I am sorry to all of those affected by today's layoffs.
With hindsight for SHC employees, who would have preferred lampert to liquidate and close stores in the 2005-2008 period, rather than this "transformation"?
Would it have hurt more to be stung so quickly by a wall street guy? Or has the slow pain been worse for you?
"transformation" is just a generic word used to hide what they don't know what they are doing. There was no actual business transformation happened. The archaic system wasn't replaced or upgraded. The people who knew how to run retail weren't promoted or hired. The complex and messy business processes weren't simplified. I can go on and on.
Closing all stores during the peak of recession is not going to work either. Empty or closed stored we still have to pay taxes and upkeep. Selling stores during recession not going to bring in any real dollars.
hmmm
Yep Sears snubbed to many customers for service on their appliances.. a real shame since without customers you have nothing which we are experiencing now
Just a real shame
When the Sears my community website was still up, 99% of the complaints were about horrific deliveries, the inability to get essential appliances such as refrigerators and washing machines fixed in less than several months, the company demanding upfront payment for services covered under the expensive protection plan and how the pleas to get the appliances working were ignored by any and every branch of SHC.
Enjoying the discussion.
How is innovel and home services etc doing? These seem to always be cited in the public statements from executives
Mygofer was a disaster. In our store people would order milk or bread or eggs and our store did not even sell those items. Some corporate guy sent an email asking why all the orders were getting canceled and wanted to know how much milk and bread and eggs we were selling in store. My manager and just about every store in our district said that we had not had a milk or bread or egg vendor for over two years. Even corporate did not know what items we carried. Never did get a vendor and to this day we dont sell milk or eggs and the bread comes in three loaves at a time.
@2jhh I've seen some complaints from former mygofer users coming to pick up their order, only to find that their cold food items had been left out in the cage/bin for hours and were ruined. Aside from the other issues, screwing up like that when someone did actually try it sure didn't help.
@igil. Classy. I am not naive. I am just saying the Kenmore product is good and will continue on.
Does anyone remember mygofer.com?
Started a few years before all the grocery one hour pickup services in my area. Every store offers this now but back when mygofer came out it was unique for this area. Missed opportunity for KMart.
Of course it was difficult to use, orders randomly cancelled & products shown as in stock on the site were OOS in store but it could have been made to work.
Customer service, quality products and clean well lit stores aren't hindsight but basic common sense.
SYW was a new concept that could have taken off but the reasons are apparent looking back & not as foreseeable. I think identity was one of the problems. You can buy from Sears.com, Kmart.com or shop your way. Somewhat confusing and many times the coupons weren't as integrated as they should have been and don't get me started on the points not working in store or online. The program was/is too complex in some ways but most importantly wasn't modified to become more user friendly. Amazon modified over the years to become more user friendly and thus reached more people.
SYW is pretty active, at least in the parts that let people win points. And it can sometimes be a source of product information/ordering that isn't available or not working right on the Sears/Kmart sites. It's also the only remaining place to be able to see a detailed breakdown of your points earned and when they expire.
They say hindsight is better than foresight. What ever you guys are saying now is correct.
Does anyone know how active syw is today? Is it toast? It seems like something is there?
@1gnn FWIW, I never would've used SYW if Facebook had been required for it, and I know I'm not alone. I'm glad Sears made their own membership system, despite parts that could have been implemented better.
@1mas keep your head up your a$$. Its working great.
The book author is correct though. Sears alienated customers in every way for two decades and accelerated this alienation with the advent of Lampert.
The online piece could have been good but it wasn't backed up by the level of customer service that Amazon grew to offer. The Sears core customer base expected, needed and deserved this support. The marketplace should have been either better regulated or discontinued altogether.
SYW was actually an innovative concept that never took off in part because of the Sears/KMart customer base, in part because ramming it down the throats of people at the register backfired and in part because it was competing with facebook (whom it should have partnered with.)
Sears lost quality, customer service, store appeal and most importantly trust. Kmart is the same except the employees at my local one always had terrible attitudes since 1976 until it was too late and the store closed.
@izga Oh my....I couldn't even read the whole post as it was like a book. My Kenmore/Kenmore Elite appliances are great...and have I think a Kenmore vacuum that works great on pet hair. I regularly buy Simply styled shirts which for the most part and for the price are a great value.
Then in the 1980's Sears started reducing the quality of the appliances and started trying to get out of repairing those appliances under warranty. They lost a ton of Gen-X and beyond who saw their parents cursing Kenmore.
Then in the late 1990's Sears started reducing the quality of Craftsman. Again Gen X and beyond found themselves or their parents making disparaging remarks about screwdrivers that had such soft tips they were worthless, ratchets whose mechanisms couldn't be trusted, sockets that split down the side, items that were discontinued, etc, etc. Tool Department employees got a God complex about handling or even denying replacements as they deemed fit. The warranty was the only reason to spend the money and it became worth little. Competitors stepped up their game and stole that business.
Somewhere along the way the "fashion" became "thrift shop" and Best Buy was a lot better place to shop for electronics. In many towns KMart was the only place to shop, knew it, acted like it. Target and Walmart came and shoppers were happy to be free of a KMart's inflated pricing and poor service.
Catalog operations were shut down right about the time some guy named Jeff had the idea to sell books on the Internet. Then other stuff. Then everything. But Sears had already destroyed its reputation there again with poor service (I remember waiting FOOOORRRREEVVVER a the catalog counter countless times with mom) and pricing higher than newer competitors.
These decisions weren't all on the back of the various CEOs at the time. Middle managers, analysts, buyers, and even retail employees are all to blame for various aspects.
At one time, Sears was the destination to go to for tools, appliances, tires and batteries, home services, as they were the leader in the areas. Much of the rest of the store was secondary, but we were kings in those main categories. Now, all of those advantages are gone. If Sears had capitalized on those strengths, made appropriate investments when the time was right, then it would still exist. I think selling the mall based stores, focusing on building small locations where the customers lived, and maintaining a portfolio of unique products would have saved the company.
Valid point by someone saying some investments would keep stores “viable”. But the endgame is these undifferentiated stores go out of businesses without a fully integrated online business (amazon/QVC).
It seems to me that Lampert made the right strategic bet, unfortunately it has gone wrong and it looks bad and is terribly sad. This is contra to these other stores dying a slow death that will say in 2022 “amazon! We had no chance, we survived longer than sears!) but they had no shot, it seems sears has the greatest variance of outcomes.
To paraphrase recent comments: “department stores are doing great!”
Lampert might have been totally wrong, but obviously anyone saying sears would do great if they Just renovated the stores needs an introduction to 2018.
Watch the videos of all the JCP closings, many are renovated stores.
Target, Walmart, Macys, and Kohls ALL invested in stores and new initiatives during the time that Fast$ Eddie$ was stripping the copper wires from the Sears/ Kmart empire.
ALL of those companies are outperforming SHC in every measurement.
Does Eddie pay you extra when you swallow?
Company investment in stores combined with company support of excellent customer service would have helped the stores stay viable by selling goods to happy customers. Isn't that what's really important?
I think anyone saying he could/should have invested in the stores is outright wrong, shc would be on its way to bankruptcy either way, many failing retailers that did that.
Would it have been emotionally better for employees to quit without trying or a long failure of trying?
@azk - How dare you refer to Eddie as a "vulture." Vultures deserve more respect than that and there is absolutely no reason to associate them with Eddie's level of despicability. Vultures operate at a higher standard than Eddie; they don't set out to kill, they only devour what has already died.
Say what you want, but Lampert could have invested in stores, inventory, and technology rather than systematically stripping Sears of every shred of value and assets. Not sure how you can defend a vulture capitalist whose only "transformation" is the lining of his pocket and real estate portfolio. He is NOT a good person.
"Can someone explain to me how sears/kmart is in a worse position than the other department stores?"
There's been many lengthy business-publication articles about all the ways things went / continue to go wrong with Sears/Kmart. But the biggest problem now is all those decades of mistakes added up to BILLIONS of dollars in corporate debt.
Layoffs are awful and never fair for the individuals affected; however, there are many many associates whose livelihood has continued due to Eddie investing in the company. So say what you want, but Eddie has kept many people employed when everyone could have been out of jobs years ago...up to 13 years ago when he first bought Sears. You can say Kmart bought Sears, but essentially Eddie bought Sears.
@xoi - I agree with you 100%! The unfortunate collaboration of Alan Lacy and Eddie Lampert resulted in the perfect storm that sunk both Sears and Kmart.
Solely answering the question that was asked, it would have been better to close when Sears Canada closed and just ended it . It's much kinder to rip the band aid off quickly and my suggestion would be to do so with what's left effective immediately. 60 to 80% off everything between now and Jan 1 voluntarily and when the distribution centers empty stop the shipments. Order no new merchandise, get rid of what you have , as the fixtures empty sell them without labeling it liquidation. Increase SYW points to triple to encourage merchandise to move , after christmas bring in the liquidators voluntarily and that way the company will be at or near 100% asset light when it files for bankruptcy. PLEASE , end it and this is the best possible, quickest and kindest way
Would be so much better if Kmart wouldn't have joined with Sears. Sears brought the whole ship down.
Can someone explain to me how sears/kmart is in a worse position than the other department stores?
As an outside observer they all look like they are in trouble, its just the other retailers are working on turnarounds, back to the glory of merchandising commoditized products
I would have prefered that Floyd M. Lampert had worn a condom back in 1961.
I think Sears would have been much healthier, much longer, if Kmart would not have swallowed it. If Eddie had never been involved, then the many billions that were frittered away on stock buybacks would have been used to maintain stores, buy merchandise, etc.
But really, it goes back to Alan Lacy, who was never CEO material. He was afraid to do anything -make any investment. What should have happened was that the mall-based stores be sold, and have the company migrate to new locations closer to the customers, which were focused on soft goods, or appliances, or tools. We stayed mall-based, and full line store based far beyond what made sense. Consequently, we were unable to make the changes needed later on.