Sears circling the drain

[6PTsocket]

A few weeks ago Sears Holdings common stock was around six and change. I just checked. It closed yesterday at $2.73. The Kmart in Brick, NJ is closing. Every few months there is a long list of the latest K Mart and Sears closings. They are going to run out of stores to close. That leaves the horrible Sears.com. I stand by my prediction that they will be gone by the end of the year. Selling Craftsman gave them a cash infusion that put off the inevitable. Maybe Jeff Bezos will buy it. He wants to own everything. LOL!! Besides, who needs two Craftsman brands at the same time. There will be SB&D Craftsman and Sears can still buy cheap junk and sell it as Craftsman in their fast dissapearing stores. To put things in perspective, HD stock is around $180 a share. HF is a privately held company. Nobody knows how much Schmitd is worth.

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[jgromada]

Sears will have to go back to their roots as a catalog vendor and move their business online. Somehow i have doubts their strategy will work.

 

[tatra]

Already gone in Canada. And not missed at all by what I gather from most . Overpriced and out of touch .

 

[Flat-rate]

They could have been Amazon. They had everything in place to do what Amazon did and more with actual stores.
I remember as a kid in the 60's going there to pick up catalog sales. We were there almost every weekend.

 

[6PTsocket]

Sears will have to go back to their roots as a catalog vendor and move their business online. Somehow i have doubts their strategy will work.

They are already online. Terrible site. Like others it is a marketplace where third party sellers are alongside Sears products. The one time I used them, they wanted to charge sales tax on shipping. That was a new one on me. I thought it was a mistake but when I spoke with them, it was true but the guy gave me free shipping to get around it. Generally the prices on their site are very high, often way above street price.

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[Toothaker]

The Sears of old is gone, replaced by a shell of its former self. This is a strategy, planned and executed by Eddie Lampert to strip all the value out of Sears (and Kmart) and put that into his pocket. He clearly doesn't care about all the bad press, negative ratings, closed stores, lost jobs, empty real estate, dissatisfied customers or what anyone on GJ thinks.

https://www.thestreet.com/story/14400978/1/sears-ceo-eddie-lampert-is-terrible.html
http://www.businessinsider.com/how-eddie-lampert-set-sears-up-to-fail-2017-5

This isn't going to change. The only way forward is for Sears Holdings is to press on, pulling what little value remains out of the company. They couldn't save Sears if they tried, and they aren't going to try.

 

[paulm12]

I agree with Toothaker. Mr Lampert has purposely stripped almost all the value out of this company, and financially engineered it into his holding companies. The stores and the brand will die off.

 

[JazzBlueRT]

They are already online. Terrible site. Like others it is a marketplace where third party sellers are alongside Sears products. The one time I used them, they wanted to charge sales tax on shipping. That was a new one on me. I thought it was a mistake but when I spoke with them, it was true but the guy gave me free shipping to get around it. Generally the prices on their site are very high, often way above street price.

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It is the LAW in some states to charge sales tax for shipping. Let me repeat that. SHIPPING is a taxable item in some states. Please stop your ignorant claims about how Sears wronged you. If you do not like the LAWS in your state, complain to your state representative. Whether you see it as a line item or already included in the shipping quote, you are paying taxes on it.

You should also learn how to shop online because I have not paid a dime on shipping for internet purchases in the last 15 years and that includes a lot of purchases at Sears/Kmart.

Your hatred of Sears is beyond irrational, seems more like you have an axe to grind or an agenda. Sears is a business, if you do not like them don't shop there. Nobody forces you to shop there or to buy any of the products.

 

[77thor]

The last of the Sears stores in my area is holding store closing sales now...

 

[majerus]

Eddie Lampert pretty well screwed the company. Honestly I am surprised investors haven't demanded his removal, but with so much ownership under his control guess that can never really happen.

 

[Mustang1167]

They just turned our old sears building into a Rural King store. The tool selection is much better then sears was over its last 5 years...And I could buy a live duck there if I choose too. I think that’s where sears dropped the ball, we should have been able to buy live farm animals in their stores.

 

[DadsTools]

Sears died many years ago. It has only been more recently, however, that even the most insensitive of noses began detecting on the breeze the stench of a corpse that was left out in the sun to rot.

My big clue was when I caught wind around 2000 about the opening of the new campaign known as Tool Territory. To rigorously and publicly promote the message that selling something other than Craftsman tools was a positive thing was to me like shooting yourself in the foot. And the name was so juvenile, probably concocted by a handful of coke-snorting suit men who had never turned a screwdriver a half-dozen times between the lot of them. I couldn't help but think to myself "Sears must really be in trouble."

Many opine on what Sears did wrong and what it should have done instead. My impression is one of a larger picture. Sears had become a distinct entity with a given character, an institution if you like. So much so that, were it even capable at that time to change its character, it would have no longer been recognizable as Sears. Then the environment changed. Like the woolly mammoth and the saber-tooth tiger, it could not evolve fast enough to adapt to those changes, and so in the theater of natural selection became destined for extinction. Most other points I hear being made are, to me, only outward signs and symptoms of this more fundamental, organic issue--you can't cure a cold by blowing your nose.

There are so many wonderful things I remember from my youth that the changing times have swept from the surface of the earth. The mighty edifice that was known as Sears, Roebuck and company is one of them. My father was a Sears man. So was I for a time. We were a Sears family. But there has been no place to hang that particular hat for some time. It appears to have contracted its fatal illness sometime in the 1980s, and after an extended struggle, finally succumbed around the late 1990s. What we see today is an imposter, an impersonator, a mimic that just happens to have the same name.

Sears is a thing that isn't there anymore.

 

[JazzBlueRT]

A few weeks ago Sears Holdings common stock was around six and change. I just checked. It closed yesterday at $2.73. The Kmart in Brick, NJ is closing. Every few months there is a long list of the latest K Mart and Sears closings. They are going to run out of stores to close. That leaves the horrible Sears.com. I stand by my prediction that they will be gone by the end of the year. Selling Craftsman gave them a cash infusion that put off the inevitable. Maybe Jeff Bezos will buy it. He wants to own everything. LOL!! Besides, who needs two Craftsman brands at the same time. There will be SB&D Craftsman and Sears can still buy cheap junk and sell it as Craftsman in their fast dissapearing stores. To put things in perspective, HD stock is around $180 a share. HF is a privately held company. Nobody knows how much Schmitd is worth.

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Have you traveled out of your house over the past 10 years. Nearly every general merchandise retailer is struggling and even Walmart is showing signs of problems.

HD and Lowes are booming because there is a housing boom and because renovation shows on TV are hot. Over time, they will turn into bankrupt companies like Permanent and Builders square.

Have you been to a shopping mall in the last years? They are all dying.

All the old time retailers are on their death bed, Sears, Macy's, Bon-ton, the list goes on. 100 year old companies carry 100 years of baggage and eventually all die so that younger more agile companies can thrive.

The only real interest anyone here has in Sears as a topic is the Craftsman tool line and Diehard battery line.

Craftsman lives on independent of Sears and in 5-10 years any Diehard batteries will have died anyway.

 

[Lassen Forge]

The mall here - where sears was one of their original anchor stores - just announced their plans to bring in businesses to where the current Sears store is... haven't announced their closing, but I guess they don't have to anymore...

Sorry, I'll miss them for their appliances and tools and some of their clothes, And especially for who they USED to be, but seriously, they've been circling for a looooong time now, and our grandkids will look at them as a curiosity out of history, nothing more. They've been doomed for at least 10 years in my book - I lost interest in them when I got a Sears card back in 2008 while buying a battery charger (that just gave up the ghost earlier this year) for the price of the charger, and in 10 years they never - NEVER - approved a credit card increase for me. The answer, every time, was "sorry, no"... even when my other cards are (literally) 100x this. Really?

Well, I understand... after all these years of support, now you're about to be worth maybe $200. Give you a chance? Like you told me many times... "sorry, no".

 

[JazzBlueRT]

They just turned our old sears building into a Rural King store. The tool selection is much better then sears was over its last 5 years...And I could buy a live duck there if I choose too. I think that’s where sears dropped the ball, we should have been able to buy live farm animals in their stores.

Rural King is awesome, they have live pigs and chickens as well as ducks at our store.

Ever look at the tool shed brand, most of the products are identical to Harbor Freight tools and usually less expensive.

 

[davethorik]

Your hatred of Sears is beyond irrational, seems more like you have an axe to grind or an agenda. Sears is a business, if you do not like them don't shop there. Nobody forces you to shop there or to buy any of the products.

Funny, the way you pop up in just about every thread about Sears dying or Craftsman tools sucking... to me your fanboy antics seem beyond irrational, and seems like you have an agenda.

Which makes me think, I wonder how many members here are paid by someone to post...?

 

[Parrothead]

Eddie Lampert pretty well screwed the company. Honestly I am surprised investors haven't demanded his removal, but with so much ownership under his control guess that can never really happen.

The Board did sue him, they settled and most of them are investors in his other companies so they’re profiting on the failing of Sears.

 

[4x4gearhead]

It is sad for someone to run a good name into the ground. A lot of people would have tried to turn it around and fill their pockets that way. Very shady if you ask me. Even if it is "just business".

 

[6PTsocket]

It is the LAW in some states to charge sales tax for shipping. Let me repeat that. SHIPPING is a taxable item in some states. Please stop your ignorant claims about how Sears wronged you. If you do not like the LAWS in your state, complain to your state representative. Whether you see it as a line item or already included in the shipping quote, you are paying taxes on it.

You should also learn how to shop online because I have not paid a dime on shipping for internet purchases in the last 15 years and that includes a lot of purchases at Sears/Kmart.

Your hatred of Sears is beyond irrational, seems more like you have an axe to grind or an agenda. Sears is a business, if you do not like them don't shop there. Nobody forces you to shop there or to buy any of the products.

I order from other mail order companies, including Amazon, and Rockauto that do NOT tax shipping to my state. I have no idea what envoked your nasty response. People make all kinds of incorrect statements here but a civilized person can disagree without becoming unhinged. Please get back on your meds.

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[finn]

Looks like the usual Sears is Dead post has increased in frequency from biweekly to every other day.

Not sure why this comes up so often. There’s nothing we, as a group, or individually can do about it, and Sears passing won’t materially affect our lives.

Time marches on and businesses fail on a regular basis, while new businesses are created daily.

 

[jonesg]

Rural King is awesome, they have live pigs and chickens as well as ducks at our store.

Ever look at the tool shed brand, most of the products are identical to Harbor Freight tools and usually less expensive.

I was in tractor supply yesterday,
chicken chicks on sale, going cheep.

 

[markhm]

I'm in NY. Law here is that if a store charges exact cost of shipping from the carrier (to the penny), it is shipping and not taxable; but if they charge a different amount than the carrier bills them, it becomes "shipping and handling" and is taxable. That applies to all sellers.

 

[jonesg]

Looks like the usual Sears is Dead post has increased in frequency from biweekly to every other day.

Not sure why this comes up so often. There’s nothing we, as a group, or individually can do about it, and Sears passing won’t materially affect our lives.

Time marches on and businesses fail on a regular basis, while new businesses are created daily.

Unreconciled parental conflicts vicariously played out against big bad corp stores.

Terms like big tobacco and big pharma are clues.
Contrast with mom and pop stores which are fleecing the IRS at every turn and have gouge yer eye out prices.

Its political more than economic.

 

[visionguru]

Eddie Lampert pretty well screwed the company. Honestly I am surprised investors haven't demanded his removal, but with so much ownership under his control guess that can never really happen.

I wouldn't blame on one person. Stores come and go. Nothing last forever.

With more and more people buying online, the big chain stores suffers, Sears is just one of them, regardless who is the CEO.

 

[Aaron_W]

They could have been Amazon. They had everything in place to do what Amazon did and more with actual stores.
I remember as a kid in the 60's going there to pick up catalog sales. We were there almost every weekend.

I remember my parents getting a ton of stuff from Sears when I was a kid. It was like Walmart and Amazon rolled up in one, except they sold good stuff not cheap **** like Walmart. We had a Kenmore dryer that was still going strong after 40 years. Probably should have kept that thing, but it was one less thing to move and my wife wanted to get a new washer and dryer. By the late 80s you could already see the slow decline.

It is sad for someone to run a good name into the ground. A lot of people would have tried to turn it around and fill their pockets that way. Very shady if you ask me. Even if it is "just business".

Unfortunately the 80s made greed cool. So many long time brands went belly up after "investors" raped and pillaged the valuable parts of them.

Mervyns was a department store chain that started out as one store in the SF Bay Area. It was a successful jeans and T shirt kind of place, I shopped there a lot. Reasonable prices and quality clothing. The company owned the real estate at all of its stores and distribution centers were on.

An investment group bought the company in 2004 and by 2005 they were closing stores and selling the real estate. They shut it all down by 2008, 30,000 jobs gone in just a few years.

It should be illegal to raid a company like that, but apparently its what all the cool kids do.

 

[6PTsocket]

Looks like the usual Sears is Dead post has increased in frequency from biweekly to every other day.

Not sure why this comes up so often. There’s nothing we, as a group, or individually can do about it, and Sears passing won’t materially affect our lives.

Time marches on and businesses fail on a regular basis, while new businesses are created daily.

I think it might be that so many of us had a long term relationship with Sears, at least with the tool department. It is sort of like the fascination people have watching a train wreck. Sick, I know. People constantly discuss Craftsman tools, here. People get attached to businesses. Costco has a big fan base. As holding companies and venture capitalists scoop up companies, they lose their "soul". I can be a fan of SK or Snap On or Wright but Apex and especially Sears Holdings are just there to bleed it dry. Making or selling the best product they can deliver is not their objective. A lot of Sears' success was probably the warranty as much as actual quality. When you have a lifetime warrany that you plan to honor, the stuff has to be good enough to not bankrupt you. But that is history. The closing if the local K Mart and seeing how low Sears stock has gone, provoked me to comment. These threads always seem to draw a lot of responses so I guess there is some interest. You are right, businesses come and go and it will have no great effect on my life when they fold.

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[JazzBlueRT]

I remember my parents getting a ton of stuff from Sears when I was a kid. It was like Walmart and Amazon rolled up in one, except they sold good stuff not cheap **** like Walmart. We had a Kenmore dryer that was still going strong after 40 years. Probably should have kept that thing, but it was one less thing to move and my wife wanted to get a new washer and dryer. By the late 80s you could already see the slow decline.



Unfortunately the 80s made greed cool. So many long time brands went belly up after "investors" raped and pillaged the valuable parts of them.

Mervyns was a department store chain that started out as one store in the SF Bay Area. It was a successful jeans and T shirt kind of place, I shopped there a lot. Reasonable prices and quality clothing. The company owned the real estate at all of its stores and distribution centers were on.

An investment group bought the company in 2004 and by 2005 they were closing stores and selling the real estate. They shut it all down by 2008, 30,000 jobs gone in just a few years.

It should be illegal to raid a company like that, but apparently its what all the cool kids do.

When a company does not effectively utilize assets and capital, they will get raided and liquidated or go bankrupt. The freed up capital and asset sales allow for another more efficient company to utilize them. A farmer burns his field after a harvest for a reason and businesses get scorched for the same reason; to allow another generation to grow and flourish.

 

[6PTsocket]

When a company does not effectively utilize assets and capital, they will get raided and liquidated or go bankrupt. The freed up capital and asset sales allow for another more efficient company to utilize them. A farmer burns his field after a harvest for a reason and businesses get scorched for the same reason; to allow another generation to grow and flourish.

The department store must have wanted out. Unless they were in financial difficulty they were under no obligation to sell. I am sure they would have liked to see the new owner continue the business but it was theirs to do with what they liked. There was a great Irish pub that was a landmark in the neighborhood. The property changed hands and there is another crummy strip mall there. We older guys all have memories of businesses that we were sorry to see go.

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[finn]

The department store must have wanted out. Unless they were in financial difficulty they were under no obligation to sell. I am sure they would have liked to see the new owner continue the business but it was theirs to do with what they liked. There was a great Irish pub that was a landmark in the neighborhood. The property changed hands and there is another crummy strip mall there. We older guys all have memories of businesses that we were sorry to see go.

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If it’s a publicly traded company, the company itself cannot control who buys the stock on the open market.

The term “hostile takeover “ may ring a bell.

All the takeover requires is enough shares to elect a new board of directors, or enough directors to control the company.

 

[xin]

They could have been Amazon. They had everything in place to do what Amazon did and more with actual stores.
I remember as a kid in the 60's going there to pick up catalog sales. We were there almost every weekend.

They were a high quality retail store and went to a discount flea market.

They could have easily taken the catalog online however they had other motives.

 

[Whitworth]

I remember when I was a kid, walking through Sears or any other major department store was magical, especially at Christmas time. Unbelievably busy, bustling with customers, the store salespeople dressed to the nines. The display cases were cleanly polished, and the lines at the registers were a half hour wait sometimes! Just to check out, we’d patiently stand there. Often times my mother would make small talk with total strangers also standing in line. The lights, the music, the fragrances, such a strong memory of all that.

Just seems odd and a little sad the millennial generation and those that follow will only experience “add to cart” button while sitting on the couch at home.

 

[Lassen Forge]

Or walking through the local mall, which has generic holiday-esque decorations, and is devoid of any of the old magic, as market studies show it doesn't significantly increase the bottom line.

... your fanboy antics seem beyond irrational, and seems like you have an agenda. Which makes me think, I wonder how many members here are paid by someone to post...?

That would be the premium plan, at .046 rubles per line, and a bonus for each post over 5 per day that have more than (let me see), 100 words.

Seriously? Pay people to post... here? Other than pro spammers (who are usually computer generated logic line filler programs with auto-generated names, along the lines of sports ads or whatnot), I'm not sure who they'd be trying to influence and how. To NOT buy craftsman tools? Drop a percieved value of a company to crash stock prices?

I guess I could see it on TV, or on a conspiracy theory website...

 

[finn]

Western Auto, Gambles, corvettes, Woolworth, Montgomery Ward, marshal Fields, The Boston Store, Ben Franklin, Coast to Coast, Track Auto, Gratiot Auto Supply, Nationwide, Super Shops, Builders Square, Handy Andy, Courtesy Lumber, and dozens of others are gone.

J C Penney will follow Sears and KMart.

 

[Super Sport]

To put things in perspective, HD stock is around $180 a share.

You clearly don't know how stock prices work based on this comment.

This is a stupid bait post by a longtime member who either should know better or is purposely trolling. I'm not sure why anybody is wasting time commenting...

 

[JazzBlueRT]

The department store must have wanted out. Unless they were in financial difficulty they were under no obligation to sell. I am sure they would have liked to see the new owner continue the business but it was theirs to do with what they liked. There was a great Irish pub that was a landmark in the neighborhood. The property changed hands and there is another crummy strip mall there. We older guys all have memories of businesses that we were sorry to see go.

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Shareholders vote on sales and mergers. If someone pitches the shareholders that they can "unlock value" of a company by merging or liquidating it, the shareholders will always vote for "unlocking value."

 

[JazzBlueRT]

Western Auto, Gambles, corvettes, Woolworth, Montgomery Ward, marshal Fields, The Boston Store, Ben Franklin, Coast to Coast, Track Auto, Gratiot Auto Supply, Nationwide, Super Shops, Builders Square, Handy Andy, Courtesy Lumber, and dozens of others are gone.

J C Penney will follow Sears and KMart.

We had one of the last Western Auto stores down the road. They finally went out last year. I went in there once, it was like a time warp into the 1980's. Not sure how a handful of Western Auto stores were able to stay in business after Advance bought ti and killed the brand.

 

[JazzBlueRT]

Or walking through the local mall, which has generic holiday-esque decorations, and is devoid of any of the old magic, as market studies show it doesn't significantly increase the bottom line.



That would be the premium plan, at .046 rubles per line, and a bonus for each post over 5 per day that have more than (let me see), 100 words.

Seriously? Pay people to post... here? Other than pro spammers (who are usually computer generated logic line filler programs with auto-generated names, along the lines of sports ads or whatnot), I'm not sure who they'd be trying to influence and how. To NOT buy craftsman tools? Drop a percieved value of a company to crash stock prices?

I guess I could see it on TV, or on a conspiracy theory website...

There are a few Snap-on truck owners here as well as a few Toptul dealers. maybe that will make some of these posts seem a little more suspect.

 

[225]

I went to a Sears today because we were in the mall and the wife was looking at other stuff.

It's not looking good. The place had nothing, and the C-Man section was even worse. They had 3 tool boxes and 1 aisle of tools.

 

[xin]

I went to a Sears today because we were in the mall and the wife was looking at other stuff.

It's not looking good. The place had nothing, and the C-Man section was even worse. They had 3 tool boxes and 1 aisle of tools.

Hoping that Stanely tools makes Craftsman great again here in the USA.

 

[Lassen Forge]

Western Auto, Gambles, corvettes, Woolworth, Montgomery Ward, marshal Fields, The Boston Store, Ben Franklin, Coast to Coast, Track Auto, Gratiot Auto Supply, Nationwide, Super Shops, Builders Square, Handy Andy, Courtesy Lumber, and dozens of others are gone.

I remember most of those stores. I don't if that's sad, or it just makes me ancient!

There are a few Snap-on truck owners here as well as a few Toptul dealers. maybe that will make some of these posts seem a little more suspect.

Lot of FORMER tool truck owners on here as well.