Community Chat

[stevieb]

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@PickyCindy wrote:

Go ahead and close them all!  And KMart, too!  Neither one is great any longer.  Many, many years ago yes.  Now not hardly.  I won't miss them.

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Personally, I'd probably miss KMart more than Sears, though I haven't shopped either store in a long time.

[Spurt]

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@stevieb wrote:

Sears was never among my favorite or 'go to' stores. Still, at one time they had a niche that made them valuable. I'm not sure that niche exists anymore and question whether the strategy of eeking away at remaining stores, closing a floor at a time and so on is really going to salvage this company. While it's a shame to see another once major presence bite the dust, the loss of this one is by no means the most heart-wrenching in my book, and I wonder if it wouldn't simply make more sense to quit postponing what is increaingly appearing to be the inevitable.

Someone recently recounted having been at a Sears store only to walk through to get to the mall and reported the place was both a ghost town and a  lame excuse for a store. This is one where there had been an attempt to consolidate what was once a two story store into one story so the other floor could be leased to another entity. Apparently, there was no draw to stop on the way through to the rest of the mall.

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@stevieb

Me too--Before they closed the Sears at one of our malls, I always parked by their store no one shopped there---plenty of parking----just walked through to get to the rest of the mall---- All the other stores are busy....except for Beall's--thats another store I wonder how it stays in business...

I never liked Sear's  clothing or homegood selections.....It was their Kenmore appliances, Craftsman tools which kept them going all these years.....Now Craftsman belongs to Lowe's.....They re just postponing the inevitable.....

[stevieb]

And @Spurt from what one hears, Lowe's is in trouble too... and has been for some time... They too are closing stores... Instead of consumer options expanding it seems we'll all soon be forced to deal with just a handful of large entities...

At one time, Sears offered some reasonably nice furniture, somewhat reliable appliances and some actually very nice textile goods, like curtains and bedspreads, etc... To me, it was never any kind of a fashion option... For a few years the spin-off store, Home Life, offered some very nice home furnishing options, but it was very short-lived... I also understand that at one time their auto shop and appliance repair operations were top-notch... I never experienced that... I did use their auto shop once and wasn't all that pleased... The one time I scheduled an appliance repair with them, i found the experience to be unreliable and ended up using someone else... I've owned two Kenmore appliances and while I've been happy enough with one, the other wasn't anything special...

[Spurt]

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@stevieb wrote:

And @Spurt from what one hears, Lowe's is in trouble too... and has been for some time... They too are closing stores... Instead of consumer options expanding it seems we'll all soon be forced to deal with just a handful of large entities...

At one time, Sears offered some reasonably nice furniture, somewhat reliable appliances and some actually very nice textile goods, like curtains and bedspreads, etc... To me, it was never any kind of a fashion option... For a few years the spin-off store, Home Life, offered some very nice home furnishing options, but it was very short-lived... I also understand that at one time their auto shop and appliance repair operations were top-notch... I never experienced that... I did use their auto shop once and wasn't all that pleased... The one time I scheduled an appliance repair with them, i found the experience to be unreliable and ended up using someone else... I've owned two Kenmore appliances and while I've been happy enough with one, the other wasn't anything special...

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@stevieb

I will say I actually did like and did purchase furniture from Sears....But their options and prices on things like coffee pots, food processors, toasters, microwaves, vacuums were never that good..I always preferred JCP over Sears for things like curtains, drapes, bedspreads, linens....

Yes, the auto repairs while you shopped was convenient, I think I bought a Sears Die Hard battery once....but preferred my trusted mechanic for more extensive repairs....

Interesting how Home Depot is thriving and Lowe's is struggling--all about the Execs...Well Lowe's hired the former JCP CEO....and we know how JCP struggled under him....and hey QVC hired a former JCP EXEC....any wonder.....well ya know what I'm thinking .....Wonder what Miss Claire is doing these days....

[wildlifewitch]

Sears has been outdated for years.They might get a save, read here from cnbc:

Sears wins reprieve from liquidation as Chairman Lampert makes last-minute $4.4 billion bid on bankrupt company

Friday was the deadline for prospective buyers and liquidators to put in their offers to buy Sears.

Sears, which also owns Kmart, filed for bankruptcy in October.

The 125-year-old company has more than 68,000 employees.

Department store chain Sears won a reprieve from liquidating Friday after its chairman, Eddie Lampert, submitted a $4.4 billion bid in an effort to buy the retailer and keep it alive.

Lampert's hedge fund, ESL Investments, put forward the tentative proposal for the parent of Kmart and Sears earlier this month, with his formal submission due today. The offer came just in time to meet the 4:00 p.m. deadline, CNBC first reported.

Friday's offer, which Lampert submitted through an ESL affiliate, Transform Holdco, is for 425 of Sears' stores. To fund the bid, it has a $1.3 billion financing commitment from investment banks, a spokesperson for ESL said in a Friday statement.

The bid would "offer employment to up to 50,000 associates," the spokesperson for ESL said, cautioning, though, that it would depend on "further actions the company may take between now and closing." It would also reinstate severance protections for "eligible employees."

The bid may help divert liquidation, but may not necessarily. Sears' advisors have until Jan. 4 to decide whether ESL is a "qualified bidder." Only then could ESL take part in an auction against liquidation bids on Jan. 14. They will weigh the value of Lampert's bid against offers to liquidate the company.

The full structure of Lampert's bid could not immediately be determined, but will be made public in coming days. If it is similar to the $4.6 billion proposal he outlined earlier this month, it is likely to face pushback from the company's unsecured creditors. As part of the initial bid, which regulators required Lampert to make public, financing would in part stem from $1.8 billion in debt that Lampert would forgive through a so-called "credit bid."

Unsecured creditors said earlier this month they will object to a credit bid. Those creditors believe there may be claims against Sears for transactions under Lampert's leadership. Those deals include Sears' spinoff of Lands' End and transactions with Seritage Growth Properties, a real estate investment trust Lampert created through some Sears' properties.

Sears declined to comment to CNBC for this story.

The company filed for bankruptcy on Oct. 15. At that time, it said it would close 142 unprofitable stores, then in November it announced the closure of 40 additional stores. On Friday, it disclosed plans to close 80 more stores, bringing the total closures to more than 260, or more than a third of its 700 or so stores. The 125-year-old company has more than 68,000 employees.

Once the nation's biggest retailer, it was also its first "everything store," stocking wares from jewelry to clothing, from hardware to prefabricated homes. But the department store industry has struggled over the past half-decade, as the mall has become less convenient and apparel more casual. Rival J.C. Penney has also felt the pressure; on Wednesday its shares dipped below $1 for the first time.

[stevieb]

@Spurt I was more than a little shocked when reading about Lowe's struggles to learn they'd hired a JCP exec... I mean, come one, why would they... Of course, I believe Lowe's has been struggling for years... Part of the problem could be there are so few of them and so HD has more or less cornered the hardware market in terms of accessibility... As for this bunch, I don't recall them making a smart management move (or any other kind of move, as far as it goes...) in recent history so as for hiring a JCP exec.... It figures...

[Annabellethecat66]

@wildlifewitch Thanks for taking the time to post the information.  I agree with @stevieb why in the name of Heaven would Lowe's hire JCP executive?  It doesn't make much sense.

I kinda think the JCP executive should write a book on how to run a company into the hole.  Ha!

What people don't think about it there are investors.  Just ordinary people who invest in the stock market and have no control over these stupidly run companies.

I have an investment company that deversifies my investments.  I let them decide on the right moves.  But there are a lot of small investors out there who enjoy 'playing' the stock market.  They're the one's who get hurt by these stupid moves these companies make.

My late husband used to be really good at investing in the stock market.  He enjoyed it.  We even had a 'dish' in our back yard that was 'real time' connected in the stock market.  He'd purchase stock and watch it.  

I always think of people like him when I hear about these established companies going belly up.

When my daughter was 13 my husband gave her stocks in General Electric.  He taught her how to follow her stock, etc.  It was a real learning time for her.

I doubt if people do that anymore.  I think most Americans have no idea how the stock market works and it affects their lives.  Too bad really.

One reason I enjoy coming here is because there is such a variety of people.  People like you @wildlifewitch and other's who have a vast knowledge and are willing to share it with other people.

Thanks to all of you who do that.

[SydneyH]

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@shopperqvc wrote:

When I started to work at Sears there were several employees that had worked there for 40+ years and still had no plans to retire.

But, things changed dramatically and the full timers were replaced with parttime workers. Tha saved the company because they could pay them less and they didn't get benefits like health insurance.

The corporate office decided they had plenty of money, so they built the tallest building in the world. And they put all of corporate in that building. From that high up, they couldn't see what was happening.

They treated the employees badly. They got to where they didn't care about the customers. They let the stores get looking run down and old. They hired people that knew nothing about the areas they were in charge of, so merchandise that was ordered didn't fit the stores it went to. The slogan Satisfaction Garanteed or your money back was taken down. They started dropping things like the catalog department. The credit department went next. Department heads got multiple departments that thry knew nothing about. People that had worked in the one area of the store were suddenly moved to another area that they knew nothing about.

We had a lady that had worked making displays for over 25 years, and she was put out on the sales floor selling electrical supplies. She didn't know one type of wire from another and she was expected to sell them all. She retired soon after the move. That was their plan all along.

I miss the store that Sears was. I won't miss what it became. The bottom line meant everything, the employees and the customers meant nothing. Even now while the store is dying, they are fighting to give upper management a lot of money all while giving the employees they are pushing out nothing. Upper management is who killed off the store. Those employees are the ones that were trying to sell the merchandise to the few customers that were left. Management sent the price of Sears stock from $50.00 a share to penny stock. They deserve nothing.

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40 years is a long time, how long are they supposed to support a employee with that stretch of time behind them?

[TY]

Here's what Eddie Lampert did to the Sears Canada pensioners, the pension fund was underfunded and the pensioners are fighting back through 2 lawsuits to try and recoup that money.

From CBC news:

https://www.cbc.ca/news/business/sears-canada-retirees-pension-eddie-lampert-court-1.4930785

I'd say good luck to them and also good luck to the Sears employees in the U.S. if the U.S. Sears goes under.

[sidsmom]

MAN, they are just limping to the finish line.