When you do a search for a Sears store in your area, what appears?
Chances are, a Sears Auto Center, or small Sears Appliance store.
So is this the end game.
Get rid of the huge stores with the huge overhead, jettison the hired help, and have a small presence in every town?
Sort of the way Sears was in the early 1950s?
Actually it's fortunate that the one I work at and another in the same country at a mall a bit north are so far okay. I've wondered about there being two in this particular region, but so far neither seems to be threatened with any closing. We've lost some leads and managers here and there though.
I can't see the Sears, Kmart or Shop Your Way websites having any kind of future. I try to shop them and they are how websites were at the turn of the century. The year 2000 is alive and well.
The Kenmore Elite appliances are the ones getting the complaints on the my Sears website. I am staying away from them especially the refrigerator with the ice maker issues.
Would make sense to cookie cutter a small store platform where the floor plan was identicle in each store, item placement was identicle in each store, and fixturing was identicle in each store.
Heat and air and lighting would be basic, slicing the utility costs .All centrally controlled.
Sales folks trained to cross sell the whole store. All for minimum wage.
Whether Sears can overcome its present negative image is another matter.
Actually, sounds like a good plan if he can pull it off. May be a little to late though.
In the 1950s, Sears catalogs drove a lot of sales and department stores generally had a smaller footprint. Massive square footage didn't become the norm until the late 60s, when merchants left downtowns for malls. Can SYW and marketplace compete against Amazon, Walmart, and Target? We'll have to wait and see. Personally, I won't hold my breath.
Yes. This is the end game. One large store will be kept in each region for the sole purpose of shipping items at a lower cost, but they will be well stocked. Essentially they will become warehouses with a showroom plus the hometown franchises which are doing well. Largely we will move to a franchise only model plus web. Meanwhile syw will become more of a shopping portal/gateway.
Will it work, probably not. Too little too late.
You mean like how Stanley Black and Decker trashed the Black and Decker name, so they bought the Porter Cable name and slapped that on the same junk and have now ruined that name? Or how they destroyed the Delta name then sold the scraps to the Chinese who have now trashed it even worse? I'm not holding my breath. Among real tool users the consumer brands Stanley Black and Decker own or previously owned have a pretty bad reputation with Dewalt being the exception and there you have to be careful what you buy. Most people in the enthusiast and pro demographics, where the real volume of spending on tools is see this a a lateral move at best.
Beg to differ. Stanley Black & Decker thought the Craftsman name was still relevant. I think you are going to see in the near future that this really isn't the case. The Craftsman name will be invested in again. Kenmore/Kenmore Elite appliances are made by the best appliance manufacturers, so they aren't junk either. Can't really speak to DieHard.
Problem is Diehard, Kenmore, and Craftsman brand names are all now synonymous with cheap junk in any smart consumer's mind. Only aging baby boomers still think those are good brands and that's a fast dying market.
thats the game plan, & fast eddie is gonna have all them brands lease their stores from his SRG properties and whatever properties can be purloined from the impending bankruptcy
Looks to be the trend. Die Hard branded automotive centers, Kenmore branded home with appliance/mattress, and Craftsman branded store with tools/lawn&garden. Smaller more targeted footprint stores with lower overhead.