11 ms·

The Decline of Sears

54 points by zatkin 11y ago

PaulHoule 11y ago
For decades it has been a poster child for mismanagement. I took my Tv-b-gone to a business school and zapped the TVs that had CNBC and stuff like that and they turned them back on in an hour and the next time I used it they put tape on the IR sensors. I zapped the TVs at sears and they were still off a year later. Sears is the only entity that has denied me credit. (Doesn't stop them from asking me to apply. For years I was a fan of sears auto center because the cashier would sometimes give me 4 tires for the price of one and they were the kind of lovable gearheads that always had the manager's camaro. They went on of business and an mma training center moved in and I don't get it because this is the only state where mma is banned...
- AI_Overlord 11y ago
  Four tires for the price of one... Should not be hard to find out why they went out of business.
fixxer 11y ago
They just picked up a guy from Amazon and are building their data science team. Should be interesting to read the same article next year. Edit: I think this is going to have zero impact on their biz. I got a recruiter solicitation earlier this week and started laughing. Additionally, "PhD is a firm requirement."
- ninjakeyboard 11y ago
  Implementing Hadoop isn't going to fix their position in the market. http://www.informationweek.com/it-leadership/why-sears-is-going-all-in-on-hadoop/d/d-id/1107038 http://www.informationweek.com/it-leadership/why-sears-is-go...?
- ajross 11y ago
  The time to have done that was 15 years ago. At this point it's too late. Really, Sears was the Amazon of the past century. They built an empire on selling "everything" to anyone they could reach with a package. They drove innovation in shipping and inventory management to the extent that virtually no one could even try to compete with them during their dominance. And then they sat on their comfy chairs as this "Bezos" guy with nothing but some computers and investment cash walked through and did everything they were doing better. At this point, what does Sears have that even counts as an asset in that competition? Amazon has bigger and more warehouses and a ten year lead in optimization of their supply chain.
  - mixmastamyk 11y ago
    Agreed, except I would extend those numbers to 20 years. I loved receiving the sears catalog as a kid, especially the xmas edition. I bet a lot of it was tracked through computers even in that day.
- Zigurd 11y ago
  It's decades too late. Sears owned "clicks and mortar" since before there were clicks. How do you fuck that up? It takes a perversely incompetent bordering on sociopathic management to turn such dominance into terminal decline.
  - Spooky23 11y ago
    Stupid MBA, stats and excel driven management is capable of destroying everything. Sears literally shuttered the catalog operation right before ecommerce was a thing. They literally had a 100 year lead on the market previously and had moderate success with selling stuff on pre-Internet online networks like Prodigy.
    - ghaff 11y ago
      >Sears literally shuttered the catalog operation right before ecommerce was a thing. The catalog operation hadn't been a big part of sears in a long time--maybe decades. Amazon's success didn't result from having the bide idea to be "the everything store." It was executing on it--and, by the way, making losses along the way that shareholders would likely never have tolerated in a mature retail chain. I'm not convinced that Sears had any particular unfair advantage as a retailer to dominate in ecommerce just because they had once been known for their catalog. >stats and excel driven management I think you can be pretty certain that any successful retailer is highly number-driven from picking sites to handling supply chains.
      - Spooky23 11y ago
        I'm not suggesting that it's advisable to run a Fortune 50 company by gut instinct. I am suggesting that if you owned a major retailer with an established catalog model, plus a network of stores and storefronts to deliver catalog orders, PLUS a cash cow insurance company (Allstate), PLUS a broadly established payment network (Discover) in 1993, divesting yourself of those assets at that time is a particularly untimely thing to do. It's also reflective of not seeing the big picture.
      - Zigurd 11y ago
- cableshaft 11y ago
  The recruiting company they use for hiring people is a joke. The guy who contacted me I could barely understand, got angry when I had to ask him to repeat himself, and didn't confirm that he had set up an interview for me until the NIGHT BEFORE at 7:30pm (and I was working three hours away, so I was going to have to take a sick day at my job in order to go).
  - fixxer 11y ago
    What got me was the PhD requirement. I've worked for some big names in a range of industries and to think that they only had "PhD preferred" while Sears is requiring for a large team (~15 people) strikes me as a bit odd (and indicative that they don't know wtf they are doing in this space either). Full disclosure: I'm a PhD dropout. Hasn't hurt my salary; probably has helped since I got 3+ years work experience by dropping after quals.
- MrTonyD 11y ago
  I do consulting - and I spent some time with the Sears data science team. Don't get your hopes up. A broken culture is hard to change. They seemed pretty "downtrodden". (I should add that they were all good people. I would work with any of them again.)
  - fixxer 11y ago
    I know a few people there and no, my hopes are nonexistent. I'm honestly amazed they still exist.
  - gogopuppygogo 11y ago
    I know a few people on the management team. It's basically a sinking ship with no one trying anymore. They'd do better spinning the brand into it's own entity under a licensing agreement with a competent ecommerce company like Newegg. In fact that should probably be their strategy if they want to survive. One entity for the real estate, one for the brick and mortar then another for online commerce. Then have Newegg acquire the majority share of their ecommerce business and rebrand as Sears. It'd be like lightning growth hit them since the Newegg guys know what they are doing in online commerce. But that'd never happen.
kevin_thibedeau 11y ago
My town has a K-mart that I refuse to go to because the customer experience is so pitiful and the checkout process is glacially slow. There is no nearby competition from Target or Wal-Mart. They could own retail in this area but instead they hold up lines of customers with the stupid POS systems that are set up to print out 4 feet of receipts causing the printers to constantly run out of paper.
- JoeAltmaier 11y ago
  I saw a piece on WalMart when they were new. Customer service was their mantra. Showed a manager from a WalMart visiting a K-Mart with the journalist. Pointing out the dirt, the broken racks, the tiny number of checkout stations, the idle listless employees. Said something like "Its not hard to do better".
  - thekevan 11y ago
    Customer service is non existent in a majority of the WalMarts I have frequented. Tangentially, a social worker friend of mine says she supports and shops at WalMart because WalMart employs the otherwise unemployable.
    - blisterpeanuts 11y ago
      Curiously, I have had the opposite experience at Walmarts around the country. I've almost always found help when I needed it, the employees seemed reasonably competent and none of these "unemployable losers" that I keep hearing about on social media. To the extent that retail is still a profession, anyway. A couple of generations back, retail was a high standards industry with highly trained staff and high expectations among the customers.
      - nommm-nommm 11y ago
        On Friday I went to Walmart to pick up a site to store online order. Well, lets start with the fact they told me it would be there by Monday (I ordered it on Sat). I went to the site to store counter which was in the back. There was shelves behind the counter that were empty (shouldn't those shelves contain site to store orders for easy access?). Pressed the "call employee" button. Sat down and waited, waited, waited. Some employee on their way to the bathroom asked me if I needed assistance, "I pressed the button." He radioed in that he needed someone at site to store. Nobody. So he went to go get the person. They come back eventually guy says "sorry about the wait I was helping another customer at the front of the store." Apparently only one employee is capable of operating site to store. He looks up my order says "this may take a minute to find." and goes to the back. 10 minutes later (no exaggeration) he comes back and says "this will take a little longer." Someone else comes to site to store and presses the button. Same guy comes out and says hes looking for my order so he'll be with them in a while. Once again... apparently only one person can operate site to store and if they are busy oh well. Another employee walks by and asks if we need help. Other person was like "I haven't been helped, he's looking for this other persons order." She goes to the back to get him (apparently she can't operate site to store either). She comes out and says hes moving boxes because someone buried my order behind boxes and that's all she knows. Guy comes back out eventually with my order. Checks me out and he doesn't have a pen for me to sign that I got my order. I just took one out of my pocket, signed the paper, and gave him the pen (it was a free pen). Took at least 30 minutes altogether. I don't get it. The whole point of site to store is for convenience but they seem to make it as inconvenient as possible.
thekevan 11y ago
This article doesn't address the fact that Sears was once a standard. However they didn't change as the younger generations came on. I don't know as their customers are switching to a competitor as much as they are just dying.
- mark-r 11y ago
  Sure they changed - just not for the better. If they'd simply stayed the same as they were 25 years ago, they wouldn't necessarily be thriving, but they'd be in much better shape than they are today.
  - Pxtl 11y ago
    Exactly. Their failed attempts to modernize have chased off their old customers, whereas their otherwise glacial pace hasnt attracted any new ones.
joezydeco 11y ago
Any mention of the fall of Sears under Eddie Lampert should not omit Lampert's vision of running the company under Ayn Rand's Objectivist principles, and how that completely failed: http://www.salon.com/2013/12/10/ayn_rand_loving_ceo_destroys_his_empire_partner/ http://www.salon.com/2013/12/10/ayn_rand_loving_ceo_destroys... http://www.bloomberg.com/bw/articles/2013-07-11/at-sears-eddie-lamperts-warring-divisions-model-adds-to-the-troubles http://www.bloomberg.com/bw/articles/2013-07-11/at-sears-edd...
- briandear 11y ago
  This in itself doesn't discredit Rand, it just discredits his execution of Rand. A physicist that fails even though he believes in Quantum Theory doesn't mean Quantum Theory is necessarily wrong. The Salon article is rather biased and doesn't actually analyze the specific failure points as it relates to Rand. Selling Rolexes in Sears isn't Randian -- it's just a bad business decision. The dude's personality also isn't necessarily Randian either and it would seem that was a major contributor to his failures. There are plenty of Christian business successes and failures -- and they rarely have anything to do with Christianity. Did he actually follow Rand? Selling a $4000 Rolex in Sears has nothing to do with Rand. The Salon article even states "discredited free market.." Is that so? I'm not sure many reputable microeconomists would say the free market is discredited any more than the law of supply and demand is discredited. There are distortions that happen surely, but that doesn't 'discredit' anything. Has Adam Smith been discredited? We could more easily say that Marxism has been discredited based on the fact that nearly every Marxist economy has failed while plenty of free market economies have succeeded. This failure has zero to do with Rand and everything to do with the personal failings of this CEO.
  - bickfordb 11y ago
    Are there any examples of a company successfully run with Ayn Rand's principles?
    - goodside 11y ago
      It's ironic this isn't used more often to judge Objectivism's merits, though it's a bit disingenuous since it's prudent for most businesses to avoid having any polarizing opinions. E.g. Roark Capital, the owner of Cinnabon and Arby's that's named after Rand protagonist Howard Roark, doesn't seem to officially advocate the philosophy. BB&T under John Allison is the only one I can find that's indisputably both successful and guided by Objectivism -- $24B market cap, $188B assets, senior management required to read Ayn Rand, they donate to promote Objectivism in colleges, etc.
douche 11y ago
I have to be careful buying tools from Sears now (which is really the only reason I go in there), because they've started selling cheap knock-off stuff under the Craftsman label, that isn't up to the old quality standards and doesn't have the Craftsman lifetime warranty on it. I think the worst was a socket set I picked up, where the chrome was literally coming off in flakes after a couple months.
- bliti 11y ago
  I stopped buying them about ten years ago. I now just buy the cheapest thing available for hand tools that have no special use. For powertools I stick to Hilti. Air-driven Snap-on. Specialty tools are purchased from Snap-on or Matco. Craftsman used to be a good brand, now its just a brand.
- hga 11y ago
  Gaaah, I wish I could say I couldn't believe this, but e.g. http://www.craftsman.com/en_us/customer-care/warranty-information.html#point12 http://www.craftsman.com/en_us/customer-care/warranty-inform... "Craftsman Hand Tools NOT labeled HAND TOOL FULL WARRANTY in warranty header" Are only covered for 1 year, and of course you've got to provide proof of purchase. They're insane.
  - sokoloff 11y ago
    I believe those limited warranty tools tend to be gardening tools and the like. As far as I know, the Craftsman brand mechanics hand tools are still lifetime warranty. The 1 year term is for tools "not of metal construction".
    - hga 11y ago
      You could well be right, I just spent several minutes at sears.com looking at socket sets and all that I looked at, including a number of the lowest, "only" 4 star rated ones, had lifetime warranties. However, by giving any hand tool labeled Craftsman a less than lifetime warranty, they've done terrible damage to the brand, you shouldn't have to worry about this when shopping at Sears.
jimhefferon 11y ago
They are much more interested in selling you credit than in what they are in business for.
- PhantomGremlin 11y ago
  I know someone who works as a cashier at Sears. She gets $2 for signing up someone for in-house credit, $4 for a real credit card. And she gets yelled at if she doesn't meet her quota (one signup for every $500 in sales). I think it's an idiotic policy from the point of view of a customer who doesn't want a credit card. Because it slows down the line, all this promotion and paperwork is being done at the cash register.
Asparagirl 11y ago
This long MetaFilter comment from 2007 is my all-time favorite explanation about what Sears had, and what they could have become, and how they let it all slip away: http://www.metafilter.com/62394/The-Record-Industrys-Decline#1742245 http://www.metafilter.com/62394/The-Record-Industrys-Decline... The catalog. Allstate Insurance. Coldwell Banker. Dean Witter. Prodigy! The Discover Card. The goodwill, the name recognition, the money back guarantee. All gone now.
- marshray 11y ago
  That was an amazing read. "In 1993, Sears had the most extensive and sophisticated mail-order retail operation on the planet and they closed it. Two years later, Amazon.com launched" That's got to go down in history.
  - gregpilling 11y ago
    I have long wondered why they didn't do the 'same day delivery' thing once Amazon showed that people would pay for it. With all their locations and space, they have inventory near most of the population. Add some uber-contractors and voila! ,, well they could have tried it anyway.
blisterpeanuts 11y ago
Sears has good automotive repair services, decent large appliances, and a competent line of tools and car parts. Their other consumer goods such as clothing, sporting goods, shoes, and electronics seem somehow lacking. There is a disconnect somewhere. Once, while I was browsing at the local Sears, an employee sourly commented, "We sell fishing rods but no hooks." The prices are high compared to the other big box retailers, let alone Amazon. Their website lacks the rich shopping experience of Amazon. Speaking of hooks, there is nothing to draw customers into the store, no focus, no reason to go in and browse. It's a dull, utilitarian experience. Sears is big, has excellent brand recognition, and still occupies a lot of prime commercial real estate. What they seem to be lacking is a refreshed product line, cutthroat pricing, and the brilliant marketing and advertising that is needed to draw in business.
- taloft 11y ago
  The reason I go into Sears is they have the most open parking spots at the mall. Everywhere else is packed.
  - Animats 11y ago
    Yes. That led to one of the more pathetic ads in the history of retail - "There's always parking at Sears".[1] [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xLmu98-wkmk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xLmu98-wkmk
aczerepinski 11y ago
When Lampert took over Sears there were so many articles drawing a parallel to Buffett taking over Berkshire way back in the day. Both were successful hedge fund managers who took control of a declining business. Ostensibly, Lampert was going to leverage Sears' assets (mostly the real estate) to develop a Berkshire-esque portfolio of strong companies. He started off in that direction, buying Lands End and making a bid for Restoration Hardware. I recall an interview or press release laying out a vision for Sears as a "store of stores" that showcased iconic American brands - Kenmore, Diehard, Lands End, etc. Somewhere along the line that dream died, and the cash flow was used mostly just to repurchase shares while letting the stores Languish. A bunch of concepts were tried in a handful of stores, but none promised an attractive ROI so they were dropped. Bruce Berkowitz is another investor that used to get compared to Buffett an awful lot, and tied his fate to the Sears project. He's still buying more shares and saying he sees value there. I don't really have a point other to say that investing is hard, and identifying talented value investors who will outperform in the future is even harder. Whether this was a dumb idea all along, or a poorly executed good idea is tough to say.
- dharmon 11y ago
  People talk about the "Sports Illustrated cover jinx", and even a similar EA video game cover jinx, where making the cover precedes a period of underperformance. I think a similar effect could be claimed for being called the next Buffett. There is a long list of investor casualties after such a comparison (including the ones you mentioned). Most recently I'm thinking of Bill Ackman, who was on the cover of Fortune last year with the title "Baby Buffett"... right before a painful 20% tumble.
  - abcampbell 11y ago
    Agree. Think it more just speaks to how hard it is to generate alpha in investing. It's like being the MVP of the NBA. The competition is fierce, and you are playing a zero-sum game, hence generating returns greater than available by putting money 'in the market' is hard and (sometimes) ephemeral.
  - colmvp 11y ago
bruceb 11y ago
What comes to mind for different retailers: Wal-Mart: Cheap Target: Not as cheap but Sorta hip and clean Nordstrom: Excellent customer service Forever 21: Fashionable and cheap Sears: Not sure?? JC Pennys: Kinda like Sears but at least we are trying The thing is Sears has been like this for so long. How did they at least not try?
- quicklyfrozen 11y ago
  Sears: Best place to park if mall is busy :-)
headgasket 11y ago
Funny, just bought a Samsung range there, delivered for free yesterday, best price in town for this unit. A few automated delivery date confirmation calls too many, otherwise great experience. I hope the Koreans have a higher standard then Kitchenaid/whirlpool, I've had 3 bad experiences in a row.
- refurb 11y ago
  Same with me. Sears has very competitive prices on appliances and mattresses. The free delivery is nice too.
- Pxtl 11y ago
  Yeah, it's gotten to the point that Samsung is the only appliance brand I really trust anymore since all the old American brands have copied HP's business model: strip-mining your one competitive advantage - your respected name - into a crater.
protomyth 11y ago
There is something seriously wrong with a chain that had "catalog store" in its soul not being able to adapt to the web. Worse, some of the "Sears" stores in rural areas are actually just using the name under license. They are not doing the parent company any good.
- nickhalfasleep 11y ago
  This is the heart of it. In 1993 they cancelled their "catalog", which was the amazon.com of it's day. If they had had the foresight they would have put that online. Same interstate tax savings, same larger selection. I once worked for an online savings / coupon site that had been a catalog ordering company and transitioned the right way (ShopAtHome.com) from a printed catalog business in the early 90's, and had great respect for the founder's insight in doing so.
  - mark-r 11y ago
    The interstate tax savings only works if you have no physical presence in a state. Since Sears was everywhere, it wasn't a possibility for them. Amazon got so much flak for taking advantage of this, they finally decided it was easier to open warehouses everywhere and charge the taxes. But that opened up the possibility of same day delivery.
itodd 11y ago
I recently built a kitchen and made the huge mistake if buying appliances from Sears. I am in awe of how badly this company performed. First delivery attempt, they called the night before to give me a window. Delivery driver called me to make sure I will be home and that he would be there in 30 minutes. They never showed up. After calling I learned the products were not in stock. They did the exact same thing on the second delivery attempt. Third delivery attempt they deliver a damaged fridge. Fourth attempt, they opened the truck and they did not strap down the fridge. Parts everywhere. Fifth, they got it right. Normally I would have cancelled the order but the experience became a curiosity. How badly could a company mess up? Turns out, a lot.
- cgriswald 11y ago
  I ordered my daughter's new bed from a different store with white glove service. First attempt. Driver claimed no one was home. I was doing home renovation. My contractor was there, with no less than 10 other people doing work. The front door was even open at the time as two people were working on and around it. Contractor knew to expect delivery. Second attempt (weeks later). They delivered some parts of a bed, did not assemble what parts were there. Repeatedly gave different stories about where the parts were. They made many claims about where the parts were, none of which seem to be true and some of which conflicted with each other. Third attempt (more weeks after countless phone calls). Driver claimed he could not make it up hill to house. Left. Argument with customer service. Driver returned. They delivered one more part. Did not assemble anything. Fourth attempt (months after original delivery date). Finally delivered the final piece. Moved mattress and box spring to hallway. Assembled bed. Left. Didn't bother to put boxspring and mattress back. (I checked their assembly work, which was fine.) Since then I've gotten multiple phone calls from them telling me the bed is now ready for shipment. I'm amazed they're even still in business.
  - randycupertino 11y ago
    > First attempt. Driver claimed no one was home. Home Depot does this to me a lot. I think it's because the drivers are lazy and don't feel like getting out to attempt the actual delivery.
janesvilleseo 11y ago
One item that always struck me as something these large retailers should do to leverage their physical locations is to provide same/next day delivery. With the ability to pick up the item in store same day when ordering it online what stops them from delivering it. It would require a large investment in delivery vehicles and drivers, but some of these stores have some of that already. Sears has it because they deliver appliances and Best Buy with their Geek Squad technicians. Some businesses do this for other businesses. Staples, Napa, OfficeMax, etc. Why not extend this to the consumer. I would venture to guess they feel that there is no ROI. But if people are not going in the store, give them a reason to buy from you anyways.
- dazc 11y ago
  In the UK we have a retailer trying this. They are somewhat unique though as their physical stores are already more of a warehouse than a regular shop. http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/nov/05/amazon-and-argos-go-head-to-head-with-same-day-delivery http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/nov/05/amazon-and... We have dept stores such as John Lewis that have done well integrating their business online but delivering goods to the home same day is something they would struggle to do economically. They have already had problems with click and collect http://www.theguardian.com/business/2015/jul/01/john-lewis-to-charge-for-click-and-collect http://www.theguardian.com/business/2015/jul/01/john-lewis-t...
- hapless 11y ago
  Staples is primarily a delivery business. The stores exist to drive and sell the B2B services. They don't deliver to consumers because consumers don't need enough office supplies to make it worthwhile.
  - janesvilleseo 11y ago
    True, but they have the infrastructure built, what stops them from extending it to consumers?
    - zyxley 11y ago
analognoise 11y ago
I HATE SEARS. Sorry, let me start off with a story: So my wife and I are looking to replace a Queen size bed with a King size one - we find the one we want at Sears online, cool, place an order. Checkout, put in info, order done. Get notification email, I had put in one of the other mattresses we had been looking at (like an idiot) - ok, no problem I think, I JUST made the order, I will cancel it and get the one that we had wanted. I call the customer service line. "We can't cancel it, it's already with the shipping department." Ok, I don't care - tell them it's cancelled, so I can order the right one? "I'm sorry, I can't do that." Alright, let's do the "Connect me to your supervisor" dance! Get to the "next level" supervisor; this person says, "I can't cancel the order, it's already on the truck." ...You put an order on a truck within 15 minutes of me clicking the button that isn't set to be shipped for two weeks? Is your warehouse made of trucks? "Ok, take it off the truck." I say, convinced I had just solved the problem. "I can't do that. You'll have to receive it, and then return the mattress." "...You mean I'll have to wait two weeks, for you to ship me a mattress I don't want, just so I can return it? That doesn't make any sense." ON TO THE NEXT LEVEL OF SUPERVISOR! By now, what should have been a friendly 30 second call that would replace one order with another one, is 45 minutes of me being increasingly confused and pissed off, but it becomes clear after the third person comes on the line. "Sorry to hear that you want to cancel the order, sir. Could we convince you to take the order, and accept a discount?" WHAT THE FUCK, FOR THE WRONG MATTRESS? Then it hits me - they were giving me the run around, specifically to keep that 'sale' in their system, at almost any cost to them. "NO, cancel the order IMMEDIATELY, and I won't sign for it if you make the mistake of shipping it here!" This finally convinces them to cancel the order. What a waste of an hour! As an upshot, I am so pissed off at this point that I decide not only to not order the right item from Sears, but never to buy anything there ever again, and to inform everyone I had ever met that Sears is terrible and to advise them never to shop there, ever. So now that Sears has come up, I'm going to do the same thing I promised to do then: Don't ever shop at Sears, ever - if there is a damn hurricane and it's the only place with sandbags, I still wouldn't trust them. I know HN is more meta/intellectual and not a personal anecdote kind of place, and I'd keep to that rule, but the fury came over me when I saw Sears, and I couldn't help myself.
rmason 11y ago
I believe that for at least ten years there has been a clear path forward for Sears. It's just that management refuses to follow it. The way forward is for Sears to move completely over to franchising. I remember working in a small town in West Michigan fifteen years ago when a local opened a Sears franchise store, it carried a small subset of what a regular Sears store carried kind of a greatest hits. I was certain that it would be a complete failure. I didn't know anyone who shopped at Sears and the brand would be a drag on the new business. I was totally wrong the new store was a huge hit! I got to know the manager and there are a couple hundred of these stores and the overwhelming majority succeed. Sears is sitting on a lot of valuable real estate that they could sell if the big stores were sold. Franchise stores would popup in the communities that would support them. Just because there aren't any franchise stores in big cities doesn't necessarily mean they wouldn't succeed. Apparently the big brand still has some pull, but the overhead of the big store pulls it down. The key is local owners who are free to stock Sears brands or chose other merchandise, people who understand their communities and can provide great service.
hristov 11y ago
The decline of sears is an interesting subject, but this particular blog post is just blogspam. Better to link to the actual article this blogspam post is inspired by: http://www.forbes.com/sites/adamhartung/2016/02/11/the-5-ways-ed-lampert-destroyed-sears/#3e432adb41de http://www.forbes.com/sites/adamhartung/2016/02/11/the-5-way...
pitaa 11y ago
I used to work for a company that sold the majority of their product to sears. As the only one in the company that actually knew anything about technology, it was my job to make sure our products and company information were set up and up to date in sears' systems. Their systems consisted of multiple online management portals where you'd supply everything from product weight and size to your fax number to how you wanted to get paid, and appeared to have not been updated since 1998 or so. One wouldn't work at all unless you were using Internet Explorer 6. Updating product info required changing it in multiple places as well as emailing them a spreadsheet with the exact same info. ~4 years ago they announced that they had partnered with some SaaS provider do modernize their systems. It required re uploading all your product data, but I was excited to finally get rid of IE 6. That is until I discovered that they couldn't bare to replace their legacy systems, and the new one was just a flashy way to manage an arbitrary subset of your product data, but other changes still require using the old system.
- NegativeK 11y ago
  It doesn't take long, talking to people in the Chicago software industry, to hear horror stories about working for Sears. A good friend got to see multiple coworkers recruited by Sears, only to have them return after only two weeks.
- kevan 11y ago
  I worked in a Sears store from 2008-2010, somewhere around 2009 I think our store got upgraded from a literal mainframe terminal to a virtualized mainframe terminal for inventory management. The box managing the registers ran OS/2 Warp.

54 points by zatkin 11y ago

For decades it has been a poster child for mismanagement. I took my Tv-b-gone to a business school and zapped the TVs that had CNBC and stuff like that and they turned them back on in an hour and the next time I used it they put tape on the IR sensors. I zapped the TVs at sears and they were still off a year later. Sears is the only entity that has denied me credit. (Doesn't stop them from asking me to apply. For years I was a fan of sears auto center because the cashier would sometimes give me 4 tires for the price of one and they were the kind of lovable gearheads that always had the manager's camaro. They went on of business and an mma training center moved in and I don't get it because this is the only state where mma is banned...

AI_Overlord 11y ago
Four tires for the price of one... Should not be hard to find out why they went out of business.

fixxer 11y ago

They just picked up a guy from Amazon and are building their data science team. Should be interesting to read the same article next year. Edit: I think this is going to have zero impact on their biz. I got a recruiter solicitation earlier this week and started laughing. Additionally, "PhD is a firm requirement."

ninjakeyboard 11y ago
Implementing Hadoop isn't going to fix their position in the market. http://www.informationweek.com/it-leadership/why-sears-is-going-all-in-on-hadoop/d/d-id/1107038 http://www.informationweek.com/it-leadership/why-sears-is-go...?
ajross 11y ago
The time to have done that was 15 years ago. At this point it's too late. Really, Sears was the Amazon of the past century. They built an empire on selling "everything" to anyone they could reach with a package. They drove innovation in shipping and inventory management to the extent that virtually no one could even try to compete with them during their dominance. And then they sat on their comfy chairs as this "Bezos" guy with nothing but some computers and investment cash walked through and did everything they were doing better. At this point, what does Sears have that even counts as an asset in that competition? Amazon has bigger and more warehouses and a ten year lead in optimization of their supply chain.
- mixmastamyk 11y ago
  Agreed, except I would extend those numbers to 20 years. I loved receiving the sears catalog as a kid, especially the xmas edition. I bet a lot of it was tracked through computers even in that day.
Zigurd 11y ago
It's decades too late. Sears owned "clicks and mortar" since before there were clicks. How do you fuck that up? It takes a perversely incompetent bordering on sociopathic management to turn such dominance into terminal decline.
- Spooky23 11y ago
  Stupid MBA, stats and excel driven management is capable of destroying everything. Sears literally shuttered the catalog operation right before ecommerce was a thing. They literally had a 100 year lead on the market previously and had moderate success with selling stuff on pre-Internet online networks like Prodigy.
  - ghaff 11y ago
    >Sears literally shuttered the catalog operation right before ecommerce was a thing. The catalog operation hadn't been a big part of sears in a long time--maybe decades. Amazon's success didn't result from having the bide idea to be "the everything store." It was executing on it--and, by the way, making losses along the way that shareholders would likely never have tolerated in a mature retail chain. I'm not convinced that Sears had any particular unfair advantage as a retailer to dominate in ecommerce just because they had once been known for their catalog. >stats and excel driven management I think you can be pretty certain that any successful retailer is highly number-driven from picking sites to handling supply chains.
    - Spooky23 11y ago
      I'm not suggesting that it's advisable to run a Fortune 50 company by gut instinct. I am suggesting that if you owned a major retailer with an established catalog model, plus a network of stores and storefronts to deliver catalog orders, PLUS a cash cow insurance company (Allstate), PLUS a broadly established payment network (Discover) in 1993, divesting yourself of those assets at that time is a particularly untimely thing to do. It's also reflective of not seeing the big picture.
    - Zigurd 11y ago
cableshaft 11y ago
The recruiting company they use for hiring people is a joke. The guy who contacted me I could barely understand, got angry when I had to ask him to repeat himself, and didn't confirm that he had set up an interview for me until the NIGHT BEFORE at 7:30pm (and I was working three hours away, so I was going to have to take a sick day at my job in order to go).
- fixxer 11y ago
  What got me was the PhD requirement. I've worked for some big names in a range of industries and to think that they only had "PhD preferred" while Sears is requiring for a large team (~15 people) strikes me as a bit odd (and indicative that they don't know wtf they are doing in this space either). Full disclosure: I'm a PhD dropout. Hasn't hurt my salary; probably has helped since I got 3+ years work experience by dropping after quals.
MrTonyD 11y ago
I do consulting - and I spent some time with the Sears data science team. Don't get your hopes up. A broken culture is hard to change. They seemed pretty "downtrodden". (I should add that they were all good people. I would work with any of them again.)
- fixxer 11y ago
  I know a few people there and no, my hopes are nonexistent. I'm honestly amazed they still exist.
- gogopuppygogo 11y ago
  I know a few people on the management team. It's basically a sinking ship with no one trying anymore. They'd do better spinning the brand into it's own entity under a licensing agreement with a competent ecommerce company like Newegg. In fact that should probably be their strategy if they want to survive. One entity for the real estate, one for the brick and mortar then another for online commerce. Then have Newegg acquire the majority share of their ecommerce business and rebrand as Sears. It'd be like lightning growth hit them since the Newegg guys know what they are doing in online commerce. But that'd never happen.

kevin_thibedeau 11y ago

My town has a K-mart that I refuse to go to because the customer experience is so pitiful and the checkout process is glacially slow. There is no nearby competition from Target or Wal-Mart. They could own retail in this area but instead they hold up lines of customers with the stupid POS systems that are set up to print out 4 feet of receipts causing the printers to constantly run out of paper.

JoeAltmaier 11y ago
I saw a piece on WalMart when they were new. Customer service was their mantra. Showed a manager from a WalMart visiting a K-Mart with the journalist. Pointing out the dirt, the broken racks, the tiny number of checkout stations, the idle listless employees. Said something like "Its not hard to do better".
- thekevan 11y ago
  Customer service is non existent in a majority of the WalMarts I have frequented. Tangentially, a social worker friend of mine says she supports and shops at WalMart because WalMart employs the otherwise unemployable.
  - blisterpeanuts 11y ago
    Curiously, I have had the opposite experience at Walmarts around the country. I've almost always found help when I needed it, the employees seemed reasonably competent and none of these "unemployable losers" that I keep hearing about on social media. To the extent that retail is still a profession, anyway. A couple of generations back, retail was a high standards industry with highly trained staff and high expectations among the customers.
    - nommm-nommm 11y ago
      On Friday I went to Walmart to pick up a site to store online order. Well, lets start with the fact they told me it would be there by Monday (I ordered it on Sat). I went to the site to store counter which was in the back. There was shelves behind the counter that were empty (shouldn't those shelves contain site to store orders for easy access?). Pressed the "call employee" button. Sat down and waited, waited, waited. Some employee on their way to the bathroom asked me if I needed assistance, "I pressed the button." He radioed in that he needed someone at site to store. Nobody. So he went to go get the person. They come back eventually guy says "sorry about the wait I was helping another customer at the front of the store." Apparently only one employee is capable of operating site to store. He looks up my order says "this may take a minute to find." and goes to the back. 10 minutes later (no exaggeration) he comes back and says "this will take a little longer." Someone else comes to site to store and presses the button. Same guy comes out and says hes looking for my order so he'll be with them in a while. Once again... apparently only one person can operate site to store and if they are busy oh well. Another employee walks by and asks if we need help. Other person was like "I haven't been helped, he's looking for this other persons order." She goes to the back to get him (apparently she can't operate site to store either). She comes out and says hes moving boxes because someone buried my order behind boxes and that's all she knows. Guy comes back out eventually with my order. Checks me out and he doesn't have a pen for me to sign that I got my order. I just took one out of my pocket, signed the paper, and gave him the pen (it was a free pen). Took at least 30 minutes altogether. I don't get it. The whole point of site to store is for convenience but they seem to make it as inconvenient as possible.

thekevan 11y ago

This article doesn't address the fact that Sears was once a standard. However they didn't change as the younger generations came on. I don't know as their customers are switching to a competitor as much as they are just dying.

mark-r 11y ago
Sure they changed - just not for the better. If they'd simply stayed the same as they were 25 years ago, they wouldn't necessarily be thriving, but they'd be in much better shape than they are today.
- Pxtl 11y ago
  Exactly. Their failed attempts to modernize have chased off their old customers, whereas their otherwise glacial pace hasnt attracted any new ones.

joezydeco 11y ago

Any mention of the fall of Sears under Eddie Lampert should not omit Lampert's vision of running the company under Ayn Rand's Objectivist principles, and how that completely failed: http://www.salon.com/2013/12/10/ayn_rand_loving_ceo_destroys_his_empire_partner/ http://www.salon.com/2013/12/10/ayn_rand_loving_ceo_destroys... http://www.bloomberg.com/bw/articles/2013-07-11/at-sears-eddie-lamperts-warring-divisions-model-adds-to-the-troubles http://www.bloomberg.com/bw/articles/2013-07-11/at-sears-edd...

briandear 11y ago
This in itself doesn't discredit Rand, it just discredits his execution of Rand. A physicist that fails even though he believes in Quantum Theory doesn't mean Quantum Theory is necessarily wrong. The Salon article is rather biased and doesn't actually analyze the specific failure points as it relates to Rand. Selling Rolexes in Sears isn't Randian -- it's just a bad business decision. The dude's personality also isn't necessarily Randian either and it would seem that was a major contributor to his failures. There are plenty of Christian business successes and failures -- and they rarely have anything to do with Christianity. Did he actually follow Rand? Selling a $4000 Rolex in Sears has nothing to do with Rand. The Salon article even states "discredited free market.." Is that so? I'm not sure many reputable microeconomists would say the free market is discredited any more than the law of supply and demand is discredited. There are distortions that happen surely, but that doesn't 'discredit' anything. Has Adam Smith been discredited? We could more easily say that Marxism has been discredited based on the fact that nearly every Marxist economy has failed while plenty of free market economies have succeeded. This failure has zero to do with Rand and everything to do with the personal failings of this CEO.
- bickfordb 11y ago
  Are there any examples of a company successfully run with Ayn Rand's principles?
  - goodside 11y ago
    It's ironic this isn't used more often to judge Objectivism's merits, though it's a bit disingenuous since it's prudent for most businesses to avoid having any polarizing opinions. E.g. Roark Capital, the owner of Cinnabon and Arby's that's named after Rand protagonist Howard Roark, doesn't seem to officially advocate the philosophy. BB&T under John Allison is the only one I can find that's indisputably both successful and guided by Objectivism -- $24B market cap, $188B assets, senior management required to read Ayn Rand, they donate to promote Objectivism in colleges, etc.

douche 11y ago

I have to be careful buying tools from Sears now (which is really the only reason I go in there), because they've started selling cheap knock-off stuff under the Craftsman label, that isn't up to the old quality standards and doesn't have the Craftsman lifetime warranty on it. I think the worst was a socket set I picked up, where the chrome was literally coming off in flakes after a couple months.

bliti 11y ago
I stopped buying them about ten years ago. I now just buy the cheapest thing available for hand tools that have no special use. For powertools I stick to Hilti. Air-driven Snap-on. Specialty tools are purchased from Snap-on or Matco. Craftsman used to be a good brand, now its just a brand.
hga 11y ago
Gaaah, I wish I could say I couldn't believe this, but e.g. http://www.craftsman.com/en_us/customer-care/warranty-information.html#point12 http://www.craftsman.com/en_us/customer-care/warranty-inform... "Craftsman Hand Tools NOT labeled HAND TOOL FULL WARRANTY in warranty header" Are only covered for 1 year, and of course you've got to provide proof of purchase. They're insane.
- sokoloff 11y ago
  I believe those limited warranty tools tend to be gardening tools and the like. As far as I know, the Craftsman brand mechanics hand tools are still lifetime warranty. The 1 year term is for tools "not of metal construction".
  - hga 11y ago
    You could well be right, I just spent several minutes at sears.com looking at socket sets and all that I looked at, including a number of the lowest, "only" 4 star rated ones, had lifetime warranties. However, by giving any hand tool labeled Craftsman a less than lifetime warranty, they've done terrible damage to the brand, you shouldn't have to worry about this when shopping at Sears.

jimhefferon 11y ago

They are much more interested in selling you credit than in what they are in business for.

PhantomGremlin 11y ago
I know someone who works as a cashier at Sears. She gets $2 for signing up someone for in-house credit, $4 for a real credit card. And she gets yelled at if she doesn't meet her quota (one signup for every $500 in sales). I think it's an idiotic policy from the point of view of a customer who doesn't want a credit card. Because it slows down the line, all this promotion and paperwork is being done at the cash register.

Asparagirl 11y ago

This long MetaFilter comment from 2007 is my all-time favorite explanation about what Sears had, and what they could have become, and how they let it all slip away: http://www.metafilter.com/62394/The-Record-Industrys-Decline#1742245 http://www.metafilter.com/62394/The-Record-Industrys-Decline... The catalog. Allstate Insurance. Coldwell Banker. Dean Witter. Prodigy! The Discover Card. The goodwill, the name recognition, the money back guarantee. All gone now.

marshray 11y ago
That was an amazing read. "In 1993, Sears had the most extensive and sophisticated mail-order retail operation on the planet and they closed it. Two years later, Amazon.com launched" That's got to go down in history.
- gregpilling 11y ago
  I have long wondered why they didn't do the 'same day delivery' thing once Amazon showed that people would pay for it. With all their locations and space, they have inventory near most of the population. Add some uber-contractors and voila! ,, well they could have tried it anyway.

blisterpeanuts 11y ago

Sears has good automotive repair services, decent large appliances, and a competent line of tools and car parts. Their other consumer goods such as clothing, sporting goods, shoes, and electronics seem somehow lacking. There is a disconnect somewhere. Once, while I was browsing at the local Sears, an employee sourly commented, "We sell fishing rods but no hooks." The prices are high compared to the other big box retailers, let alone Amazon. Their website lacks the rich shopping experience of Amazon. Speaking of hooks, there is nothing to draw customers into the store, no focus, no reason to go in and browse. It's a dull, utilitarian experience. Sears is big, has excellent brand recognition, and still occupies a lot of prime commercial real estate. What they seem to be lacking is a refreshed product line, cutthroat pricing, and the brilliant marketing and advertising that is needed to draw in business.

taloft 11y ago
The reason I go into Sears is they have the most open parking spots at the mall. Everywhere else is packed.
- Animats 11y ago
  Yes. That led to one of the more pathetic ads in the history of retail - "There's always parking at Sears".[1] [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xLmu98-wkmk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xLmu98-wkmk

aczerepinski 11y ago

When Lampert took over Sears there were so many articles drawing a parallel to Buffett taking over Berkshire way back in the day. Both were successful hedge fund managers who took control of a declining business. Ostensibly, Lampert was going to leverage Sears' assets (mostly the real estate) to develop a Berkshire-esque portfolio of strong companies. He started off in that direction, buying Lands End and making a bid for Restoration Hardware. I recall an interview or press release laying out a vision for Sears as a "store of stores" that showcased iconic American brands - Kenmore, Diehard, Lands End, etc. Somewhere along the line that dream died, and the cash flow was used mostly just to repurchase shares while letting the stores Languish. A bunch of concepts were tried in a handful of stores, but none promised an attractive ROI so they were dropped. Bruce Berkowitz is another investor that used to get compared to Buffett an awful lot, and tied his fate to the Sears project. He's still buying more shares and saying he sees value there. I don't really have a point other to say that investing is hard, and identifying talented value investors who will outperform in the future is even harder. Whether this was a dumb idea all along, or a poorly executed good idea is tough to say.

dharmon 11y ago
People talk about the "Sports Illustrated cover jinx", and even a similar EA video game cover jinx, where making the cover precedes a period of underperformance. I think a similar effect could be claimed for being called the next Buffett. There is a long list of investor casualties after such a comparison (including the ones you mentioned). Most recently I'm thinking of Bill Ackman, who was on the cover of Fortune last year with the title "Baby Buffett"... right before a painful 20% tumble.
- abcampbell 11y ago
  Agree. Think it more just speaks to how hard it is to generate alpha in investing. It's like being the MVP of the NBA. The competition is fierce, and you are playing a zero-sum game, hence generating returns greater than available by putting money 'in the market' is hard and (sometimes) ephemeral.
- colmvp 11y ago

bruceb 11y ago

What comes to mind for different retailers: Wal-Mart: Cheap Target: Not as cheap but Sorta hip and clean Nordstrom: Excellent customer service Forever 21: Fashionable and cheap Sears: Not sure?? JC Pennys: Kinda like Sears but at least we are trying The thing is Sears has been like this for so long. How did they at least not try?

quicklyfrozen 11y ago
Sears: Best place to park if mall is busy :-)

headgasket 11y ago

Funny, just bought a Samsung range there, delivered for free yesterday, best price in town for this unit. A few automated delivery date confirmation calls too many, otherwise great experience. I hope the Koreans have a higher standard then Kitchenaid/whirlpool, I've had 3 bad experiences in a row.

refurb 11y ago
Same with me. Sears has very competitive prices on appliances and mattresses. The free delivery is nice too.
Pxtl 11y ago
Yeah, it's gotten to the point that Samsung is the only appliance brand I really trust anymore since all the old American brands have copied HP's business model: strip-mining your one competitive advantage - your respected name - into a crater.

protomyth 11y ago

There is something seriously wrong with a chain that had "catalog store" in its soul not being able to adapt to the web. Worse, some of the "Sears" stores in rural areas are actually just using the name under license. They are not doing the parent company any good.

nickhalfasleep 11y ago
This is the heart of it. In 1993 they cancelled their "catalog", which was the amazon.com of it's day. If they had had the foresight they would have put that online. Same interstate tax savings, same larger selection. I once worked for an online savings / coupon site that had been a catalog ordering company and transitioned the right way (ShopAtHome.com) from a printed catalog business in the early 90's, and had great respect for the founder's insight in doing so.
- mark-r 11y ago
  The interstate tax savings only works if you have no physical presence in a state. Since Sears was everywhere, it wasn't a possibility for them. Amazon got so much flak for taking advantage of this, they finally decided it was easier to open warehouses everywhere and charge the taxes. But that opened up the possibility of same day delivery.

itodd 11y ago

I recently built a kitchen and made the huge mistake if buying appliances from Sears. I am in awe of how badly this company performed. First delivery attempt, they called the night before to give me a window. Delivery driver called me to make sure I will be home and that he would be there in 30 minutes. They never showed up. After calling I learned the products were not in stock. They did the exact same thing on the second delivery attempt. Third delivery attempt they deliver a damaged fridge. Fourth attempt, they opened the truck and they did not strap down the fridge. Parts everywhere. Fifth, they got it right. Normally I would have cancelled the order but the experience became a curiosity. How badly could a company mess up? Turns out, a lot.

cgriswald 11y ago
I ordered my daughter's new bed from a different store with white glove service. First attempt. Driver claimed no one was home. I was doing home renovation. My contractor was there, with no less than 10 other people doing work. The front door was even open at the time as two people were working on and around it. Contractor knew to expect delivery. Second attempt (weeks later). They delivered some parts of a bed, did not assemble what parts were there. Repeatedly gave different stories about where the parts were. They made many claims about where the parts were, none of which seem to be true and some of which conflicted with each other. Third attempt (more weeks after countless phone calls). Driver claimed he could not make it up hill to house. Left. Argument with customer service. Driver returned. They delivered one more part. Did not assemble anything. Fourth attempt (months after original delivery date). Finally delivered the final piece. Moved mattress and box spring to hallway. Assembled bed. Left. Didn't bother to put boxspring and mattress back. (I checked their assembly work, which was fine.) Since then I've gotten multiple phone calls from them telling me the bed is now ready for shipment. I'm amazed they're even still in business.
- randycupertino 11y ago
  > First attempt. Driver claimed no one was home. Home Depot does this to me a lot. I think it's because the drivers are lazy and don't feel like getting out to attempt the actual delivery.

janesvilleseo 11y ago

One item that always struck me as something these large retailers should do to leverage their physical locations is to provide same/next day delivery. With the ability to pick up the item in store same day when ordering it online what stops them from delivering it. It would require a large investment in delivery vehicles and drivers, but some of these stores have some of that already. Sears has it because they deliver appliances and Best Buy with their Geek Squad technicians. Some businesses do this for other businesses. Staples, Napa, OfficeMax, etc. Why not extend this to the consumer. I would venture to guess they feel that there is no ROI. But if people are not going in the store, give them a reason to buy from you anyways.

dazc 11y ago
In the UK we have a retailer trying this. They are somewhat unique though as their physical stores are already more of a warehouse than a regular shop. http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/nov/05/amazon-and-argos-go-head-to-head-with-same-day-delivery http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/nov/05/amazon-and... We have dept stores such as John Lewis that have done well integrating their business online but delivering goods to the home same day is something they would struggle to do economically. They have already had problems with click and collect http://www.theguardian.com/business/2015/jul/01/john-lewis-to-charge-for-click-and-collect http://www.theguardian.com/business/2015/jul/01/john-lewis-t...
hapless 11y ago
Staples is primarily a delivery business. The stores exist to drive and sell the B2B services. They don't deliver to consumers because consumers don't need enough office supplies to make it worthwhile.
- janesvilleseo 11y ago
  True, but they have the infrastructure built, what stops them from extending it to consumers?
  - zyxley 11y ago

analognoise 11y ago

I HATE SEARS. Sorry, let me start off with a story: So my wife and I are looking to replace a Queen size bed with a King size one - we find the one we want at Sears online, cool, place an order. Checkout, put in info, order done. Get notification email, I had put in one of the other mattresses we had been looking at (like an idiot) - ok, no problem I think, I JUST made the order, I will cancel it and get the one that we had wanted. I call the customer service line. "We can't cancel it, it's already with the shipping department." Ok, I don't care - tell them it's cancelled, so I can order the right one? "I'm sorry, I can't do that." Alright, let's do the "Connect me to your supervisor" dance! Get to the "next level" supervisor; this person says, "I can't cancel the order, it's already on the truck." ...You put an order on a truck within 15 minutes of me clicking the button that isn't set to be shipped for two weeks? Is your warehouse made of trucks? "Ok, take it off the truck." I say, convinced I had just solved the problem. "I can't do that. You'll have to receive it, and then return the mattress." "...You mean I'll have to wait two weeks, for you to ship me a mattress I don't want, just so I can return it? That doesn't make any sense." ON TO THE NEXT LEVEL OF SUPERVISOR! By now, what should have been a friendly 30 second call that would replace one order with another one, is 45 minutes of me being increasingly confused and pissed off, but it becomes clear after the third person comes on the line. "Sorry to hear that you want to cancel the order, sir. Could we convince you to take the order, and accept a discount?" WHAT THE FUCK, FOR THE WRONG MATTRESS? Then it hits me - they were giving me the run around, specifically to keep that 'sale' in their system, at almost any cost to them. "NO, cancel the order IMMEDIATELY, and I won't sign for it if you make the mistake of shipping it here!" This finally convinces them to cancel the order. What a waste of an hour! As an upshot, I am so pissed off at this point that I decide not only to not order the right item from Sears, but never to buy anything there ever again, and to inform everyone I had ever met that Sears is terrible and to advise them never to shop there, ever. So now that Sears has come up, I'm going to do the same thing I promised to do then: Don't ever shop at Sears, ever - if there is a damn hurricane and it's the only place with sandbags, I still wouldn't trust them. I know HN is more meta/intellectual and not a personal anecdote kind of place, and I'd keep to that rule, but the fury came over me when I saw Sears, and I couldn't help myself.

rmason 11y ago

I believe that for at least ten years there has been a clear path forward for Sears. It's just that management refuses to follow it. The way forward is for Sears to move completely over to franchising. I remember working in a small town in West Michigan fifteen years ago when a local opened a Sears franchise store, it carried a small subset of what a regular Sears store carried kind of a greatest hits. I was certain that it would be a complete failure. I didn't know anyone who shopped at Sears and the brand would be a drag on the new business. I was totally wrong the new store was a huge hit! I got to know the manager and there are a couple hundred of these stores and the overwhelming majority succeed. Sears is sitting on a lot of valuable real estate that they could sell if the big stores were sold. Franchise stores would popup in the communities that would support them. Just because there aren't any franchise stores in big cities doesn't necessarily mean they wouldn't succeed. Apparently the big brand still has some pull, but the overhead of the big store pulls it down. The key is local owners who are free to stock Sears brands or chose other merchandise, people who understand their communities and can provide great service.

hristov 11y ago

The decline of sears is an interesting subject, but this particular blog post is just blogspam. Better to link to the actual article this blogspam post is inspired by: http://www.forbes.com/sites/adamhartung/2016/02/11/the-5-ways-ed-lampert-destroyed-sears/#3e432adb41de http://www.forbes.com/sites/adamhartung/2016/02/11/the-5-way...

pitaa 11y ago

I used to work for a company that sold the majority of their product to sears. As the only one in the company that actually knew anything about technology, it was my job to make sure our products and company information were set up and up to date in sears' systems. Their systems consisted of multiple online management portals where you'd supply everything from product weight and size to your fax number to how you wanted to get paid, and appeared to have not been updated since 1998 or so. One wouldn't work at all unless you were using Internet Explorer 6. Updating product info required changing it in multiple places as well as emailing them a spreadsheet with the exact same info. ~4 years ago they announced that they had partnered with some SaaS provider do modernize their systems. It required re uploading all your product data, but I was excited to finally get rid of IE 6. That is until I discovered that they couldn't bare to replace their legacy systems, and the new one was just a flashy way to manage an arbitrary subset of your product data, but other changes still require using the old system.

NegativeK 11y ago
It doesn't take long, talking to people in the Chicago software industry, to hear horror stories about working for Sears. A good friend got to see multiple coworkers recruited by Sears, only to have them return after only two weeks.
kevan 11y ago
I worked in a Sears store from 2008-2010, somewhere around 2009 I think our store got upgraded from a literal mainframe terminal to a virtualized mainframe terminal for inventory management. The box managing the registers ran OS/2 Warp.