Things Become Extinct, But Wow ...

[Inky_Wretch]

Last spring, as part of my do-it-while-I'm-young-enough kick, I bought an old sailboat with the idea that I'd take it out for weekend overnights on the lake*. To that end, I bought a 1970 Sears outboard motor on Ebay for $100. Of course it came in a mechanical mess -- among other things the connecting rod (which connects the piston to the crankshaft) was in two pieces -- but over a month or so I nursed it back to life. I was astounded to find that Sears Parts Direct: A) still has available those "exploded" diagrams for products so friggin' old; and B) still actually stocks some parts for such things. The parts they stock are, I assume, in use on more contemporary products. Still, that they keep track of those cross-listings was amazing to me.

*Still haven't overnighted yet, but am definitely going to this spring.

It's insane the number of parts they've got available. It reminds me of Quadratec - where you can order every single part needed to build a complete Jeep CJ-7 (or any other Wrangler variant).

Also, you need to post about the sailboating and the overnight. It sounds awesome.

 

[apeman33]

Two full-line Sears stores between Topeka and the I-25 corridor: Wichita Towne East and Garden City.

What's really odd is that the only reason that Metcalf South Mall in Overland Park hasn't gone the way of the dodo is that the Sears store there does really well. The last time I was at that mall, it was pretty much Sears and about half a dozen mom-and-pops. I think the food court only had two places to eat.

 

[Neutral Corner]

I go back far enough that I remember J.C. Penney's selling the "Penncraft" tool brand. They were an acceptable substitute for Craftsman, perhaps a touch less expensive. There are still some of them in my father's toolchest, and when I get one out it is perceptibly beefier than my own, newer hand tools.

 

[Captain_Kirk]

Outside the C-suites, and probably not even there, who has stuck around Sears long enough to be vested in a pension?

BTW, don't forget they're dragging KMart to the grave with them.

Worked for Sears right out of college from 1985-1999, so I had a vested pension with them. About 5-7 years ago, they offered a lump sum payout, and I jumped on that knowing I would be getting cents on the dollar when they went belly up.

Early on when I was a management trainee, you worked every part of the operation to learn it, and one of my favorite memories was working the returns desk and seeing all the lawnmowers and weedwhackers get returned in the fall after being used all summer under the Craftsman return anything at anytime policy.

They were the T-Rex of retail that got completely eaten alive by WalMart and never figured a way to compete in the 3 decades since. They closed most of the catalog operations in the 90s before the internet came of age where they could have made that a viable option. They owned Allstate, Coldwell Banker and Dean Witter when I was there, and disposed of all them--maybe those deals made sense at the time from a financial standpoint, but it left them with only the dying retail operations. They were always a fish out of water from the 90s on--a company that was resident in the suburban mall that could never compete in the 'soft' lines with their mall competitors--apparel and such--and didn't need to be in those locations to sell their strength--Kenmore appliances, Craftsman tools. Now, their real estate is one of their one things of value from a corporate books perspective.

I enjoyed my days there. Spent the latter half of my time in human resources administration where we did some pretty cool stuff that was pretty highly regarded in the HR function. But, I felt their time was ticking even when I was there at the end, and am actually surprised they've survived this long. And will be just as surprised if they make it through 2017.

 

[Twirling Time]

Fifty years from now we'll be going "Wow" about Walmart. Something else with a better model will supplant it one day, much like Walmart supplanted Sears over the last 25-30 years.

 

[JimmyHoward33]

If they'd invested in the retail side maybe they wouldn't have fallen so far behind. But Eddie Lampert went with the slash and burn, cut cut cut and its been a train wreck. Their capital expenditures are embarrassing compared to Walmart or Target. Not dissimilar to many newspaper exec's philosophies.

 

[Roscablo]

It may sound funny but I actually have a good deal of bigger items from Sears. My lawn mower, a Craftsman, still going strong after about five seasons. Our patio furniture is from there. The last TV I bought I got from there (best price and all). We had a Kenmore washer and dryer set that lasted 12-plus years and we only replaced them because we wanted a bigger capacity. Our local Sears went away when the mall did a renovation. An appliance only Sears opened there in its place. So I haven't done any Sears shopping in the past few years, but they've had good stuff right up until the end. Which does appear to be near.

 

[Riptide]

It may sound funny but I actually have a good deal of bigger items from Sears. My lawn mower, a Craftsman, still going strong after about five seasons. Our patio furniture is from there. The last TV I bought I got from there (best price and all). We had a Kenmore washer and dryer set that lasted 12-plus years and we only replaced them because we wanted a bigger capacity. Our local Sears went away when the mall did a renovation. An appliance only Sears opened there in its place. So I haven't done any Sears shopping in the past few years, but they've had good stuff right up until the end. Which does appear to be near.

That's still the great thing about Sears: You can buy a refrigerator and a washer/dryer, then walk 30 feet and buy a riding mower and a chainsaw. All of that stuff right there on the sales floor.

 

[SpeedTchr]

Amazon and others may have pushed Sears over the brink, but you can't wipe your ass with the internet. Game, set, match to the legendary catalog.

 

[dixiehack]

Sears seemed like a gyp to a small-town kid in the early 80s. You had the catalog full of glorious toys, electronics, interesting looking cartoon designs or sports logos on clothing, etc. But the tiny Sears store in Podunk only had room for a few washers and dryers, some hand tools, etc. Then when you made the trip to the big city mall, there were dozens of cooler-seeming shops to explore. Sears was what you walked through to get to the mall from the parking lot.

 

[The Big Ragu]

The department stores are just in a bad way. The world is changing. None of this is new with Sears. It has been dying a slow death right before our eyes for years now.

Sears put out its holiday sales numbers yesterday and they were dismal. Decline of 12 to 13 percent in November and December for Sears and Kmart stores open at least a year. In the last two weeks, they have announced that they are closing hundreds of stores -- huge sales, but losing money.

Sears is maybe the biggest dinosaur, but this is just a trend. Macy's and Kohl's each reported drops of more than 2 percent in their holiday sales the day before. Macy's announced they are going to close 68 stores this year.

Slice Intelligence, which scanned more than a million digital shopping receipts, put out something saying that Amazon accounted for 38 percent of online sales from November 1 to December 29. It's pretty much the same as the year before. Amazon is eating the lunch of the traditional retailers right now, and even the ones trying to play are finding it hard to keep up, because Amazon has years of investment in building up its infrastructure and squeezing out margins. All of this is great for consumers, really. Amazon loses money from its core retail business -- it has never turned a corner and is in this endless mode of trying to take more and more market share. Yet, they keep investing in infrastructure, building warehouses (at a massive clip), trimming delivery times and great prices. They have Prime, which they sell at a loss. And the products they are selling are at razor-thin margins. For the consumer, it means you are getting the lowest prices possible. Anyone competing with them has to offer the lowest price possible.

I am not sure where it all ends. They can't keep operating that way forever. And they have built out into other business -- for example, AWS, its cloud business is killing it and does make money. If things got really bad, they have some serious assets to sell off at a profit. But at a certain point, any business (the shareholders who own it) SHOULD want to make money from the business. You can only invest so much, before you want some fruit from the tree.

As long as they stay on this plan to take more and more market share, yeah, there is no place in the world for Sears and several others. The world has changed.

 

[lcjjdnh]

Seems to me Eddie Lampert shouldn't have been trying to run his business like Ayn Rand would run an economy. It sort of defeats the whole purpose of organizing as a firm--saving on transaction costs. Sort of pointless to force divisions to bargain with each other in the "free market"---just break the company up if you think that's a more efficient method of organization.