My store in New England sold out of air conditioners today. We only had Kenmore brand this year (we used to have more). I work on commission and asked my SM when we get more and he couldn't tell me. Really? We have people buying the Kenmore on amazon.com because we can't get them to the store.
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An A/C being in stock for purchase follows a water heater as to priority as to have stock on hand. Suppliers are limiting exposure to Sears in limiting inventory to reshipped that might not get paid for. Go go to the store for A?C because you need to now!!
I agree. I think it Eddie is wrong on this one. People want the AC units right away. They don't want to wait even for a couple of days. This sounds like a blown opportunity for the Kenmore units.
Odd. Truck today had Kenmore for our store. A good size pallet.
Remember, Eddie said that our members would rather shop online than visit their local Sears store, so there probably is a directive to keep most of them at the DC's since they think they will sell most of them online and they can just ship them from the DC.
Then, lest we forget, we are notorious for having supplier issues. We pay some company to make all of those Kenmore air conditioners, and they make air conditioners for 20 other different brand names too. If they feel like we aren't going to pay them on time or at all, they will stop cranking them out, period, end of discussion. When you start seeing "sold out" online then you know this to be the case because the same people making our Kenmore air conditioners are selling similar air conditioners under all those different brand names at other stores, and those ACs are readily available, so why wouldn't you be able to get one at Sears or Kmart?
In reality, people are coming in on the hottest days looking for something to take home TODAY. If they can't get it the same day they will just go elsewhere. Even the chain drugstores have bulk stacks of air conditioners, as does Walmart and all of the big box home improvement stores. And when they need another appliance down the road they will remember us for not having any air conditioners in stock when they needed one the most and will go elsewhere for their needs in the future, because they feel there might be a chance that they turned away again or told that we can order it for them online if they're willing to wait at least a week. What a way to WOW our members!
Does anyone have any non Kenmore units at there store?
Yeah, looks like orders for Kenmore ACs on sears.com ship to home or store in about a week. That's not bad for most products, but if customers are buying this to urgently replace a dead unit, they probably don't want to wait.
Do them as store-to-home, that way you can get commission and member can get an air conditioner before September.
Maybe Eddie sent all the stock to amazon?
Just a guess, but to land the Amazon deal, SHC might have had to agree to prioritize supplying Amazon over supplying their own stores. If this isn't intentional for that reason, it's just incompetent supply chain management.
That's the idea, to sell online.