Thread regarding Sears layoffs

OP here again. OK, well, I guess I can understand...sort of. But what about the commission that the appliance folks make? The associate made the sale but now he doesn't get paid commission. Commercial sales are about relationships and trust. I have done some blockbusters in my day and it was all about trust as much as price. You do a lot of work to get that sort of sale and now he gets nothing? I don't about PA's and inventory. Direct ship it then on an open order and take deposit or establish credit.

You can't let the muckity mucks screw up the order because they had no face to face with the buyer. You can make up all of the excuses you want about this, that and the other but sales is sales. The associate sold the products and now he is screwed. If you are a buyer, and I have been, I would have no confidence.

Don't try to justify failure please.

@OP - When our store processed a sale for a large number of appliances, similar to the situation you mentioned, we were contacted by several people in the organization and told not to do that again. We were informed that large sales of that type were to be handled by the Commercial Sales department. Our customer made future purchases and all were handled through that department. The merchandise still landed at our store for pickup. The other person who objected to our processing of the original sale was involved with managing the inventory levels of the distribution centers. He said that when a large commercial sale is processed through the store it can wipe out the on hand inventory at a distribution center, as ours did, creating merchandise availability problems for all the stores serviced by that center. The commercial sales department works directly with the vendors to prevent that from happening. Of course, I'm sure the skewing of the PA figures played a part in all of this as well.

Wow! Makes no business sense at all

OP here. I didn't even know what a PA was until I looked it up. It sounds like you know how that works better than I. I work in Auto as an AACM but am often MOD. FLS uses different jargon. Turning down sales is just plain foolish. I worked commercial DE for years and know what it take to make blockbuster deals. That was a large sale.

I am not in financial distress. I am just picking off deals from Sears. I bought and had another set of tires installed today. That means that I have now purchased 14 tire from Sears in the last six months.LOL I live where it snows and the General Altimax Arctics are what I had put on today on one of my rigs. Buy three tires/get one free plus $100 back in points and another 10% in points if you use your Sears MasterCard. OK.

Deals like that are why I am working for Sears and we have a great master tech who know what he is doing. This is a transient job for me but one that I have taken advantage of. I am a VIP gold Member now and am only two purchases away from being a VIP platinum member. Yay.

I am very close to having everything I want from the Sears operation. I am going down with the ship just in case there are any more deals that can be made. I have to spend these points I have before the whole thing explodes.

This PA obession is just too much, but I can see management being tempted to cancel a large no-PA sale. It isn't right, but if they didn't, the DM would be having a fit on the phone the next morning.

Great customer relations there...turn customers and sales away because they didn't want to buy the PA. Chances are that anyone building apartments have lots of connections with other builders, realtors, landlords, etc...when a large order gets cancelled and causes a BIG inconvenience for them, word will get around, believe me. I wonder if it's one of those large construction or property management companies. That's all Sears needs is bad publicity in those circles. I wonder what lie that manager will tell the builder as to the reason why it was cancelled.

As a former hardlines ASM, I do remember the lengthy PA conference calls I had to sit through. That was the god we worshipped in this company, the almighty PA. I remember how the DM frequently stressed to SMs and ASMs about really making sure to save the sale if it had PAs and that if it didn't, don't worry too much about saving those sales. I also remember the push for managers and leads to "tag-team" customers that are refusing the PA during a sale. Great, let's drive the customer out of the store in irritation!

If I had to list all of the insane, ridiculous things I have heard on these waste-of-time conference calls, I'd be writing a book.

I am amazed how Sears thinks it is in the position to be choosy. Get out while you can is all I can say. I did and my well-being is better off for it.