"After 20 Straight Quarterly Losses, Sears Holdings Is All but Dead" "After suffering its 20th consecutive quarterly decline, it's clear Sears Holdings (NASDAQ:SHLD) is a zombie retailer that is dead but just doesn't know it yet. Because it does still have a relatively valuable real estate portfolio, it may be able to continue shambling along for some time, but it's clear to everyone except CEO Eddie Lampert that there is no hope that it will come back to life." http://www.fool.com/investing/2016/12/23/after-20-straight-quarterly-losses-sears-holdings.aspx Growing up outside Chicago, Sears was our "bastion" of last resort. Once, some kind of tool or fitting my Dad needed, the hardware store close to home failed him; "Come on", he said, "Sears will have it"! They did. Invariably. I married in '65, bought my folks' house from them, which I was born in, as they wished to move to a place in the country, which they did. This left the old brick bungalow exposed to changes desired by a younger generation, decried by the older. I needed a circular saw, among other things, to remodel the basement and eliminate that dark, drab, dank place substituting one where friends could be entertained. My young wife Sue, bought me a Sears Craftsman circular saw for Christmas that year. It was the "Contractors' Model", best they had to offer. Will you believe I still have and use it? 50+ years later! Sears advertising gimmicry back then claimed this saw could cut 50,000 2X4s without failing. Over the years, I used it to build: that basement remodel. A 2-car garage in Las Vegas. A 2-car garage in Phoenix. An 1800 sq. ft. house plus 2-car garage in Phoenix. A 16X40 foot cabin in which we lived when I was cast out of work, in Show Low, AZ. An enclosed carport at our first house in Phoenix. I think with all the trusses built, studs cut, rafters, interior finishing, that saw made it well beyond the advertised prowess. Forgot the big shop building in Missouri!. The damned saw sits out in my tool cabinet, and is going to outlive me! Why should a company capable of selling such an exemplary product (which suggests ALL their tools were similarly superb), be faltering? "Made in China", I think. Got a nice Christmas card from my U.S. Marine nephew in NC a few days ago. When I turned it over, the fine print at the bottom gleamed back at my eye, as though mocking me: "Made in China". Frank
Sears started their suicide run back in the 1980s and I'll be glad to see them go. Since Whirlpool was formed in the very early 1900s they partnered with Sears on a handshake to make washing machines and later other appliances for Sears. If you bought an appliance from Sears, whether, Kenmore or another brand, it was made by Whirlpool. Some time in the late 70s or early 80s, Sears new management threatened Whirlpool to cut costs or we'll have our products made in China. Whirlpool tried, they cut corners so much the quality really suffered but Sears kept demanding lower prices. It got to the point even with the poor quality we were making, Whirlpool was losing money on everything we sold to Sears, And the poor quality was hurting Whirlpools reputation. Whirlpool finally gave up and let Sears buy their products from China. I have other stories about Sears shady business practices too If anyone wants to hear them.
I haven't been in a Sears since the 80's or earlier, so it's not a great Loss to me. In fact I thought they were long gone already since I never even see a store.
Most, if not all, of the Sears stores in our area have made it into the huge shopping malls in the suburban business districts outside of the city. You need to have transportation public or private to get to them but Sears also has a website. @Sheldon Scott that is a good tidbit on Whirlpool and Sears. I happen to love Whirlpool and Kenmore appliances luckily we purchased our Whirlpool washer and dryer much later. I would have been really disappointed with Whirlpool if I experienced that lack of quality you mentioned.
@Sheldon Scott @Von Jones Whatever the case may be, I began buying Sears Craftsman hand tools, of all kinds, as I needed them while a teenager, working on cars. On the infrequent occasion when one failed, broken, or bent, or always any condition excluding mis-use, Sears never once failed to hand me a replacement, no questions asked. Lifetime warranty. Not so, however, on power tools. Still using the Craftsman circular saw my first wife bought for me Christmas 1966. Pretty solid testimonial. Here is what I bought for her, the Sears Kenmore two-oven gas stove she really wanted.
I still like Sears Craftsman tools, and I shop in Sears fairly regularly. Macy's has really gone downhill but Sears seems about the same to me, except that they have been closing many of their smaller stores. We had a small Sears store in Millinocket when I moved here but it closed within a couple of months of our arriving.
I can remember when just about everything we bought except food came from either Sears or Montgomery Wards. Not even their catalogs went to waste in our house as my mom would give us big sheets of freezer paper and my siblings and I would draw houses and roadways, etc. and then cut "our families" out of the catalogs, along with our "home furnishings", etc. Montgomery Wards didn't keep up with progress and Sears isn't keeping up with it either. In the past Sears was one of a few choices....but now Sears is one of to many choices. And while these to many choices are always changing and rearranging...Sears has become stagnant and mired down in the same old, same old. It's the way of this world..to make room for progress...you gotta get rid of the old and bring in the new. That's life....
We'd buy more from Sears if they'd deliver to our house. They used to do that, perhaps because they had more local facilities. Now that they've concentrated their store to the malls, pretty much, they won't deliver outside of a fifty-mile range. There have been several appliances that we'd have bought from Sears if not for that.
@Babs Hunt When I was a kid, my Dad always referred to Wards as "Monkey Wards". They had far less to offer than Sears, generally, but were nonetheless a good place to buy needed merchandise. Interestingly (or not, depending on personal view), my niece's husband was a V.P. at Wards, hired and directed specifically to handle the laying off of the entire employee bank. @Sheldon Scott Interesting you mention 1980. I started working for Sears part-time in 1986, while working at building our house outside Phoenix. I believe that year they were celebrating their 100th. year in business. Within a year or two, they began selling off various Sears-owned businesses other than retail sales: Allstate Insurance was one of the first, a major stake in Discover Card, others. They have limped along since then, apparently. Recently, I noticed Craftsman tools for sale at non-Sears stores, notably Ace Hardware. One of Sears' worst calamities was the building and introduction of stores nation-wide called "Homelife", selling only furniture. I serviced one of those in Mesa, AZ. Frank
Imagine that! Here we were zillions of miles apart, I was in the Chicagoland area, you, in say 1960......?? The times have changed.