Seen some debate about this on this board but I haven’t seen a thread about it. If there is one, I apologize. My intention is to find out if there are any positives in this, cause in my head this looks to me like a desperate attempt to hang in there a little longer, nothing else.
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Reduce the size of the store to a few cardboard boxes and a garage sale and get the same results in sales and profit as the larger stores now. Call it Sears Compact. Set up and sell 15 year old appliances and hardware goods in Walmart and Target parking lots to remain competitive.
If they were really serious, Eddie or Leena or whoever is running things would be crawling on their knees to either Toshiba or NCR begging them to sell them a new POS system cheap. Now long do we think those 20 year old Surepos 750's are going to last?
Agree with gxi... we had a 'small' Sears hardware store in our neighborhood that actually was a decent store... then they started selling appliances also... again, Sears did a decent job... unfortunately a year later they closed up shop... the nearby Wal Mart, Target and Home Depot continued to take business away. This is just a 'back to the future' concept that probably will not work. There is a nearby Sears outlet but every time I visit I don't see a lot of customer traffic there either. Even Lowe's had to close a store that was close to the big 3 of Target, Wal Mart & Home Depot. Those are just tough competitors that are difficult to overcome.
All of the upbeat press for 3 small stores of a concept that has proved to be unprofitable.
I'd be more excited if they announced spending money on the 400 Sears stores that have 14 plus years of grime and deferred maintenance.
It's all smoke and mirrors.
On the brighter side, look to see what Target has been doing in 1000 of their stores. Complete remodels.
Sears Grand was NEVER a small store.
Going through decades worth of already tried ideas in order to shrink Sears' footprint and lose more money. After turning Sears from a $50B company into a $5B company, the brilliant idea Eddie and the 3 stooges come up with is, why not give Sears HomeLife another try? It worked so well the first time!
The only stand alone footprint that was successful til 2011 was SHOS. Owned and operated by single entities. Selling 3 billion. It's ruined now. Lowe's just posted a pic of 20 Craftsman Tractors outside one of their locations. Plus Husqvarna, and Cubcadet. Sears is like the plague now. And The leadership is ruining the relationship between dedicated, loyal owners and SHOS. Sad that could've worked in relation ship.
Many, many years ago Sears tried small size stores. Homelife, Sears Paint and Hardware, Sears Grand, and Orchard Supply. None of these were successful.
The value of the Sears name is minimal.
I think either way it is only a matter of time before all stores close.