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>In 1993 they closed their mail order division. In 1995, Amazon launched. If one compresses the timeline, it does seem like Amazon killed off Sears when in rea

by jasode 9y ago

>In 1993 they closed their mail order division. In 1995, Amazon launched. If one compresses the timeline, it does seem like Amazon killed off Sears when in reality, Sears was already getting killed off in the 10 years before 1995. In the 1980s... - Home Depot, Lowes, Builders Square, etc home improvement stores were taking away business from Sears power tools (Craftsman) - Best Buy and Circuit City were taking the consumer electronics business and appliances. Less customers buy Sears Kenmore. - Target, Walmart, Williams-Sonoma, etc were taking housewares (pots, pans, etc) business - consumers (especially kids) didn't want "department store brand" clothing from Sears/JCPenney because they were "uncool". They wanted the boutique brands (Guess jeans, Calvin Klein, etc) - peak mall traffic was 1986 and malls started dying off after that. An easy way for me to remember that point in time is the 1985 movie "Back to The Future". When you watch the DeLorean spinning around the parking lot of Twin Pines Mall, remind yourself that you're seeing "peak mall". - credit-cards criteria were loosened and easy credit was expanded. Sears no longer had a captive audience with the Sears credit-card that kept shoppers within Sears' "walled-garden". Before 1990s, if a young person had zero credit history, one of the first credit cards one attempted to get was the "Sears department store credit card". Once one built up credit history with it, he/she could then try to get Visa/Mastercard. In the meantime, they used the Sears card to spend money at Sears. To contrast the difference, today an 18-year-old college student can get a Visa/MC without a parent as a cosigner. That type of easy credit approval for a person with no job was unheard of in the 1960s/1970s. There were lots of competitive forces that Sears' management didn't respond to long before Jeff Bezos arrived on the scene.

chipperyman573 9y ago
>today an 18-year-old college student can get a Visa/MC without a parent as a cosigner. FWIW, when I was 18 I had to get a secured card[0] and I was barely able to get it (I had to go to my bank twice to appeal the decision). It's definitely different from 40 years ago but it's not super easy for most college students, and a lot of it came down to the fact that I had a few grand sitting in a checking account and a job that paid $12.50/hr. Some of my friends who didn't have that got flat out declined multiple times (I have one friend who has applied for three different cards and she's been denied all three times, with no credit history at all). [0]: Basically, the card had a $500 credit limit and you had to give the bank $500 for a year, after a year if you've made all your payments they give you your $500 back. It still sat in my savings account generating "interest", but I couldn't spend it
- aidenn0 9y ago
  When did you turn 18? I started college in August 1999 and nobody I knew had any trouble getting a credit card. Many fraternities and sororities used credit card applications to freshmen as fundraisers. It was typically a $1000-$1500 credit limit. Some people I knew had $10k in credit card debt by the time they graduated...
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
  - chipperyman573 9y ago
    I turned 18 about two years ago. Things might be different now because of the credit CARD act of 2009 which makes it slightly harder to take advantage of younger people (giving a $1500 card to people who have never had credit before and don't know how important it is to pay off the balance in full seems particularly evil) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Credit_CARD_Act_of_2009 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Credit_CARD_Act_of_2009 >Consumers under the age of 21 must prove that they have an independent income or get a co-signer before applying for a credit card. The Act also prevents credit card companies from ... wooing students with T-shirts, free pizza and other free gifts at university-sponsored events
    - aidenn0 9y ago
      Well at least the interest rate was only around 30% </s>. [edit] The end of the story for me: The credit card I got from that was amazingly bad. I had a bill put in the wrong mailbox in my dorm, so didn't get it until 3 days before it was due. I called up customer service: Me: I can mail this today, but it is unlikely to make it there by the due date, I've always paid my bills on time, can I get a 1 week extension CS: We can do an ACH for $20 or you will pay a late fee if the check you mail is even a day late. Me: Seriously? CS: Yes Me: Okay, do that and cancel my account. CS: Okay. It's like they didn't even want me as a customer if I was going to pay my bills every week. Not a single attempt to retain me when I canceled my account. At this point, I had a Discover card, the CS reps for which were very kind, and my bank had just gotten my debit card on the Mastercard network (previously it was only an ATM card), so I had no absolute need for their card. Had this happened a few months earlier I might not have been willing to cancel as so many places don't take Discover.
nnutter 9y ago
Anecdotally, when I went appliance shopping 8 years ago I went to Sears not Best Buy. When I went tool shopping I preferred the lifetime guarantee of Craftsman. I wasn’t a pre-existing customer. I live within ~30 minutes of three large malls that all seem to be doing well. There is a Sears Hardware store that just closed in the last couple years.
- jschwartzi 9y ago
  I bought a pretty good mattress and also a good vacuum from Sears. They're not high-end but they're pretty damn good. The only reason I had a vacuum at all in college was because Sears still stocked parts for 10 or 15 year old vacuums so I was able to repair someone's broken vacuum.
- Animats 9y ago
  Sears owned Orchard Supply Hardware from 1996 to 2012. They never branded it as "Sears", though. "Sears Hardware" is a franchise, like Ace Hardware.
- khedoros1 9y ago
  I went appliance shopping there too, around the same time. Cheap-ish fridge that's still going strong, and an LG washer and dryer (LG repaired the washer under warranty last year). The Sears I bought them from was razed a couple of years ago. There are some "Sears home appliance showrooms", and an actual Sears about half an hour away, but there used to be 3 or 4 in that same area.
- johnbrodie 9y ago
  The "lifetime guarantee" of Craftsman just doesn't have much sway anymore. All of their tools are made in China junk that breaks if you look at it funny. The quality is just non-existent these days. Might as well just go to Harbor Freight if that's the kind of tool you need.
damnstraight 9y ago
> consumers (especially kids) didn't want "department store brand" clothing from Sears/JCPenney because they were "uncool" FWIW all my clothes were from Sears and JCPenney, my taste be damned. I know a lot of other kids my age (grew up in the 90s and 00s) were the same way, at least until quality tanked in the mid 00s.
- bluedino 9y ago
  You might not have been 'cool' but you were a step above the kids who's "mommas shopped at Kmart"
  - damnstraight 9y ago
    Actually (I got clothes there too) I wouldn't say the quality was much worse. The shirts, underwear, socks, etc were all fine for a kid. Nonetheless, I had those quality jeans—you're absolutely right.
- WalterBright 9y ago
  I still buy my jeans from JCPenny. Of course, I never was cool and still ain't.
  - jasode 9y ago
    These days, a store brand of clothes with respectable cachet is "Kirkland" from Costco. Basics like Kirkland jeans, underwear, sweatshirts, etc. I don't know if the kids like them, but a lot of adults wear Kirkland with pride. (Sort of like a billionaire driving an ecogreen Toyota Prius... an adult wearing Kirkland as a badge signaling "I shop at Costco which means I can afford Ralph Lauren but I'm smart enough to know that Kirkland is better quality for the money.")
    - turk184 9y ago
      I have pants from Kirkland mainly because I'm too lazy and too tired to go to another store and pay more for the same stupid thing. It's not like Kohl's or JCPenney carries some special brand cachet anyways. Guess jeans? Nobody cares!
rdtsc 9y ago
> peak mall traffic was 1986 and malls started dying off after that. One of my American relatives worked for Sears mail order business from the early '80s till it closed. They were saying in the '80s it was an awesome place to work, good benefits, there was so much potential there it seemed.
Steko 9y ago
Ben Thompson goes all the way back to 1962 to chart the forces that would end up killing Sears: 1962 was perhaps the most consequential year in retailing history: in Ohio the five-and-dime retailer F.W. Woolworth Company created a new discount retailer called Woolco; S.S. Kresge Corporation created Kmart in Michigan; the Dayton Company opened the first Target in Minnesota; and Sam Walton founded the first Walmart. All four were based on the same premise: branded goods didn’t need the expensive overhead of mass merchandisers, which meant prices could be lower. Lower prices served in turn as a powerful draw for customers, driving higher volumes, which meant more inventory turns, which increased profitability. Sears, which had introduced a huge number of those brands to America’s middle class, first through their catalog and then through a massive post-World War II expansion into physical retail, was stuck in the middle: higher prices than the discounters, but much less differentiation than high-end department stores. By the time Buldak gave his statement the company’s fate as an also-ran was sealed, even though no one at Sears had a clue: Buldak’s stated mission of being “an integrated, powerful specialty merchant, with brand names and our own lines of exclusive merchandise” failed to consider whether customers gave a damn. https://stratechery.com/2016/walmart-and-the-multichannel-trap/ https://stratechery.com/2016/walmart-and-the-multichannel-tr...
elvirs 9y ago
there were credit cards in 70-ies?
- astura 9y ago
  Yes MasterCard (then known as Master Charge): http://i.imgur.com/BzZONEG.jpg http://i.imgur.com/BzZONEG.jpg Visa (then known as Bank Americard): http://creditcardforum.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2010/10/bank-americard-1972-ad.jpg http://creditcardforum.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2010/10/b... AMEX: https://i.pinimg.com/236x/15/6c/5d/156c5d0e135a6f2014a95608e048e87b--print-ads-the-gold.jpg https://i.pinimg.com/236x/15/6c/5d/156c5d0e135a6f2014a95608e... Fun fact, American Express still to this day uses the name Charles F Frost (usually written C F Frost) for all their credit card ads. He was an advertising executive in the 60s.
turk184 9y ago
The time machine was spinning around the mall at like 4am!
LaikaF 9y ago
Discover is still the easiest card for a student / young person to get without a cosigner. I used one to build up credit to get an Amazon Visa.

by jasode 9y ago

chipperyman573 9y ago

>today an 18-year-old college student can get a Visa/MC without a parent as a cosigner. FWIW, when I was 18 I had to get a secured card[0] and I was barely able to get it (I had to go to my bank twice to appeal the decision). It's definitely different from 40 years ago but it's not super easy for most college students, and a lot of it came down to the fact that I had a few grand sitting in a checking account and a job that paid $12.50/hr. Some of my friends who didn't have that got flat out declined multiple times (I have one friend who has applied for three different cards and she's been denied all three times, with no credit history at all). [0]: Basically, the card had a $500 credit limit and you had to give the bank $500 for a year, after a year if you've made all your payments they give you your $500 back. It still sat in my savings account generating "interest", but I couldn't spend it

aidenn0 9y ago
When did you turn 18? I started college in August 1999 and nobody I knew had any trouble getting a credit card. Many fraternities and sororities used credit card applications to freshmen as fundraisers. It was typically a $1000-$1500 credit limit. Some people I knew had $10k in credit card debt by the time they graduated...
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- chipperyman573 9y ago
  I turned 18 about two years ago. Things might be different now because of the credit CARD act of 2009 which makes it slightly harder to take advantage of younger people (giving a $1500 card to people who have never had credit before and don't know how important it is to pay off the balance in full seems particularly evil) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Credit_CARD_Act_of_2009 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Credit_CARD_Act_of_2009 >Consumers under the age of 21 must prove that they have an independent income or get a co-signer before applying for a credit card. The Act also prevents credit card companies from ... wooing students with T-shirts, free pizza and other free gifts at university-sponsored events
  - aidenn0 9y ago
    Well at least the interest rate was only around 30% </s>. [edit] The end of the story for me: The credit card I got from that was amazingly bad. I had a bill put in the wrong mailbox in my dorm, so didn't get it until 3 days before it was due. I called up customer service: Me: I can mail this today, but it is unlikely to make it there by the due date, I've always paid my bills on time, can I get a 1 week extension CS: We can do an ACH for $20 or you will pay a late fee if the check you mail is even a day late. Me: Seriously? CS: Yes Me: Okay, do that and cancel my account. CS: Okay. It's like they didn't even want me as a customer if I was going to pay my bills every week. Not a single attempt to retain me when I canceled my account. At this point, I had a Discover card, the CS reps for which were very kind, and my bank had just gotten my debit card on the Mastercard network (previously it was only an ATM card), so I had no absolute need for their card. Had this happened a few months earlier I might not have been willing to cancel as so many places don't take Discover.

nnutter 9y ago

Anecdotally, when I went appliance shopping 8 years ago I went to Sears not Best Buy. When I went tool shopping I preferred the lifetime guarantee of Craftsman. I wasn’t a pre-existing customer. I live within ~30 minutes of three large malls that all seem to be doing well. There is a Sears Hardware store that just closed in the last couple years.

jschwartzi 9y ago
I bought a pretty good mattress and also a good vacuum from Sears. They're not high-end but they're pretty damn good. The only reason I had a vacuum at all in college was because Sears still stocked parts for 10 or 15 year old vacuums so I was able to repair someone's broken vacuum.
Animats 9y ago
Sears owned Orchard Supply Hardware from 1996 to 2012. They never branded it as "Sears", though. "Sears Hardware" is a franchise, like Ace Hardware.
khedoros1 9y ago
I went appliance shopping there too, around the same time. Cheap-ish fridge that's still going strong, and an LG washer and dryer (LG repaired the washer under warranty last year). The Sears I bought them from was razed a couple of years ago. There are some "Sears home appliance showrooms", and an actual Sears about half an hour away, but there used to be 3 or 4 in that same area.
johnbrodie 9y ago
The "lifetime guarantee" of Craftsman just doesn't have much sway anymore. All of their tools are made in China junk that breaks if you look at it funny. The quality is just non-existent these days. Might as well just go to Harbor Freight if that's the kind of tool you need.

damnstraight 9y ago

> consumers (especially kids) didn't want "department store brand" clothing from Sears/JCPenney because they were "uncool" FWIW all my clothes were from Sears and JCPenney, my taste be damned. I know a lot of other kids my age (grew up in the 90s and 00s) were the same way, at least until quality tanked in the mid 00s.

bluedino 9y ago
You might not have been 'cool' but you were a step above the kids who's "mommas shopped at Kmart"
- damnstraight 9y ago
  Actually (I got clothes there too) I wouldn't say the quality was much worse. The shirts, underwear, socks, etc were all fine for a kid. Nonetheless, I had those quality jeans—you're absolutely right.
WalterBright 9y ago
I still buy my jeans from JCPenny. Of course, I never was cool and still ain't.
- jasode 9y ago
  These days, a store brand of clothes with respectable cachet is "Kirkland" from Costco. Basics like Kirkland jeans, underwear, sweatshirts, etc. I don't know if the kids like them, but a lot of adults wear Kirkland with pride. (Sort of like a billionaire driving an ecogreen Toyota Prius... an adult wearing Kirkland as a badge signaling "I shop at Costco which means I can afford Ralph Lauren but I'm smart enough to know that Kirkland is better quality for the money.")
  - turk184 9y ago
    I have pants from Kirkland mainly because I'm too lazy and too tired to go to another store and pay more for the same stupid thing. It's not like Kohl's or JCPenney carries some special brand cachet anyways. Guess jeans? Nobody cares!

rdtsc 9y ago

> peak mall traffic was 1986 and malls started dying off after that. One of my American relatives worked for Sears mail order business from the early '80s till it closed. They were saying in the '80s it was an awesome place to work, good benefits, there was so much potential there it seemed.

Steko 9y ago

Ben Thompson goes all the way back to 1962 to chart the forces that would end up killing Sears: 1962 was perhaps the most consequential year in retailing history: in Ohio the five-and-dime retailer F.W. Woolworth Company created a new discount retailer called Woolco; S.S. Kresge Corporation created Kmart in Michigan; the Dayton Company opened the first Target in Minnesota; and Sam Walton founded the first Walmart. All four were based on the same premise: branded goods didn’t need the expensive overhead of mass merchandisers, which meant prices could be lower. Lower prices served in turn as a powerful draw for customers, driving higher volumes, which meant more inventory turns, which increased profitability. Sears, which had introduced a huge number of those brands to America’s middle class, first through their catalog and then through a massive post-World War II expansion into physical retail, was stuck in the middle: higher prices than the discounters, but much less differentiation than high-end department stores. By the time Buldak gave his statement the company’s fate as an also-ran was sealed, even though no one at Sears had a clue: Buldak’s stated mission of being “an integrated, powerful specialty merchant, with brand names and our own lines of exclusive merchandise” failed to consider whether customers gave a damn. https://stratechery.com/2016/walmart-and-the-multichannel-trap/ https://stratechery.com/2016/walmart-and-the-multichannel-tr...

elvirs 9y ago

there were credit cards in 70-ies?

astura 9y ago
Yes MasterCard (then known as Master Charge): http://i.imgur.com/BzZONEG.jpg http://i.imgur.com/BzZONEG.jpg Visa (then known as Bank Americard): http://creditcardforum.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2010/10/bank-americard-1972-ad.jpg http://creditcardforum.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2010/10/b... AMEX: https://i.pinimg.com/236x/15/6c/5d/156c5d0e135a6f2014a95608e048e87b--print-ads-the-gold.jpg https://i.pinimg.com/236x/15/6c/5d/156c5d0e135a6f2014a95608e... Fun fact, American Express still to this day uses the name Charles F Frost (usually written C F Frost) for all their credit card ads. He was an advertising executive in the 60s.

turk184 9y ago

The time machine was spinning around the mall at like 4am!

LaikaF 9y ago

Discover is still the easiest card for a student / young person to get without a cosigner. I used one to build up credit to get an Amazon Visa.