I was thinking, there is really no reason to not air any ads during the peak shopping season unless it was already decided that Sears is done.
That's the only explanation. Why invest in something and try to bump up sales of stores that have already been slated for closure.
Anybody else thinks that this is a clear sign that this year is it for Sears?
Corporate understands how to bring customers back to the store again and again. It's said that usually after 8 times coming back into the store with generous offers, customers have seen things they may want to buy in the future and keep coming back.
The same things said in this thread about customers using offers and coupons and paying little out of pocket is said by employees at Kohl's and JCPenney. JCPenney has taken things a step further and has local stores and a national call center contacting their best and former best customers to say hello and gather insight as to why they aren't shopping as much... the sales pitch ensues and their customers are sent generous offers $25 off $25 and $10 off $10 at the same time.
@yrp- It probably cost a few million. think about it-- first you have to pay someone to design the signs, i.e. colors, sizes, weight for hanging, paper weights, gloss or no gloss. Then they have to go through legal to make sure there is no copywrite or legal issues that can be a problem i.e. how they are worded and what the %off means, design issues. This all takes time and labor either in house or outside contractor.
Then you have to get a bid for printing and or go to the SHC printer to print the signs. Then you have to take bids or have boxes made to ship the signs.
Then you have to ship the signs. Then you have to pay labor to have employees to hang the signs and get outside contractors to hang any banners outside the stores. Then you pay labor to take down the old signs and put up the new signs along with all the preveous things that were mentioned. Then you have labor to hand write signs and pay labor to hang the signs.
Along with DM's emaling and SM Facetiming to make sure the signs are up. Now multiply all that cost by a few thousand stores and you are talking real money.
Now is this cheaper than a nation TV ad? Mahybe. But is it cheaper than a local paper ad? Proabably not. And it is the ads that bring people in. They cannot know about a great sale if they don't come into the store and that is the problem we have now----no customers.
Yeah, poor Eddie's millennial grab doesn't work because millennials are cost-sensitive (let's face it, by and large, Sears/KMart prices are generally higher than competitors), nor are they generally fond of derelict stores with insane check-out lines due to understaffing. They don't have the patience for that when other stores have no lines or minimal lines.
I got a credit of $110 on my sears card with a zero balance on my recent statement. Haven't used that card in at least 8 months as we don't have any kmart or sears stores around here anymore. The closest ones are about 150 miles away. Is this fraudulent actvity? Or is it a return of my points or a thank u for shopping at shld? Just curious. Want to know before I call them or decide to spend it the next time I take a trip.
You have to love the competing interests in these stupid promotions. Free cash, yay! Oh and by the way, too many customers are actually redeeming this free cash we're giving them, so our DMs must send out daily nastygrams to the stores accusing them of using SYWR incorrectly and threatening to come and interview register operators if they don't get their SYW redemption rates below some absurd number like 10%.
They sywr program is stingier than ever. Members used to get 100% free back in points items, last year platinum members got two, a kitchen aid stand mixer and a choice of something else, free.
Look, the stores were busier than they’ve been in the last ten years at least - I been here 18. So, Eddie was right. Bottom line.
@fbn Funny and nice sarcasm!
About 90% of the menu signs and handwritten signs for the Holiday BOGO sale ended up in the trash, unused. It's looking like a lower percentage for the Red Tag sale will get thrown out, but it's still a lot. There just aren't enough people or hours to even get those kinds of signs up in every department now, and it wasn't any better even during the holiday rush. If it had just been some nice, concise RES signs, it probably would have been a lot easier, faster, and less confusing for customers.
I'm not sure if it can be taken as a sign of surrender, even though the company is in dire straits. Eddie, against the advice of his leadership, decided not to take out TV advertising, the stated reason being that the company heavily invests in Shop Your Way and online advertising. Crazy decisions like this have been made before things became really bad.
Take a look at Sears' core customers or "members" and compare it to Eddie's decision on advertising. Hint: in what age group are Sears' core customers? Conversely, what age group is most receptive to TV advertising?
It seems like he is ignoring the fact that the remaining customers that Sears has in front of them are not going to be receptive to how they wish to conduct their marketing strategies. It could be that he wants to focus on bringing in millennials, which is group that is really hard to please. By and large, the shopping experience at Sears, in-store and online, isn't conducive to retaining customer loyalty.
@yrp - Your opinion about "dollars and cents" is flawed. Obviously the holiday signs sent to the stores didn't cost millions of dollars. However, when you also take into account the payroll dollars needed to create the holiday signing program, execute the repeated sign change outs in the stores, plus the cost of the in store signing program to support the change outs, then you are in fact talking about millions of dollars! If corporate had possessed the intelligence and fortitude to create a concise and efficient holiday signing program then there would have been cost savings well beyond just dropping TV ads!
@iwn It is so stupid giving members free cash. Obviously the point was to yes increase foot traffic, but as you mentioned not revenue. Members coming to just spend their free points to pay nothing out of their pocket to probably pennies of difference of what is owed. I think the customers that deserved more of that freecash were still the few loyal customers left. Honestly we invest in wishbook which honestly was a waste of money instead of trying to advertise the company in some way.
@qib Come on. The signs for those promotional events don't cost "millions of dollars." TV advertising costs millions of dollars. This was just simple dollars and cents.
Why would you spend millions of dollars on all of the Holiday Blowout, Red Tag New Years etc. signs?
If there are no ads then people don't come into the store. We had to print and copy the ads from Black Friday and after (so tacky). we dont have a color copier so they were in black and white and our copier is ancient so the looked smudged. Custmers were complaining.
We have spent so much time and labor in re-signing, taking the signs down from one sale to the next and having to pay someone to put up the large banner outside our store. Why not just keep the same signs up or at least keep one name. We threw at least half of our signs away--no time or people to put them up
Also, why are we giving so much money away? Free cash, bonus/surprise points? All people are doing is coming in and buying something that is one cent more than there total and walking out.
It is simple. Trying to save money that is it. There wasn't the money to spend obviously....nothing more nothing less.
Kmart has been gradually eliminating in-store and in-newspaper circulars for at least a year, if not more. If only 11% of your business is done online, then this would seem to make it a silly idea to put your marketing budget towards online when 89% of your sales are brick and mortar. But Lampert was not lying when he said they pushed a lot of money into digital promotions.
There was clear evidence that marketing got a substantial budget increase starting in November for the Shop Your Way program, because promotions suddenly became more generous than they have been since 2014. Many online shoppers report Sears was giving away up to $30 in FREECASH on any purchase, no minimum spend required. These offers repeated WEEKLY throughout the holiday season. Kmart customers saw up to $18/weekly in FREECASH promotions, no minimum purchase required. When a customer responded with a purchase, they were automatically given additional FREECASH, often with little if any minimum spend. $7-11 on apparel, $15-20 on tools, $10-15 on fitness, $150 off $499 electronics, plus smaller amounts for toys, groceries, etc. at Kmart. By late November, it was common to see customers come in with over $100 in various FREECASH promotions active on their accounts all valid at the same time. I know we've seen customers walk out the door with merchandise subsidized by at least $300 in various FREECASH offers between November and December. You bet that drove traffic into stores, but it did not drive revenue because many customers have learned to budget their purchases around FREECASH promotions, and many were there to pick up items that did not cost them a penny.
Why would you pay for tv ads when there is hardly any stores left. Drain the swamp 2018!!!!
Would explain why there was no kmart Thanksgiving/Black Friday ad posted online or available in the stores. None of the store managers in my store's district ever saw the 40+ page ad. The explanation from our DM was that it was available digitally to members via email. A four page preview but nothing else. We had problems doing ad sets for those two events because nothing was printing out of the sign printer for doorbuster and sale items.
If you didn't realize that before the ad thing, you weren't paying attention...