"Sears Appliance and Hardware Store" vs. Sears.com

Found a set of sockets at Sears.com and went to the local "Sears Appliance and Hardware Store" that replaced the "real Sears" store in the mall many years back, only to find that the item was $30 more than the price shown on-line. The local store matched the price but referred to sears.com as "the competition" and even "the enemy," who didn't have to pay rent and utilities; I didn't point out that the "real Sears" store in the mall 20 minutes away would also be selling at the sears.com price and paying big bucks for rent and utilities. And even getting the price-match wasn't as easy as it could have been: they had to do it as an on-line purchase for in-store pickup. Weird.

Perce

Reply to
Percival P. Cassidy
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'havent you heard sears is dying, having been milked to death by eddie lampert.

the sears hardware are a totally seperate company from its former owner sears,and craftsman is licensed to many companies.

Reply to
bob haller

Those are mostly francises so they don't have all the place to hide things that the company owned stores do (although given the last few years of Sears annual reports not sure the company stores have that much space left). Anyway, that is the reason I was told.

Reply to
Kurt Ullman

Years ago in the days of the Sears catalog, it was the same thing. Prices in the Catalog were less than the store price. (and they did not "price match").

The business news is full of stories about how the current CEO has run the Sears/Kmart chain into the ground, by among other things, pitting one division against another

Reply to
Retired

And what makes it even worse for the small-market catalog/franchise stores is the second-sourcing of the Craftsman brand to Ace. The franchisees certainly don't need more "help" from Sears like that.

Reply to
dpb

KMart, their other holding, is in even worse shape. It's amazing how Kmart was around long before Walmart, yet Walmart totally kicked their ass. Walmart stores are huge, expanding, modern. I was in Kmart a couple years ago right before Xmas. The store here typically has lines of 6 or

8 people any time I go in, while Walmart has a line of 2. On this occasion the lines were about 12 people long. They were having a problem with the cash register system, which from the looks of it was 25 years old. Finally, they decided they had to reboot the whole thing. And to do that, they have to do it one terminal at a time, each taking God knows how long. I waited about 20 mins and they still didn't have the first one up, let alone the one for the line I was in. I had to make the suggestion to mgt that they let people put stuff aside for them to hold so we could come back another time. Once they did that, the store cleared out. How many came back, who knows. And how many walked in, saw the chaos and just left. It's a good example of a big difference between the two stores. Walmart surely blew them away in sales that day. Walmart also has self checkout now in one of the stores here I go to.

Regarding Sears, of the major retailer websites, there's is the worst. Some dummy chose to merge together not only the Sears products, but those of every other horse;s ass vendor that they have selling product through their site. Yeah, you can filter down to Sears only, but I think it's a major mistake from brand identity to throw up products from everyone and anyone, like Amazon or Ebay. And their search and organization is the worst too. If you're looking for something, it comes up with hits on every possible word, not focusing in on the total phrase as the most likely choice. It's my last choice to go look for anything.

Reply to
trader_4

Sadly, Sear/KMart is going to be gone in a few years. I went into the local KM yesterday and picked up 2 bottles of shampoo. The tag under the items said, special 2 for $4. At the register they scanned for $3 something each. When I asked, she mumbled some like well, they scanned at 3 something and that's the price ... didn't offer to check, etc. After making the purchase, I went back to the shelves only to find that the sale price ticket was on the wrong produce spot, on the shelf. That's what I call "customer service". The customer provides the service, not the employee. In addition, she was rude and took forever to get her station ready. There were already 10+ people in the only line open. When she when to the line, she stood there, with the light off and waited for someone to come. Finally after what seemed like several minutes, she turned the light on, but never said, I'm open on line 1.

Reply to
Art Todesco

The KMart store in town here closed a few years after the original Sears, and what had been the KMart building is now occupied by a church.

I detest self-checkout lines. Our (Midwest-chain) supermarket has an ever-increasing number of them. The Home Depot that used to be here and the one that's still open about 20 minutes away have only self-checkout (except, I guess, for contractor-size purchases), and the employees supervising those self-checkouts have said, "We know the customers hate them, so we'll actually scan the items for you."

Perce

Reply to
Percival P. Cassidy

I DONT do self check outs either!!

picked up some stuff and went to the regular register, light was on no one there. A pretty gal came by and pulled my cart over to self check out. I said no I dont do that! She argued why dont you? her attitude was poor!

She refused to check me out so I said LOUDLY call the manager! When they showed up I said he your stuff, take a photo of me, since I wouldnt be back.

I am sorry sir were only following orders to make everyone use self check out.

Well my orders are to never shop here again!!!!!

That k mart is closing shortly, its being replaced by a much larger giant eagle market district store:)

eddie lampert at the helm of serars k mart has wrung all the money out of the company, and is about to disassemble what remains.

really sad ending for 2 one time great retailers:(

the employees are the real losers.......

Reply to
bob haller

I presume that the guy who closes down Sears (Lampert?), which at one time was a great company, will have to pay back any salary/bonus? In the same way that if he made a success and a profit he might get a bonus? Just a thought!

Reply to
terry

But you did the right thing as buying in store is the only way you can be 100% assured that you're buying old stock Made in USA tools and not the new China COO tools.

Reply to
N8N

Not old stock. Made in China, just like all the rest.

Perce

Reply to
Percival P. Cassidy

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