This Sears Holiday Inventory question popped up in the thread below - I think it'll be a very important issue and I am really not sure how things will play out. I wanted to open this thread to see what other folks thought about how the holiday inventory will be financed or acquired or procured or whatever you want to call it.
What are your thoughts?
I started working at Kmart again (only as a second job), after a couple year absence. One of my first duties was ripping clearance stickers off of last year's patio furniture and seasonal toy inventory. The store has 5 or 6 pallets of Christmas inventory sitting in Penske, and is carrying an additional $500k in inventory, even though sales are down 17%, it's crazy. Are they not sending clearance merchandise out to closing stores anymore?
I came from a high-volume store and it's amazing to see how low-volume stores surive. No cashiers after 8:00PM. Service desk straightens pantry and has a bell for customers to ring when they are aware. They also cover the jewerly counter. How is still open? Glad I'm there only temporary though.
Whatever will be on the shelves this holiday has already been ordered. Those buys are done in the first quarter. How they pay for it after it arrives is another thing (could be the source of the CEOs irritation so publicly expressed lately?). As far as the junk merchandise goes, there was a news article last year on how Sears was buying liquidation merchandise (same way big lot, TJ max, Ross etc. does) You have to assume those buys were done because they were running out of money and/or vendors that are willing to sell to them.
Who are the buyers for all this junk? Are they told to buy certain stuff or do "buyers" have discretion in what they buy? I agree we have so much junk merchandise that no one wants and will never sell even at 90% off.
And what about the quantities we buy merchandise in? We received over 1000 toasters (I did not type that wrong) last Christmas and we sold some for 50 cents to get rid of them. We have hundreds of 4X shirts in one color in our store now and the story goes on and on.
We have sold the same stuff during the holidays for years which means people have no reason to come in if all the holiday stuff is the same as the last 10 years
Lessons could have been learned for holiday inventory but wasn't. Year after year tons of poor-selling merchandise hits our stores.
One of two things happens: it sells for near or below cost or gets sent back to CRC so it can get sold for pennies on the dollar to firms like Ross, Overstock.com, TJX and so on.
Get ready for another year of mountains of hotdog toasters, hand soap, tin holiday accoutrements, fuzzy penguin slippers and so on. It looks like old habits are here to stay.
Holiday inventory for this year will be liquidation
I work at a Kmart: last year my store was ordered to box up and save Halloween decorations and costumes after only a week of clearance. Usually at the end of summer we will save a few patio sets or pools after a LONG clearance markdown, but I have never seen us box up and save Halloween, and after only a week of clearance! We also were order to save a ton of Christmas decor from last year. We have so much Christmas and Halloween in our stockroom. They must have been worried about gaining inventory for this year.