Sears is closing more stores — here's the list so far

Way back in 1979 I purchased my first set of automotive tools at Sears.
Craftsman had different sized sets with tool chests.
Still have them. They still get used.
Did have to return one socket as the square hole in it wasn't cut correctly and it wouldn't snap onto the ratchet. They handed me a new one.
Alas......another piece of Americana slips away into the mists.

My Craftsman tools are primarily from the 70's and 80's. My 12 year old Craftsman (AYP) riding mower still runs great. My first rifle as a kid was a Ted Williams .22 single shot from Sears. I bought a self-install sunroof from Sears back in the late 70's and cut a hole in my pickup to install. Sears once carried everything you needed and all our appliances were Kenmore brand. Kenmore quality seemed to start dropping about 20 years ago and now they've sold off their key brands. They will die since many of us wouldn't buy a large ticket item from them now - they could fold before the warranty is up! The old Sears has been missed for some time but as with most retailers, if you don't change with the times then you'll disappear.

dsgrey said:

They will die since many of us wouldn't buy a large ticket item from them now - they could fold before the warranty is up! .

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Good point. I'm sure they will tell you otherwise, but who would want to take that chance?

Southpaw said:

Might keep an eye out here for some liquidation pricing...



http://www.businessinsider.com/sears-closing-9-stores-list-2018-4?utm_source=referral&utm_medium=aol

Park North Shopping Center, 622 NW Loop 410, San Antonio, TX 78216

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Hasn't Park North been pretty much dead for years except for the Sears?

DubiousDan said:

Hasn't Park North been pretty much dead for years except for the Sears?

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Possibly... Haven't been there in years.

What killed Sears? Sears was the MODEL for retail and knew more about mail order than anyone in the world. And after all that, you headed headed out that path to the house of half moon, read on the catalog a bit and then ripped out a few pages to wipe with and I have done it many times.

Did you know that sales guys on the floor of Sears in the Appliance area were making a $100k a year back in the late 60's and 70's?? That was the job everyone at Sears aimed for.

But Sears started its downward slide in the late 70's because all those old timers were retiring and Sears ushered in a newer crop of people from the warehouse to the Sears Tower and the late 70's started to become the year of the MBA and seen as the panacea for American business. Many companies were hiring into the "C" level direct Harvard MBA's and other top tier schools starting them at $75k and beyond when most folks were making $25 k per year.

It was not just Sears that fell from grace under the MBA's, a whole raft of companies.

Lets just look at this: MBA, age about 23-25, has NEVER worked at any job in his entire life and now he is in charge of a multi-million $ corp with 1000's of employees and offices all over the US.

Anyone see anything wrong here? Recipe for SUCCESS...ya think?

My family shopped at Sears going back to the earliest days.


While its to late IMO, Sears could have been saved and I wrote Sears a letter giving them an outline of my plan to not only save it, but to make it a premier company again.

The plan:
Sears built its empire on mail order, tools, batteries, tires, washer/dryers and appliances. I grew up with them, its all we had.

1 Reduce the size of the stores

2 Change the name from Sears, to Sears Tools and Appliances

3 FOCUS on Tools from the homeowner to the auto shop with 25 bays, go head to head with Snap-on and MATCO. Appliances, sell them all from Maytag to Kenmore, go full in on automotive, tires, battery, sell all brands.

Be obsessed with Quality and Customer Service (Sears ROOTS). Sure they sell a Maytag, but the Kenmore is better, higher rated, longer warranty.


Speaking of auto batteries: Early 2000's.
Their top of the line was a Sears Platinum. They were made by Optima, after a few years Sears dropped them, why, the Optima was sold and the quality (life) suffered BIG TIME. Sears turned Odyssey for their Platinum batteries. I have still have one, its 15 years old and still in use!


Bottom line is you take a bunch of kids trying to run a company who give a shit less about quality, customer service and employees and you have the formula for failure. After I retired from the Army I went to work for several companies that were Fortune level companies, they all are gone and in fact 3 of them died within a year or less of me leaving.

IMO there is no substitute for hands on, I think every military officer should spend 2 years as a Pfc in a line unit before he gets a commission. Every MBA should spend a few years working at the bottom of the wage scale to find out what its like. Getting your hands dirty is not wrong or bad...

Yep, Sears was the Amazon of its time...

My grandfather had a Sears catalog from 1903.
You should have seen the gun and ammo section!

While Sears retail stores are closing, the company made a massive amount of money over the years, and started a lot of brands that are still with us today.

While these brands were sold or spun off in the name of profits (rightly so IMHO), it speaks to the things the company “did right”, despite the current failure of their retail outlets.

And those brands that are still with us are “still doing right” and are profiting from their Sears-rooted beginnings.

Many folks don’t know that these companies were all “Sears” at one point:

Discover Financial
Allstate Insurance
Dean Witter Financial (sold to Morgan Stanley)
Penske automotive diagnostic tools
Orchard Supply Hardware (OSH)
Sears Rent-A-Car (sold to Avis)
Land’s End
A&E Factory Service
National Tire Warehouse
Structure Men’s clothing
Outdoor Life clothing
Joe Boxer clothing

...and countless more, though not all of them were successful.

They were also very early into the “outlet store” game, and possibly created the category, with chains of stores selling scratch-and-dent and open box appliances at big discounts.



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You guys know waaay too much about Sears.

BRD@66 said:

You guys know waaay too much about Sears.

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BRD@66 said:

You guys know waaay too much about Sears.

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The best memory about Sears as a kid back in the 50's and 60's is the great feeling I got when I would see the Sears Christmas catalog arrive in the mail! I would know Christmas was just a few months away

Ole Cowboy said:

......
The plan:
Sears built its empire on mail order, tools, batteries, tires, washer/dryers and appliances. I grew up with them, its all we had.

1 Reduce the size of the stores

2 Change the name from Sears, to Sears Tools and Appliances

3 FOCUS on Tools from the homeowner to the auto shop with 25 bays, go head to head with Snap-on and MATCO. Appliances, sell them all from Maytag to Kenmore, go full in on automotive, tires, battery, sell all brands.
...

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Seems to be a theme with your plan about tools. Too bad Stanley / Black and Decker now owns Craftsman.

When the pendulum swings so far that you can only order it from Amazon.Delivery charges are going to rival the national debt.

Back in the day, there was a Sears and a Cox's. My wife told me to go to Cox's and get a seersucker suit.

I screwed up and went to Sears and got a Coxsucker suit.

45tex said:

When the pendulum swings so far that you can only order it from Amazon.Delivery charges are going to rival the national debt.

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Or the internet outage leaves you wondering what to do.
That's the main reason I support local merchants as much as I can. Sometimes I need to go get it, instead of waiting on it to be delivered to me.

And done!!!!! (kinda )

Sears files for bankruptcy protection, to close another 142 stores


http://www.chicagotribune.com/business/ct-biz-sears-bankruptcy-20181015-story.html

I am really surprised they are still around. They should have closed down years ago.

Sears and Roebuck began as a mail order catalogue business. They were the AMAZON of the day around the 'turn-of-the-century' (1900).

as 45tex stated, "the pendulum swings"

bob

m5215 said:

I am really surprised they are still around. They should have closed down years ago.

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No kidding, 'bout time!