and some other company will hire them immediately after the ink dries on the bankruptcy papers.
 
Kind of a shame, they were pre-positioned to be Amazon with their existing mail-order empire but couldn't or wouldn't get there fast enough.
 
Hard to say ? They have been going to go under for years now.
Sad for sure when you see where they once were to where they are today.
 
They were there and could have been a bigger and better version of Amazon - but rather than evolve their existing mail order business to a web based business they pretty much shut it down - at almost the exact same time Amazon was getting started.
 
I could see them going under. I've never bought a huge amount of stuff from Sears. I do have few craftsman tools from them. Here is my help to putting them under if you want to call it that. Last year on black Friday I bought a new dishwasher, stove and refrigerator from them. I had it delivered. All 3 show up and 2 of them are damaged. The delivery guys called to report it. They asked if they gave me some money back would I keep it. We went back and forth on how much and they ended up giving me $400 back on the refrigerator and I choose to keep it. It was not all that back and did not affect the function of anything but one roller on the bottom. The stove was next. The whole bottom of the frame was warped. I told them I wanted another one. They sent another one a week later. It was dented on the side. I said I want another one. I paid for new merchandise, I want new undamaged merchandise. They tell me that they have no more in the warehouse and it will be late January before they get more. They tell me to keep the second one that was dented and use it until the next load comes in and I do. A month and a half later when the 3rd stove shows up at my house, you guessed it! It's dented! I tell them I want another one. I finally have to call the store several days in a row and try to talk to the manager. He never seems to be available when I tell them who it is calling. Finally in February I get a 4th stove that is not dented. I also get some money for having to take off several days from work to meet the guys delivering things. All total I think I got around $700-750 back for the damaged merchandise and dealing with them. This is by far the biggest dealing I will ever have with them. If they had a few of these a week throughout the country I can completely see why they would be going under. I choose them for because of the salesman and the fact that it was Sears. They have been around a long time and should be good to deal with. I was wrong.
 
Funny that you bring this up today when I was thinking of a lot of the local failures or near failures. When I became an adult in the 1980's all I heard was the talk that some company was closing or thinking about moving away. I was amped up to hit the ground buying farm equipment after I finished my second year of ag college but the regional employment picture made me reconsider and go two more years. All things considered I should have taken the first really good job I could find even if it meant moving away instead of getting by locally which I wound up doing. Had things worked out differently for companies such as Kodak, Xerox, Sylvania, etc. I would have made a lot more progress in life to this point.
 
Oh they are going to close as long as they keep the same game plan going. Remember they are also Kmart and they are almost done. No and wrong cloths to choose from. Popular sizes are gone, the super small and large are there but few others. NO grocery. Why stop there and then go to Kroger when you can do one stop shop at Walmart? I read an article that walmart has such buying power they can set the price.

I worked at Kmart and Corporate might have had a plan but they sure didn't let Local in on it. And Local had no say. NO communication. We'd get crap in for a big sale and I'd look at it and say WHY? or if it was something that would really sell we'd get TWO.
 
Had breakfast with my buddies Tuesday in Fenton, MI and one of the said "The Kmart in the mall is going out of business. This is the last week it will be open, shelves are very bare already".
 
Sure giving me the willies as I hoped to buy my second dishwasher from them. Who will support Kenmore stuff now?
Consumer Reports gave some of their models as much approval as some other brands. But the parts support? Leo
 
Their service sucked so bad that they lost all my business 20 years ago. As far as selling off brands,what do they have to sell? A name? It's not like they have any factories. They just source their products from the manufacturer that will make their stuff the cheapest.
 
Yes it is a shame. I had to buy a window air unit this summer and they are the only ones that have those valance window units. It was NOT cheap but it works great. Have a lot of Craftman tools, sockets and wrenches. I still have a Sears strobe and the small dwell and RPM meter. Bought those in the mid 70s. Sears little tiny store in Hammonton,nj and a nice Sears hardware in Berlin,nj closed this past summer. Sad
 
It is sad and it is bad when execs can't get out of their own way. K-Mart caved to the left and stopped selling firearms and the ones screaming the loudest for them to stop selling the "evil stuff" did not turn around and support them.

Sears worked hard to compete with selling trash at a higher price and they are in competition with too many others doing the same. If I was over a three or five year plan, I would have brought back firearms, however, I would have also kept the Craftsman tools of higher quality and backed them up, doing what got them where they were. Even if the tools were not made here (USA), they could have spec'd to a higher quality than just selling the same stuff you can buy everywhere else, most likely cheaper.

Many times companies stop doing what made them popular, I see Walmart doing it too, but it looks like some of that they stopped and looked back at what got them where they are. I know if Sears had good Craftsman tools, I would go there rather than buy garbage. Their online sales/website is painful and many parts of it do not work well. Seems like when they left the firearm business, that was the slow death and they topped it off trashing Craftsman.... They should have looked hard at keeping the tools made in the USA.
 
I like many other posters have a lot of the good us made craftsman tools. When I bought them it was perfect with the lifetime warranty. Figured it was Sears what could happen. Well I figured wrong ! For me Sears meant tools. I no longer have a reason to shop there.
 
I have two customers that bought riding mowers from Sears. All service work was done by a Sears tech. They had the extended warranty. Both mowers have blown engines.Sears will not honor the warranty. Claims lack of proper upkeep by customer.I bet they go under before the lawsuit hits.
 
I do not shop at Walmart for groceries and it is 7 mile from home. I go to Kroger 20 mile from home going past Walmart. I do go to Walmart for other things including my medicine. The K-Mart 20 mile north of me closed this summer and it seemed there were always quite a few customers, now the one 20 mile west of me has been kept open with very few customers to ever be seen and smaller amount of merchandise.
 
There's we're 2 sears stores near me, the 1 about 8 miles away closed this summer. I liked Craftsman tools and always had good luck with them, the USA made stuff, when the started being made overseas I stoped buying them. My dad worked in the auto garage for sears in the 60s so he loved the place, he would always get us something from craftsman for Christmas. We also wore I think they were tough skins pants as kids, yes it's a shame.
 
My dad used to like Sears water pumps. One day he went to buy a rebuild kit and they said they are no longer available. What to do. Well, they said you can send it to our repair center. Ok, good. How long will that take? Oh, about six weeks. We're supposed to live without water for six weeks? Dad bought his first Gould. That was over thirty years ago. Miracle they are still around.
 
Been an ongoing thing
Took years but they stopped taking care of their customers and that is the whole thing in a nut shell.

Didnt really matter what it was they took care of it but now as with so many others they have excuses instead of service so myself and everybody else look for an alternative

Same thing happening with your services for T.V and telephone

Sometimes maybe living off the grid isnt a bad idea
 
About 30 years ago, there was a TV commercial that focused on a Chinese aircraft mechanic. The commercial said that "Wong" (can't remember his name) used only Craftsman tools when working on his aircraft. Why? Because ALL Craftsman tools were made in America. I remember that commercial and I've looked long and hard to find it on Youtube all all the other places, but I couldn't find it. Anyway, it's truly ironic that if Wong is still using Craftsman tools, they are now all made in China. I've given up going to a Sears store, but my local Ace Hardware store still sells some Craftsman tools, all the new ones are now made China.
I don't have a K-Mart store within a couple of hours of where I live.
 
I have a check from Sears for 1 cent says redeemable at any bank. Think I should cash it while I can still get my money?
 
Firearms and ammo were never a huge profit center for Sears or the Mart of K. If they had been, both chains would still be selling them. Lot better markup and volume on clothes and major appliances.
 
I predicted about a year ago that 2015 would be Sears' last Christmas. I guess I was wrong.

I've said it here before: Sears is like a bull moose shot through the heart. It keeps stumbling along because its too big and dumb to know it's supposed to be dead.
 
Most of my power and carpenter tools are Craftsman, they were the best in the early 70's, made out of aluminum and soft rubber 3 wire cords that don't fall out of the receptacle! Sears had a chance when Amazon was starting up, but they thought online shopping wouldn't go over, what a mistake! Sears and Monkey Wards started mail order! Sears had the infrastructure, they could of gone into it full tilt and beat Amazon.
 
Over the years, I was never impressed by Sears merchandise. I found the prices not to be competitive. I found the quality to be average. I started out as a mechanic with a tool box from Sears and full of Craftsman tools. Never did like the 12-point sockets. I sure had to borrow 6-point sockets on many occasions to keep from rounding off a hex bolt or nut. I found a lot of the tools to be uncomfortable to the hand and clumsy as well.
One other thing I did not like was that a lot of Sears appliances and machinery was just proprietary enough to need to get parts and/or service from Sears. I went to a Sears parts depot to get parts for a Craftsman mower, and was told that they would be happy to order it. It would take 2 to 3 weeks, and the price was a bit steep PLUS SHIPPING!!!! Then I found that I could get the same parts over the counter locally without having to wait or pay extra shipping charges.

One sure thing about Sears that I think is their biggest downfall is that Sears never made anything but MONEY. Since any store can source equipment the same way as Sears has done for so many years, they can't even make money anymore! They could have been investing in manufacturing while at the same time Sam Walton WAS investing in manufacturing. Guess who came out on top of that one.

So, if they do fold up, I won't miss them other than orphaning some second hand equipment I have with their name on it. Their glory days are long past.
 
Quit Sears appliences in 2006. Had an issue with a microwave with a magnatron failure while it was still under warranty (5yr) but the guy in charge of honering it wouldn't because we didn't buy the extended warranty. Have been slowly purging our kenmore stuff and only have two left in the house. When they quit handling paint is when I quit going into the store.
 
All of the appliances in our home are Kenmore. In over 40 years of use i don't recall any issues. Of course they all haven't lasted 40 years. Only the freezer has. The other appliances have been replaced one or two times. The dishwasher is the nest one to be replaced. It too will be a Kenmore.
 
Sam Walton- ie Walmart, was investing in mfg? What did Walmart ever make? They just merchandise.
 
Craftsman made 6 point sockets. I have a full set of them. Sears bought all of their goods from other companies. I have never had a problem getting parts for Sears equipment atarts places other than Sears. Ladtly, I would like to see verifible proof Sam Walton and Walmart went into manufacturing.
 
Sears has the same problem as all old companies (and most old people) the world changes, but companies (and old people) want to live in the world as it used to be. Change is a killer. K-mart couldn't change, Sears could't change. What is Walmart doing that is so radical? But those little simple changes killed most small communities too.
Just enough subtle change to bury Sears. Same with Grants, Kresge, Howard Johnson, just enough change to kill the old business model.

Same with people. They talk about the good old days, as it slowly disappears around them.
Watch the movie "Nebraska".
 
I have never had a problem with Sears deliveries. No damaged merchandise. Since both my wife and I worked they even worked around our schedules. Can't ask for more than that.
 
Isn't checking the oil before operation the owner's responsibilty or is Sears supposed to do that too? I don't believe any extended warranty covers running an engine out of oil.
 
Wal-Mart has ties to factories in China according to what I have read. When companies like Wal-Mart and Home Depot dominate the market, they get exclusive contracts with suppliers. While this may not be DIRECT ownership, it certainly is indirect ownership and control of those manufacturing plants. In my thinking, that is an investment in manufacturing.

So, let us say that there is a saw manufacturer that has the capacity to produce 10,000 saws a month. Here comes the big box store to handle their brand. BUT, they want 20,000 saws a month. So, the manufacturer gets big dollar signs in his eyes, and signs into a contract to produce the 20,000 saws. To do this, he borrows to buy land, equipment, and square footage for the increased production. Now, the big box store wants to get lower prices. So, they pressure the manufacturer to cut costs. Now, the manufacturer is selling saws to the big box store at cost. This means that the manufacturer is not making a profit. Loan payments are not being made. Now, the manufacturer is on the ropes, and is offered a buyout by the big box store. They have no other choice than to either sell out or go bankrupt. So who ends up owning the manufacturing?

So, here comes Sears, buying GE's Hotpoint washing machines, rebranding them as Kenmore, and competing against the Hotpoint appliances already on the market - at lower prices. How does that produce a profit? And, at the same time, the other big box stores have exclusive brands and are not competing against their own suppliers.
 
Exactly what operations should Sears move to Mexico? They are a retailer remember.
 
(quoted from post at 13:11:10 12/09/16) .......................
....... I have reached the stage of my life where I have danged most everything I need.
Gene
Click to expand...

Me too.........now, if I could just FIND them! ! ! :eek:
 
I'm still using a craftsman air compressor I got from wife for Christmas 38 yrs ago, good. BIL tried to get em to warranty a click-type torque wrench, mainly just get it calibrated, serviceclown said it wasn't a hand tool, so no warranty, that's bad. I wanted him to show me where to plug it at or hook up the air line, but was too mad to say anything. Too much bad, not enough good, the good ship Sears will sink.
 
Just for grins, I tried going to local Sears to check on welding wire, they have not had any on the shelf for almost a full year. Got welding machines, but no wire, HOWEVER!!!! Somebody stuck a big fat red plumber's helper up on the shelf, and it sat there for almost a year. I used to go in and ask ever so often, just for grins, Got any welding wire???? Got lots of dumb looks, but no wire. This Christmas, saw some 1 lb. rolls finally.
 
(quoted from post at 16:38:49 12/09/16) Kind of a shame, they were pre-positioned to be Amazon with their existing mail-order empire but couldn't or wouldn't get there fast enough.
Click to expand...

Well, there was quite a gap between the end of the big book and the "catalog stores" in every town, but I agree. Sears just couldn't seem to grasp that things were changing. Too bad.

Personally, I have nothing but good memories of the old Sears and Montgomery Wards, Speigel, JC Penny, etc. Back in the day they all carried everything you needed. I still have old catalogs stored away from Pennys with guns and outdoor gear. The old Farm and Ranch catalogs had stuff you simply can't find anymore. It was a different era that's long gone.
 
(quoted from post at 01:02:12 12/10/16) Name a retailer which doesn't source most of their merchandise from China?
Click to expand...


Sssshhhh! You aren't supposed to mention that. We are supposed to believe there is still a huge American industrial sector out there making quality goods at a slightly higher price than overseas. That idea is sold here every time there's an "I never go in Walmart" thread. Fact is we killed off that sector close to 30 years ago now. Americans couldn't possibly afford to buy solely American made goods. No one could.
 
For the life of me, I can't understand why Sears mail-order is failing when Amazon and other retail mail order is flying high. We live in a very rural area and have grown to detest city traffic and large crowds. We do nearly all of our Christmas shopping on-line. Why in the world can't Sears compete in this market, heck Sears and Monkey Wards invented it!!!
 
Read the comments, all about what Sears "used to do" but almost none about what they do today.
A story about a company living in the past, with no current pizzazz....edge.
 
> For the life of me, I can't understand why Sears mail-order is failing when Amazon and other retail mail order is flying high.

Sears (and it's long dead rival Montgomery Ward) largely abandoned mail-order in eighties in favor of huge retail stores. Sears in particular saw its future as finance company, not a retailer. The mail-order business at that time didn't fit its vision of using easy credit to drive its retail business at a time when middle-class consumers couldn't get bank credit. Then the nineties came along with two big disrupters, the internet and easy credit. Sears the dinosaur was too dumb to understand that the landscape had shifted and was caught flat-footed by credit card issuers and internet retailers. If Sears had moved quickly, it had the infrastructure to dominate internet sales like Amazon does today. But they didn't take the online threat seriously, and meanwhile a generation grew up without setting foot in the Sears stores their parents frequented.

Even today, you can see Sears really doesn't get the online retail business. Take the Sears parts store, for example: You can buy almost any part for any appliance from Sears, and prices are reasonable. But then you add in the exorbitant shipping charges and long delivery times and it makes better sense to buy from other retailers offering fast delivery and cheap shipping. And Sears' online retail store is a bewildering mess.
 
Thanks Mark for putting it all in perspective. I bet those hot-shot CEO's and others who sold Sears down the tubes are long gone now, maybe wrecking havoc with other companies while taking their "golden parachute."
 
Very happy for you with your experiance with Kenmore. I to would still be Kenmore if it wasn't for the arrogant warranty guy. BTW: we replaced the Microwave with the exact same model from GE, as we liked it and all Kenmore was is a GE rebanded.
 
(quoted from post at 06:01:50 12/10/16)
(quoted from post at 01:02:12 12/10/16) Name a retailer which doesn't source most of their merchandise from China?
Click to expand...


Sssshhhh! You aren't supposed to mention that. We are supposed to believe there is still a huge American industrial sector out there making quality goods at a slightly higher price than overseas. That idea is sold here every time there's an "I never go in Walmart" thread. Fact is we killed off that sector close to 30 years ago now. Americans couldn't possibly afford to buy solely American made goods. No one could.
Click to expand...

Actually if you do a little research there's a little more to it than that. We still do have a lot of manufacturing here. One side or the other, to fit their needs at the time, of the political spectrum tries to use that as a club but neither points out just how much manufacturing does actually go on in the US.

It's like with outsourcing. It's been going on for over a century!

And a lot of that occurred not because of corporate greed but because the other industrial nations that were destroyed in WWII finally got back on their industrial feet in the 70's.

Then kick in the Caster/Regan recession? People after that jumped all over buying everything they couldn't afford for so long. They wanted it all and right now. Price point became very important.

As far as Sears goes? Lot of mistakes there. 15, 20 years ago Wal Mart realized that the vast bulk of their shoppers were late middle aged to elderly. Now that's a problem because the customer base is going to die off and people tend to shop wherever they shopped when young adults. So they brought in better fashions in clothing and running better ads. Little face lift in the store? Anything to attract younger shoppers! They jumped on the on lines sails too. But the point is Wal Mart saw that they needed to change their business model and did! Sears totally failed to do that! Sears also failed to police their stores too. My FIL was a big time Sears shopper. Went in for new tires. They sold him new shocks and an alinement too. It was just a day or 2 later the news, nation wide reported that Sears mechanics were selling just that, shocks and an alignment when they were not needed. My FIL looked at me cause I was there and said he really didn't notice any difference in how the car drove or rode after they had worked on it and ask me (I was working as a mechanic at the time) what I thought. I had to admit from what he told me that he most likely didn't need the "extras". He never shopped at Sears again. He didn't know if they sold him unneeded repairs. He just no longer trusted them.

Rick
 
They never made anything but money? True but along the way they developed brand identity and some brand loyalty, so what did they do? They cheapened the quality of their brands and in the process destroyed much of their value. As an earlier post said they wanted to be a financial services provider and moved away from the core business (retail) then decided to zig back to retail- didn't work. I can set here and armchair quarter back, they used to be the nation's largest retailer, they gave that honor to Walmart who now has become one of the largest companies/employers in the US, so I'm guessing their is money to be made in retail IF you're competent. Sears had built a logistical system to serve it's stores and mail order customers but failed to keep it up with the times and failed to capitalize on it. The only reason we don't have a Sears owned Walmart type store is Sear's management didn't see it as a viable concept, even though the Walmart Super Center concept was something they copied from Meijers stores in Michigan. The big box home center like Homes Depot & Lowe's was a concept they were ripe to own with their previous dominance of retail tools and hardware but again failure to launch. Why didn't they launch a Farm store chain like TSC/Boomgaars?Rural King? Again something they were ahead of the folks who are big players but they dropped the ball (again) Could of successfully launched a tool truck sales network, but they didn't. At one time they operated auto repairs centers coast to coast but the service motto got overtaken by greed, they destroyed their reputation to meet sales quotas. With the nationwide auto repair centers they could of very well became the dealer network for a line of import cars but again it didn't happen and on this same line of thought they could of launched used car retail centers developing a Carmax type used car experience but they failed to capitalize on the opportunity. They built themselves as "Where America Shops" and were known for reasonable to good quality at fair prices. You can discuss what came first the lower quality to increase profits or did they lower quality to compete in markets they wanted to capture or just didn't understand? Man if you're wanting to earn a MBA there's enough in the Sears decline to write a thesis and set yourself up for an executive position in a large retailer.
 
Both engines had oil. I don't know what happened to one. But I know on one he sprayed starting fluid into it. She told me she heard a loud knock when he cranked it.Next morning she started it and it blew up.Same guy serviced both engines
 
(quoted from post at 16:09:12 12/10/16)
(quoted from post at 06:01:50 12/10/16)
(quoted from post at 01:02:12 12/10/16) Name a retailer which doesn't source most of their merchandise from China?
Click to expand...


Sssshhhh! You aren't supposed to mention that. We are supposed to believe there is still a huge American industrial sector out there making quality goods at a slightly higher price than overseas. That idea is sold here every time there's an "I never go in Walmart" thread. Fact is we killed off that sector close to 30 years ago now. Americans couldn't possibly afford to buy solely American made goods. No one could.
Click to expand...

Actually if you do a little research there's a little more to it than that. We still do have a lot of manufacturing here. One side or the other, to fit their needs at the time, of the political spectrum tries to use that as a club but neither points out just how much manufacturing does actually go on in the US.

It's like with outsourcing. It's been going on for over a century!

And a lot of that occurred not because of corporate greed but because the other industrial nations that were destroyed in WWII finally got back on their industrial feet in the 70's.

Then kick in the Caster/Regan recession? People after that jumped all over buying everything they couldn't afford for so long. They wanted it all and right now. Price point became very important.


Rick
Click to expand...

It's a lot more complex than I laid out, but the basic idea is right. Yes, we could go full bore protectionist and the US could supply pretty much all of what we need. But the cost increase tot he consumer would be substantial, the economy would take a huge hit and that would snowball. It's not called a global economy fer nuthin'.
 
(quoted from post at 22:46:40 12/09/16) I'm still using a craftsman air compressor I got from wife for Christmas 38 yrs ago, good. BIL tried to get em to warranty a click-type torque wrench, mainly just get it calibrated, serviceclown said it wasn't a hand tool, so no warranty, that's bad. I wanted him to show me where to plug it at or hook up the air line, but was too mad to say anything. Too much bad, not enough good, the good ship Sears will sink.
Click to expand...
Rule # 1 in retailing is know the merchandise you are selling.
 
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