Thread regarding Sears layoffs

Traditionally, when companies get bought cheap like that, the new owner will put money into new tech. They also invest in store renovations to help build the company back up. This didn't happen after Eddie bought everything. He's slowly let everything waste away.

@mrl Sears was probably one of the best companies back in the days I think what started to lack it is so many things. What I see is Employees leave with no motivation. Its hard to start training someone and perfecting it. You don't learn everything within an year. If I go at work I basically know pretty much everything in my department. I had a friend that worked their for a decade only got a raise onces so that tells you a lot. I agree the biggest flaw is Sears has big buildings and not keeping up with the product to keep selling. Its just a huge problem either stores shrink or they must keep in demand. But this is Sears fault I know some things to actually fill out their empty holes that would turn the st ore into profit. If Sears changed their business motive having so many buildings they could of hybrid it to online retails and instore retail, but they lagged it and its a little to game to enter the game.

@ppw My old man told me that once upon a time Kmart was the king of retail, but as you mentioned as soon as Walmart came into play and along with online they were going down.

Sorry sears wasn't already bankrupt. It was taking a nosedive, but wasn't bankrupt. Sears did however have a massive amount of debt as the poster below said.

I think we all just need to be honest with ourselves. Sears was a good company up until the mid to late eighties. Then it started getting messy. As long as I have worked here, it has been up and down. I have stayed because I liked what I was doing and felt I was getting paid well. (Yes I understand some do and some don't get paid well at Sears.) The stores are too big for the business they do, so now the staff had to be cut in each store. This is hard because the stores are really big, but that is the problem. Eddie tried to carve up the stores and sell parts of them. He just hasn't been able to do it fast enough in each store. We probably should operate with a 50,000 square foot store or less. That isn't the case in many of our stores. I don't know what to say about the Kmart stores. They probably were taken care of even less than the Sears stores leading up to the late eighties. I remember going into a Kmart store as a kid and they never had what was advertised. My mom used to have the ad, and she used to get so mad. So Kmart has been shaky for even longer than Sears has been. So we all need to just tell ourselves, for those who have worked for Sears for a while, that truthfully it's been about 25 or so years now that things haven't been great.

Back when Lampert took over, there was still massive potential for him or whatever team he put in place to turn things around. He didn't do that. That's why he gets the blame.

Sears was debt ridden since the early 1980s, after it had overbuilt and overreached its original customer base.

It spent the next 20 years spinning off large chunks of that mistake, aka Allstate, Dean Witter, Coldwell Banker et al.- Just to sustain the red-tape laden entity that was Sears.

Once Walmart entered the scene, and then the Internet came into its own , Sears' 1960 business model was doomed.

Sears wasn't Already bankrupt. Quarterly profits and sales increases. Not that the 2007... Recession wouldn't have been a massive problem to Sears by itself. Sears wouldn't have cut expenses as well as Eddie. Both companies may have been gone a few years ago if not merged.

Why do people who are being layed off now complain about current management and not management from 13 years ago? Because current management is doing their layoffs, not previous management.

People layed off from Sears in 2001 blamed Arthur Martinez not Eddie. People who had pay reduced in 1980 during that recession blamed Edward Telling not Eddie.

Just like current political affairs. A lot of social media discussion about Trump. Not much about Herbert Hoover. It's the Devil you can see who catches your wraith.

From what I understand Kmart was in bankruptcy but was in Chapter 11 type, which is a type that there is a chance to get out of, and restructure. Additionally, they had assets that were valuable (real estate)

Sears was still profitable, but had declining sales, and was going to be facing hard times shortly. Probably not as dire as bankruptcy but still having to sell or close stores. With the retail market shift, every retailer would have to regardless.

The difference is that Eddie didn't see this as a retail venture, but a real estate, IP, and asset grab. Almost everything points to this.. why update a store if the end goal is to sell it to someone who will tear everything out and redo it anyways.

Keeping everything floating until he could, manipulate all the pieces into place. Let it all come crashing down after all the valuables are safely in Seritage.

Wow, you are wrong. No, Sears was still a viable, profitable company when Eddie merged Kmart with it. Then, instead of investing money back into the business, he siphoned it off to use elsewhere. He tried to use the companies as a cash cow. Once the money was gone, the core businesses started to flounder. Just like a car, if you don't maintain it, it will die on the side of the road. That is what happened to Sears and Kmart. Eddie is no hero, and no innocent victim. He and his yes-men ran the company into the ground.

Plenty of blame to go around with this one.

Totally surprised it's lasted this long.

i see we have a conspiracy theorist here. I'm definitely not him. And a lot of this was his fault. There were tons of really dumb ideas that were put into play with him leading the company. Don't get me wrong. I'm just wondering why more people don't also hate the previous owners.

Hey EL,

You're right ... it's somebody else's fault.

Not yours.

Royfill