>Was Sears too 'friendly' with their suppliers? Funny enough, I've heard anecdotal evidence that the complete opposite was true. This comes from work I've done

>Was Sears too 'friendly' with their suppliers? Funny enough, I've heard anecdotal evidence that the complete opposite was true. This comes from work I've done with a company that engineers, tests, and certifies tools under a dozen different brand names, one of which was Craftsman back when Sears owned that name outright. Whether it was official policy or not, Sears' practice was to rotate their buyers every ~3 years specifically to address the issue of buyers getting too chummy with the suppliers in their assigned sector. Unfortunately, this led to the issue of buyers being unable to develop subject-matter expertise in any one area and a broader problem where any compwtencies that were developed were often useless in their new assignment. According to those I've talked to who were around in the 80's and 90's when Sears' was starting to get pressured by other specialized Big Box retailers, whoever rotated into the position would have 0 experience with power tools or outdoor power equipment as they had spent their previous rotation buying anything from linens for the home goods group to clothing, or even flowers and plants for the gardenjng department. The final product that wound up in consumer's hands was typically of competitive quality (hence the continued reputation of the Craftsman brand even today among the older generations) but the speed with which Sears' could expect new products to be developed and the costs involved was greatly hampered. This eventually led to Sears' losing the competitive edge in providing superior house-brand goods for the same price as the competition. Sears' had the market share and clout to get suppliers like the one I've worked with to justify the lower margins that come with designing/making a higher quality product to sell for the sams price. Once the whole buying process became incredibly time intensive due to a lack of expertise on the buying end the margins once spent on increased quality were instead swallowed up by plain old inefficiency. The end result was Sears buying a similar quality of product to what these suppliers were offering to the competition but without a cost advantage. Consumers noted the fact that a Craftsman chainsaw was no longer superior to the "X" brand this supplier provided to a store like Home Depot, except the Home Depot one was $15 less, thus began the death spiral ending in today's news.