Thread regarding Sears layoffs

Agree. At Costco it is customers first, and that is the main problem--- Sears/Kmart have no customers to put first if they wanted to. When was the last time you were in a Sears of Kmart? For me it has been about 10 years and I used to shop exclusively at Sears.

I didn't intend to suggest SHC could directly adopt Costco's specific retail tactics. The issue is overall business philosophy. At Costco it's customers first, employees second, and by having these priorities straight they produce a return for the shareholders. It says this in the mission statement and it isn't just talk.

SHC does need to produce a higher margin, and I would suggest that makes it even more important to have their priorities straight. The higher margin products often don't sell themselves. They need to have trained motivated people on the salesfloor who understand the products and know how to sell. They need to have quality products people are willing to pay more to get. For decades now, and especially during the Lampert years, the Sears response to competitive pressure has been to cheapen the products, reduce inventory and availability to the customer, raise prices, cut employee compensation, cut employee hours, reduce employee benefits, and so on. In short, they treat employees and customers like crap. And the response to bad financial results is always more of the same.

I've been out of this situation for many years now because I saw the writing on the wall. I also understand not everybody can get out so easily. Employees definitely need to be working on getting out before it's a forced decision, and that's likely to be coming soon.

Margins are a mess. I would say at least half our store is on clearance or is old stock just sitting around gathering dust. We sell lots of stuff at leas 30% below cost so there is no way you can keep up or get out of debt like that. The few things where there is great margins are not selling because we just don't have the foot traffic to bring people in. I have worked here for over 15 years and we used to have a steady stream of people all day long with at least three registers open at all times. Now we barely have one register open and the foot traffic is down at least 80%. When you get rid of things like electronics (small margins) that bring people into the store and replace it with mattresses (high margins but a purchase people do every 10 years or so) you are going to be right where they are now.

$55 a year*

That's kinda apples to oranges though man. We're talking about a retail store which depends greatly on margin versus a warehouse store that depends on high volume and a membership fee of $55 a month. Sears doesn't really sell items that can be sold to people over and over again like Costco. All the other items that don't fall into that category are simply to draw people in.

Similarly to what sears attempted to do with electronic when margins hit the floor. Unfortunately sears is really at the point where the sales volume is decreasing, so the margin per sale MUST be as much as they can squeeze out of people. that and SYW since I'm sure SOMEONE could benefit if it actually became a big hit considering how many other companies are partnered.

The Costco business model would most likely never work for a retail store simply because no one would pay $55 in membership fees to shop for items they probably don't even buy very often. And you definitely don't need anything from sears in bulk...except for maybe detergent.

And I'll take your word for it as far as employee treatment goes. I don't really have any knowledge about it.

Obviously some businesses are in it just to make money. Sears Holdings is a fine example. Run by a billionaire who won't spend a nickel unless it shows an immediate return on investment. Employees are just "costs" to be cut. Treat customers like crap, but call them "members". Push extended warranties to the death. How well has this philosophy worked out?

There are companies that are not in it "just for the money". Take Costco for instance. Employees are treated well. Value for the customer is a primary concern. They don't even sell extended warranties because they aren't a good deal for the customer. How well has this worked for Costco? Sales and profits keep growing.

Maybe the way to make money is to have the right priorities and then the profit follows. Being in it for nothing but money is a sad and ineffective way to operate. I was there at the beginning of the death slide for Sears. All of a sudden squeezing the customers to buy extended warranties became the number one priority and they started to treat employees as expenses rather than assets. Nothing mattered but "cash flow" as one executive stated. Look what this line of thinking has done for them. They went from being the largest retailer in the US to a broken down wreck in 30 years. Lampert didn't start the slide, but he sure accelerated the process.

Although I feel for the employees caught up in the SHC mess, I will be happy to see this pitiful company finally bite the dust. Sears lost its way many years ago, and under Lampert there is no chance for improvement. The game is over.

Exactly my point. If you work for SHC and you haven't a clue as to what is going on then it is your fault not the companies. I worked for Sears a few years ago and you would be surprised at how many people (not the kids who are working for a summer or seasonal but managers, leads etc) who do not have a clue. Who know nothing about what has been going on, nothing about the sad state SHC has been in and is now in financially. It blew my mind to think that the managers, leads etc. had no idea what was going on. When i mentioned it to them they just shrugged it off saying I was causing trouble or laughed and told me that everything was fine. And they were not just trying to put a good spin on it, they actually believed the corporate speak and are still working for SHC thinking that a turn around is coming. Those are the people I wonder about and wonder how many at Hoffman may be like them. They are either in denial or are ignorant of how business works, I don't know which one.

This is not a surprise so quit complaning about the company. IT has held on longer than it should have, you have had a job and if you still believe then when it goes bankrupt Oh well. But if you stay and you understand how bad it is then it is on you

Obviously sears shouldn't be ran the was it is. That's my point actually. Sears has been ran the same way for years and years. It just blows my mind that people continued to invest their lives for a company that has been going up in flames for as long as it has. It's easy to escape a slow sinking ship. The ship has been sinking for like a decade let's be real here. I'd be mad with the rest of the current and previous employees if this stuff started happening suddenly without warning but that's not the case here. The world changes around us. We have to adapt to it...it won't change for us. Sears is seeing first hand what happens if you wait too long to adapt. The same rules of life apply to everything. Even us. If you can't adapt then it's basically game over because you're gonna get left behind.

Go ahead and tell yourself that business is all about you, the community, society, or any other utopian idea you have of the world. Businesses are in business to make money. If a company does not make money they go out of business, the CEO gets fired, workers get laid off (sometimes when they do make money these things happen) Now I must admit that most businesses are not run like SHC but the end game is the same--make money for the shareholders/owners, employees are just a means to an end. THis is the way it has always been and always will be. Would I like a world where every business makes money, every employee is making enough to have a comfortable life, where every employee has health insurance, a months paid vacation and a retirement fund that will take good care of them until they die? Of course I would, and we could have this if everyone is willing to pay whatever price it takes (give up money, volunteer service, work for free, take homeless into your own home, pay more for goods, give up some of your comforts for others etc.) but as we all know, human nature is to look out for ones self, to get what you can, to be selfish, self centered and idealistic as long as it doesn't affect me or if I have to help.

It doesn't mean we should not try to make a world that is better but you have to work with reality and work toward change, not try to make reality fit your ideas.

You are still defending him! Go ahead, keep telling yourself all business is run this way. Perhaps you will sleep a little better tonight. The rest of us know better. And no, I don't work for sears or kmart.

2xis--Exactly what I was trying to say. HIs selfishness or whatever you think it is has helped you in some way. But this is every business. Even though businesses are run to make a profit and help the stockholders, you benefit from having a job, stockholders benefit from making money, retirement funds benefit from investing in the stock or a fund which holds the stock etc. Business is not as cut and dry or black and white as everyone wants it to be. You may not like how businesses are run, you may not like people getting rich from a stock or a company, you may not like the CEO or owner but the truth is they are the ones that give you a job. They are the ones who are risking millions or billions to give business a try. Like it or not, as my granddad used to tell me "a poor person never gave you a job", and a poor person like me has never employed anyone . like it or not the business people are who employ people.

Probably worth noting my post below is a different person than all the previous posts...

Disclaimer: I'm definitely not defending Eddie in this post. He's not a good person.

I've actually stated this before on this forum to some degree. His intentions were definitely selfish. He did what he did for himself. However if you've been with the company for a long time you also benefited by keeping your jobs for as long as you did assuming you stayed. it's pretty apparent that a crappy job is better than no job for the vast majority of the readers here. Otherwise you would have quit as soon as you noticed the BS like I did rather than stay for years.

Him helping you wasn't on his intentions. It was a byproduct of him helping himself but it still happened to some degree. Yes, you're definitely getting screwed in the end should you decide to go down with the ship but once again that choice is yours to make. No one has held a gun to your head for whatever amount of time you decided to stay.

Eddie is a jackass

Facts hurt and the fact is you are delusional if you think Eddie kept this going out of benevolence and a want to help "the little people". He's kept it going as long as he has because the real estate market crashed and he was buying time waiting for a recovery. He put his own money into it to continue to buy time, because doing so helped HIM. I agree with your point that anyone who hasn't been looking for a job over the last year shouldn't be shocked when they are unemployed in the near future as the handwriting is, and has been, on the wall for quite some time. I think the issue is some employees have been buying into Eddie's lie of "continuing to transform" the company.

F-- EDDIE!!!

This thing could have folded years ago.

Facts hurt. That is why most people are not successful. They operate on emotion or what they want reality to be instead of facts and reality. Fact-- Eddie has kept this going longer than he needed to.

Fact- he did not need to loan money to keep it going. Reality-- without this you would have lost your job years ago.

There is only one reason you would try and defend that greedy parasite. Either you are eddie or you are in his pocket so deep you have no choice.

Eddie could have walked away years ago and closed the whole thing down. You have had a job for the last 10 years because of the slow liquidation he has planned. Yes, he is a hedge fund guy and I don't know if he ever wanted to have a successful retail operation but that is how the game is played. Not just with SHC but with many companies. Just look at the few companies that own or have a majority stake in almost everything you and I use or depend on every day.

And Eddie doesn't just enrich himself but also the investors in his hedgfund. Also, you might want to take a look at how many institutinal investors have held SHC stock in the past year. Your retirement plan probably benefited from SHC at some point

Not a fan of Eddie but his prolonging the end gives each of you a chance to find another job and move on. Plenty of hints that the end is near so if you stay it is your fault

ripping off customers does not deserve credit.

Poster 1yqp - you are wrong about managers getting a bonus. I am a former manager and there haven't been bonuses for years. Corporate tells the managers they have the opportunity to earn a bonus but they purposely set the sales plan out of reach as a way to not have to pay one. The most a manager can make for a bonus is 20% of base salary - hardly an amount "worth more than your house" as you exaggeratedly claimed, lol. And that's MAX amount if the manager crushes the sales plan, which as I previously stated, is unrealistic to begin with.

Are you serious??? Eddie has done everything he's done to help EDDIE. He had a chance to turn things around, there WAS money available when he took over to update the technology and clean up and modernize the stores. But his end game was always, ALWAYS, a play for the assets and real estate. He never had any intention of running a retail operation. He's a hedge fund guy, a vulture who swoops in and tears away the meat and leaves the rotting corpse. His claims of wanting to be "the next Amazon" are laughable! Sears/Kmart have the worst run online shopping site of any retailer, large or small. Items not in stock, taking customers' money knowing the item isn't available yet charging their credit cards anyway, then making them fight to get back what is rightfully theirs with hours of phone calls to customer service and waiting months to get a refund. The smart ones don't even mess with it and get a charge back from their cc company. Sending incorrect orders, broken products, the list goes on. Just take a look at the Kmart or Sears Facebook page and read the thousands of complaints regarding the online business. Eddie's no dummy - had he wanted to he could have ran a decent online site and fixed up the stores. But that was never his plan. But nice try convincing us other wise with your post, Eli, um, err, Eddie.

Sorry, this is nuts. Ron Johnson absolutely craters JCP a few years ago and they fired him and installed competent leadership and completely turned the ship around in under 18 months. Eddie quite simply is incompetent. Don't cut him any slack, he has destroyed so much value and so many lives, it is unpardonable!

Eddie has only done HIMSELF favors. I am the stupid monkey who stayed too long....But Not Anymore. Also, our store manager will get a bonus worth more than your house if he can just keep it open till Bankruptcy. (BK) It is over and I don't want to help the uppers s--- up their bonuses for keeping it all going on our backs anymore. Not Me said the little piggy. Not me said the little mouse. Eddie Said " you keep working for me till the end" And the little piggy said "No Sir, Goodbye"

I agree Sears was in decline long before Eddie. But he hasn't done anything positive for the company. By throwing $7b at share buybacks he destroyed any real chance the company had for a turnaround. He didn't cause the decline but he's putting the final nails in the coffin. Maybe former CEO Alan Lacy should be blamed for not having the guts to invest in the business and instead letting Lampert in the door.