Ed Pawlowski wrote in news:e5BbA.167294$ snipped-for-privacy@fx22.iad:
Malls are now all about the shallow side of the human: cell phones, clothes, etc. The stores that capture and captivate your attention are rare. There used to be a Radioshack in every mall (you've got questions, we've got cell phones!), as well as a KB Toys. Some still have bookstores, but even they are going to standalone stores.
I bet Macy's would let you place orders without underwear on. Never seen "no shoes, no shirt, no underwear, no service." (I have seen "no shoes, no shirt, no pants, no service.") :-)
They won't go out until they get the second payment. Might be closing more but not gone. Once the second payment is in their hands, all bets are off. the cash rebate might never happen...
Mart> >> Apparently Craftsman was around before Sears acquired it 90 years ago.
snipped-for-privacy@ccanoemail.ca wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@4ax.com:
Sears struck me as a company that didn't realize who their competition was. Prices/quality just aren't competitive with other stores, especially on common hand tools like levels.
The Big Book - the "Wish Book" at our house went years ago.
The large products / houses and such / closed out of catalogs but was in large warehouses in Dallas. I went there with my father-in-law to get something and we went into the tool building. They had lathes and mills like the 50's. Wonder if they are still in south Dallas. It was regular sales - low volume and get our money out of the stuff place.
Up here the big malls are doing relatively well. Our local "regional" mall has anchore space empty due to the collape od Target's Canadian opperations. The big one across town is pretty well full - but the Sears store is flounderinf with Walmart at the other end of the mall. The Bay is doing well in both malls. These are indoor "all weather" malls and will be linked by the new "rapid transit" rail system "ION" which is under construction and delayed by Bombardier's rail-car devision.
My son primarily shops online. The only stores he walks into are the supermarket, REI, and the skate shop that supplies his hockey habit...
Other than that, 99% is Amazon.
I like to touch it feel it.. get an idea for the quality , but I hate shopping. I haven't been in a big mall in a few years. We have a small mall near here, and it's empty, really empty. Most space is not occupied. It's like a ghost town.
So I'm not sure your right. I think the 20 somethings won't go shopping in stores much.
You mean they didn't play the "compete on price only" game??? Sears didn't kill sears. Nor did Walmart. Nor did the Internet. The North American Public killed Sears. And are the poorer for it, when you get right down to brass tacks.
How are we poorer for it? I never thought Sears had anything better than other stores in terms of price, value, service. Never bough Kenmore appliances but I do like my 50 year old Craftsman hand tools.
snipped-for-privacy@snyder.on.ca wrote in news:ij7u6ctqak1ll96a1qjl9p96drgn4pj8jq@
4ax.com:
Sears killed Sears. They might have gotten the North American Public to do the actual work, but they got themselves into this mess.
Here's the thing: If you set yourself up just like the others playing the compete on price game, people will respond like you're playing that game. If your prices are higher for the same quality item, your value is lower and people will go where the value is higher. How does Sears make up the missing value? Well, it used to be momentum and reputation... but that's good for only a decade or two. "Guaranteed Forever" sold a ton of Craftsman tools, but they've been shying away from that as well.
Are we poorer for it? Perhaps for a while, but if there's a demand someone will fill the "Walmart/Lowe's" crossover store segment. Thing is, I just don't see it with the way that Walmart & Lowe's are all over the place.
woodchucker wrote in news:YrSdnZPvJK0XAvPFnZ2dnUU7-N snipped-for-privacy@ptd.net:
Sears management beleives (or has deluded themselves into beleiving, or more likely is trying to delude the share- holders into beleiving) that with a little time and investment they can recover the business. With current costs exceeding revenues, they have neither time nor funds to invest. Hence the idea that selling assets will give them time & money to fix the problem.
I agree with you. I don't think they have a clue how to solve their problems - they're still trying to figure out "how do we compete with Walmart", when the world has moved on and the real competition is the likes of Dollar General (and, of course, Amazon).
Depends on the mall. We've got too many malls in a small radius but the success scale is all over the map. One enourmous mall is empty (for several years now) except for an Outdoor World, which is already slated to move this year. Another mall is so busy it's almost impossible to get a parking space, especially on weekends. The difference? Sears and the like are old and dead. Apple, Microsoft and similar stores are now the huge business draw. On weekends you're lucky to get a seat in the food court.
ROFLMAO! Interesting priorities. As a long time shopper of NYC Macy's, I thank you for not sharing that habit there. ;)
Leon wrote in news:QZOdnbpFJasTtvLFnZ2dnUU7- snipped-for-privacy@giganews.com:
KMart was the "coup de grace" - and a great lesson in how to use bankruptcy court to avoid all your mistakes and make a fortune from other people's money - but Sears's problems go way back before that.
Sears was once what Amazon is today - you could buy anything from them. Mail in your order, and in a week or two go down to the Railway Express Agency(*) and pick up your package. With the arrival of mall culture in the 50's and 60's, Sears let the catalog business fade away, and became just like a hundred other department stores (most of which have long since disappeared). Come the revival of mail-order, and instead of Sears sitting pretty with an order processing and shipping system already in place, they have nothing - and the new guys take over that space.
Is it fair to fault 70's Sears management for not having any vision to be different from Penney's (or Mays, or Foleys, or Burdines, etc etc etc)? No, but the result of the lack of vision will predictably give them the same result as most of their 70's competitors.
Ed Pawlowski wrote in news:2RCbA.147377$ snipped-for-privacy@fx11.iad:
Today Sears directly owns virtually no real estate, since they restructured most of it into an REIT (which they still mostly own, so indirectly they own the real estate). I have read that around 1/3 of their stores were owned, rather than leased.
Two different expressions of the same problem...for big malls, they got way over built in the 80's, and that situation is slowly correcting itself. Around here about half the malls that existed in the 80's have been torn down or repurposed, the remaining half are doing well, since supply now matches demand (more or less).
Strip malls are cyclical - there will be a shortage of strip mall space, and several developers will rush in to build new ones at the same time. Then there's a glut, and most of the new space sits empty. Eventually demand will catch up with supply, and then a new set of developers will build a new surplus of strip space to sit empty for 3 or 4 years.
This has little to do with K-Mart. These traditional retailers are getting their lunch handed to them because they did not adapt to the world of eCommerce in a timely and effective way.
Amazon has set the bar very high for very fast delivery, great pricing, and painless returns ... all from your living room. Some traditional vendors figured this out. Some - Sears as one example - did not. They're done for.
Capitalism and markets seek efficiency and punish the lack thereof mercilessly. Creative Destruction is bad for individual actors, but good for the marketplace overall.
Like Radio Shack, they tried to stick with an outdated model and refused to move from it until the market had passed them in the dust.
Sears was stuck in an "everything in one place" model that worked great when people shopped once a week or less and had to plan a trip to do it.
When everybody became mobile and specialty stores started to dominate the market, Sears stayed with their old, outdated model and were trapped in denial. People no longer wanted to go to one store for everything. They wanted to go to a clothing store (or several) for clothes, they wanted to go to the huge electronics store for that stuff, they wanted to go to the huge hardware store for tools, etc, etc.
What we complain about now, because we can do it all at home on Amazon, was empowering and adventurous at the time. More choices, better prices, price matching, all that stuff gave the consumer a sense of having the upper hand. It was a game to win and you felt like you accomplished something by driving around and finding the best deal. Commissioned salespeople didn't help their cause either.
Sears never "got it" and never would. Even when Sears tried to play the "price match" game, it was underhanded and deceitful. If they carried a certain brand of widget, they'd force the manufacturer to change the model number just enough (like adding a single digit suffix) so that they could refuse to price match because "it wasn't the same model."
I would agree that the North American Public if it weren't for the fact that all these other retailers were in the game, playing by the same rules and they succeeded. No, Sears is just another wagon maker trying to convince people they don't need a car.
I'm almost 70, so I've seen Sears in action. Heck, I once worked at a Sears store.
But, I recall in 70s or 80s, Sears auto depts were blatantly screwing their customers and the CA Attorny General hadda slap 'em down. Later I went into a Sears store that was advertising huge discounts on GE washer/dryer sets. I went into the appliance dept and discovered those huge dicounts were more like $20 off on an $800 washer. That's hardly a discount. I won't bore you all with my other Sears horror stories. Needless to say, I haven't shopped at a Sears in years. ;)
FWIW and this may have changed, in the early 90's KMart acquired/teamed up/became partners with Sears. According to the money managers/investment strategists, that was handling the retirement funds for the company that I worked for at that time, KMart was in dire straights at that point. It was explained that their business plan, KMart, and sales were doing very well. The problem, as it was explained to us, is that KMart was a lot like Walmart, a number of family members that ran KMart were retiring with spectacular pensions. KMart was bleeding to death, even back then, from the pension plans the the family members were collecting. Supposedly the pension plans were literally draining all net profits and then some.
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