I was convinced my store would be on the list and it's not. I don't know why or how, we barely have any customers anymore and I can't imagine that we are in any way profitable.
So what gives? I'm not complaining, but I am really confused at why we are still here. How bad is it at these announced stores if we are left standing?
If it is a leased store then when your lease runs out then you will close. SHC is not renewing leases unless the store is very profitable. Owed stores can close at any time even if they are profitable.
@TsDFZpx-4mul I think lease stores that arent making enough to cover the lease get automatically dropped sooner or later. As for owned stores the same applies, but I think this is the catch as long as no one has offered to buy the property it remains open until someone says "hey I want to buy your old building" as someone mentioned an owned property has a big win since by now they are owned and they don't have to pay a lease, as for a lease they have to pay monthly high expensive prices just to keep the store running.
Is it an owned property? My store was one of the better ones in our district but we were closed in April, while the next store to the north got to stay despite that it performs more poorly... Supposedly Sears owns that one, and for us, apparently our rent was expensive. (Even though the least supposedly still wasn't up for a couple of years.) :(
@TsDFZpx-3glz It is around that much I was shocked if you check the store number thats how bad sales are. Funny thing seems last year was worse because ended positive the month that just passed.
J.R...4 Mil would be an average of nearly 11K per day. If we do 10K on a Sat during Christmas, that's a great day. Sears is dead here in central Fla.
@TsDFZpx-tug I just checked your store number and holy moly I also have no idea how you are still opened. If I was to do and estimate it seems your store per year must be selling like no more than 4 million an year. The only reason I can't think you arent closed yet is your property hasnt gotten an offer and its owned because if it were lease I would just see big losses to just be paying the lease itself.
When a store is down to a few part time employees mostly making minimum wage it doesn't take too much in sales to cover store level costs. They don't gain anything by closing a store that covers its costs, even if it isn't really contributing to corporate profit. So dying stores can drag on for years before it finally makes sense to pull the plug. And as mentioned below, the value of the property can make a difference. They will move faster to close a store if significant gains can be made selling the property.
I've been observing one of the Kmart stores on the latest list for the past few years. Before the closing announcement, they were down to about 4 people working at any one time, and employees still outnumbered the customers. I don't the believe the land is all that desirable, so the company just let it fade away.
Bottom line is money. Our Sears store is in the same exact situation as yours. We thought we would be on the closing list also but fortunately we were not. Remember, all Sears and Kmart properties are for sale. All of them. This is straight from a very successful commercial real estate broker I know. No property is sacred. The company has just not gotten their asking price for your property or ours either. As soon as they get their asking price they sell. Also, if it makes sense to close a store to stop the bleeding because it is obvious they can't get their price they will do that also.
I did a lot of research to learn that store 2028 in Hemet is leased from the company that owns the very tiny mall. Our foot traffic continously declines. Don’t know our profit margin...We myst do well enough that it is more cost effective to continue on with the lease but still I constantly question why we have yet to be closed.
When we DO eventually close, this location will be sorely missed by the seniors of which there is a high concentration of in our town. They don’t care for internet purchases or SYW, they just trust the Sears name. I know I once did.
I ask the same question about mine. At the end of the day I don't want it to close, but how can this place be open when we have days where we end at a measly $1-2k in sales for the ENTIRE store and we struggle to break $6-7k on our so-called "busier" days? We barely break $10k once or twice a month. Our shrink is over $100,000 each year, right off the top. I keep track of all kinds of metrics, so I ask myself the same question? How is it fiscally possible that our doors remain open with all of these store closures taking place?
Granted, my store is not leased, so no rent is paid. However, it's not exactly a hot property for Seritage to sell off, being in a dead mall and all. Still, it takes my breath away that a store 25 miles from us is on the latest closing list and it's making Sears at least a bit more money than we ever will. A $10k day for them is a slow day, for us, it's a pretty bustling, busy day, sadly.
Given our sad, sad DATG/BF perofrmance last year, I was certain that we were done for when January rolled around and the company made their usual after-holiday discovery that the holiday sales didn't go so well. When we unlocked the doors on Thanksgiving, a whole ten mintues going by before our first customer walked through our doors. On Black Friday, there was no crowd. It was a teeny bit busier than our usual day, but by no means was it successful. About half of the customers walking in walked back out when they discovered we didn't sell TVs or any other electronics. I think we did $15,000. A Walmart store does that the first TEN MINUTES.
But Sears is odd. Look at how long the media and even Wall Street financial analysts have been saying Sears is doomed and it will shut down completely next month or by the next year. Yet it is still here. I'm not denying that Sears is not long for this world, but it is miraculously here. It's just that one knows for how much longer. It's all in that one trick Eddie has up his sleeve to keep it limping along for a few more months.
I think OP their is a lot of factors as one of the posters below said.
Maybe you were very profitable once, but now that you arent making that much you might still be making some profit that they still don't want to close you. Also theirs a balance of profits vs expenses. For example in my store they have cut so much (eliminated 2 ASM's in a heartbeat this January to try to save money since we arent making so much money). Our sales have been going down and down. The biggest one of all I would say is a lawsuit. I have heard stores closing from big lawsuits that basically close the store because they rather not deal with it. Along with very expensive cost to fix big things on the store (like some mole issue or ceiling issue etc).
I would also assume if the store is owned or lease having an owned store saves tons of money since some of this properties are already owned by now, but who knows this are some things to keep in mind OP.
2885
What is your store number
A lot has to do with the DC deliveries. they cannot have a store too far away from the other stores or have a single delivery to an outlier store. So they tend to close stores in groups that are near one another, to eliminate a whole delivery area. Or they will close the stores that are far away from other stores. Also, if your lease is near expiring they will keep you open and not renew the lease unless it is cheaper to pay the rent on an empty store than to keep it open and lose money.