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Sears Canada Vs Sears USA

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wadd1

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Joined
May 11, 2009
Messages
124
Location
Small Town, Alberta
I made a trip to Bellingham Wa. over the holidays (Boxing Day in Canada)
and took the wife to Bellis Fair shopping mall to see if there was any deals
well i ditched the wife in a clothing store and made my way to the Sears
to see what was on sale there was a few observations i made

USA - every Craftsman package i picked up was made in USA (except gloves)
Canada - every i mean every package i picked up was made in China
(except the individual screw drivers (Fuller Canada)

USA - 3 adult males manned the aisles and till and offering assistance
Canada - 1 blue haired female that had been there for 30 years and did not know anything about anything

USA - 10-20 percent off on sales items ( i bought 330 bucks worth)
Canada - 30-70 percent off not unusual on sale days

i wont be returning anytime soon to Sears Canada in fact
i'm letting their customer service know this by e-mail
:beer:
 
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tatra

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Dec 2, 2007
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Location
pirate contest city
haven't bought anything from sears in years because of all the aformentioned reasons............usually find the same thing for less elsewhere.............
 
C

caper

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Feb 12, 2006
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3,185
Location
cape breton
I stopped buying from sears canada years ago.Just as easy to go to Canadian Tire.Same quality of tools and easier to locate a store(more of them).Plus as bad as the employees at Canadian Tire are,most are fairly young guys who may at least have an interest in auto parts and tools.Not saying most of them know much but it beats having a 50 yr old woman trying to look up something she's never heard of.
 
P

PCO6

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Dec 25, 2008
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Location
Newmarket, Ontario
I frequent the tool sections of two Sears stores; one near my house and one that's near where I work. My garage is better organized and neater than the one near my work place. The one near home is very neat but as wadd1 said, mainly staffed by blue haired ladies. I agree with Caper, with a few exception, Canadian Tire's products are as good or better.
 
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matthew

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Dec 4, 2009
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1,347
I think Sears has been trading on the Craftsman name to some extent. They still carry some decent stuff, but you have to be careful. That goes with anywhere, I guess. It's just that Craftsman used to be pretty much guaranteed to be decent quality for decent price - so it was pretty much a safe choice for weekend warriors, or for wives looking for Christmas gifts for their husbands, or anybody looking for good value in tools. Selling **** and expecting the Craftsman name to sell on reputation just won't pan out for them in the longer term. They also appear to have been supplementing the Craftsman stuff with no-name China ****, which might indirectly damage the Craftsman name as people avoid Sears due to bad experiences with that stuff. And their selection is pretty poor at the moment.


I believe I read that the Craftsman socket sets sold in Canada are made by Danaher in Taiwan, and apart from the factory location they still look pretty good BUT they seem to put in a lot of screwdriver bits, Allen wrenches, etc to pad the piece count, so I'd be very selective about which set to buy, and at what sale price. For wrenches, they also look okay but their selection in-store is horrible - they don't seem to want to stock the pro series sets, or anything with larger piece counts, and don't keep a full selection of the open stock either. And I'm pretty wary of any of the other stuff there - I bought a set of Craftsman Pro pliers on sale, and they're okay and were decent value, but I'm still disappointed - they're just not as nice to use as my Dad's old regular Craftsman sets. All this said, I saw there's a 60% off open stock wrenches and sockets this weekend at Sears, and I have a raised panel metric wrench set that is missing one or two sizes - will probably pick that up tomorrow before swearing off going there ever again...

Overall I think Canadian Tire has better value with their tools. Mastercraft is mostly imports, but is decent stuff and is usually very good value, particularly if you watch their sales.
 
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sjt78

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Mar 11, 2009
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221
Location
Western NY
I was just in Toronto on vacation with the family and just happened to stop into the Sears at the Eaton Centre. I remembered from reading posts here that the tools sold by Sears in Canada were lame, but I could not have been more disappointed when I found the "tool section." I'm really hoping that this Sears is an anomaly in that it is in the city and tools really are not a focus, but the tool section was completely pathetic. It was basically a 20' section of tools and I did notice that all of the Craftsman hand tools were imports. That brings up a question I wanted to ask the Canadians here...is there not a law in Canada that forces companies to list the country of origin on products? I noticed that on many things I looked at (not just at Sears) just said "imported" and not a COO? Just curious.
 
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quneur

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Joined
Dec 5, 2009
Messages
195
There's been alot of bashing of Cmans quality but if you look at corporate's point of view maybe you would understand the pressures they face.

they're just not as nice to use as my Dad's old regular Craftsman sets
Click to expand...

True but then competition was still on a level playing field. They were mostly union shops. A competitor's worker could step into anothers shop without missing a step. Now, with their competitors outsourcing, they still have to com pete with lowering prices, thus, cut manufacturing costs and the like. They do know a majority of their customers like the 'Made in the USA' tag but to gain new sales, 'Made in the USA' or 'Quality' is not going make up for Chinese competitors prices in their target market.

I personally like the Made in USA stamp. Not because of helping the economy and such but because I have some control over the minimum amount of quality control. We have legislative laws, the judicial system, etc. that puts pressure on coporations to minimum standards.
 
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matthew

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Dec 4, 2009
Messages
1,347
sanddrag said:
Is there an advertisement somewhere for this? First I've heard of it.
Click to expand...
Was in the mall on Thursday afternoon for something else, and had wandered into Sears just to look. They had signs that all the open stock wrenches and sockets and wrench sets were on sale Saturday and Sunday only. I'm second guessing myself now whether it was 40% or 60%, whichever it was a good deal since open stock never seems to go on sale. I would assume it's all across Canada.


quneur said:
There's been alot of bashing of Cmans quality but if you look at corporate's point of view maybe you would understand the pressures they face.
Click to expand...
I don't disagree. I understand the 'value analysis' process very well, my company puts a lot of focus on aligning their products to the market expectations. The process does work well, and systematically aligns manufacturing with market economics...

...but while we might want better quality, and even be willing to pay a bit more for it, the reality of this process is that it tends to take two paths - cost reduction on one hand, or aiming for a higher end target market on the other - and seems to remove the middle options that many of us are looking for. And that's exactly why I'm disappointed that the Craftsman Professional set isn't a little bit better - because it's sold as being a bit up-market from the regular.
 
K

Keep

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Joined
Jan 1, 2009
Messages
1,398
Location
Oshawa, Ontario
I guess it depends on your local store. The shop we have here used to be the old Sears auto service shop. So its an entire store full of tools. They also use it for some seasonal power equipment like snow blowers, lawn mowers.

Its not a small one isle shop like the ones others are talking about. Not all the staff are the greatest you just have to find the one that knows his ****.
 
OP
W

wadd1

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Joined
May 11, 2009
Messages
124
Location
Small Town, Alberta
At least Chang Mai Tire, Princess Auto and Home Depot
are starting to carry US brands like Channel Lock, Irwin
and some Klien

Sears Canada has there TNT and some Stanley
fricken aweful stuff
 
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Major Ramifications

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Joined
Feb 28, 2005
Messages
4,673
Location
River Ridge, Louisiana
Wow, I wish you guys had the same Sears we have down here in the states. We also have much less gun control then you guys. I guess crappy Sears stores and more oppressive gun control laws are in our future.

What is Boxing Day? I sometimes see it printed on a calendar, and it sounds weird to me. What do you guys do, go out and fight each other on that day? I thought you were peace-loving. Maybe you find the biggest cardboard box you can get your hands on and make it into a fort? Do you hit each other with boxes?
Seriously, what is it about?
 
L

lbgradwell

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Joined
Mar 21, 2007
Messages
4,707
Location
Oakville, ON
wadd1 said:
At least Chang Mai Tire, Princess Auto and Home Depot
are starting to carry US brands like Channel Lock, Irwin
and some Klien...
Click to expand...

You'd have to search pretty hard to find an Irwin product that is still produced in the USA; I just hate what that company has done to so many great old brands...
 
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