Read what I wrote. I shopped online. I bought from a dealer. I saw it before I bought it.
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Sears Files Bankruptcy
- Thread starter TheBigA
- Start date
Read what I wrote. I shopped online. I bought from a dealer. I saw it before I bought it.
Perhaps I should have been more exacting in my post target. It was addressed to you but was meant more for anyone who might have thought online was always preferable to brick and mortar shopping.
I did acknowledge that online searching has many benefits over driving around the city or asking a salesman to inquire on your behalf. OTOH it has been my personal experience that doing online searches usually result in a plethora of phone calls or emails by those contacted to either do a search on your behalf or try to sell you something else. I would advise anyone doing such a search to keep a "ghost" phone number and an email used expressly for that purpose so you are not inundated by "junk" responses.
And, as always, use the same cautions online as you would in a brick and mortar store. Do business with a reputable company (even though those "reputable companies" can also have very aggressive sales personnel - especially car dealers).
My wife bought a stove online and hasn't stopped complaining about it since the day it was installed.
Some things you should really touch and test before purchasing.
Some things you should really touch and test before purchasing.
Big A did have a good point though and that is that online shopping does tend to move quicker and more efficiently than slogging through a variety of brick and mortar stores. However, I had the exact same result as you. I used the Internet to whittle down the list of refrigerators when it came time to replace my old one. It was backed up by literally hundreds of positive results as well so then I went to a local B&M store for the best price. It has been a disaster. Worst appliance I have ever purchased. No support for the many failures that machines has had over the past two years either by the manufacturer or the B&M store.
Not sure what I could have done differently. Just saying that online shopping is not a risk free exercise.
Chapter 11 is the same thing Cumulus went through and which iHeart is set to emerge from shortly. Reorganization, not liquidation.
However it wouldn't surprise me that a key part of the reorganization will be getting out of a bunch of store leases.
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You can always get a new stove or a new wife. Some things you can't touch or test until purchasing!
don't forget, Toys R Us filed for Chapter 11 too and that lead to them going out of business and all stores closing down this past Summer (and there's rumors of it maybe returning with a new name in the future.).
i think buying a already bankrupt K-Mart may had been Sears downfall.
Yes. Retail chapter 11 cases are pretty frequently converted to liquidation, like Toys R Us and Aeropostale. Or the company goes bankrupt once, emerges, and goes bankrupt again only a few years later, like Montgomery Ward and American Apparel.
Sears and K-Mart were both struggling retailers in 2005. K-Mart had obviously just been through a bankruptcy power wash but sales fell 10% or more in three straight years immediately preceding, during, and after bankruptcy and lost money three out of four years.
Sears was profitable, but sales were shrinking 3-6% per year.
Edward S. Lampert, the chairman of Kmart claimed that he saw an opportunity to save the two companies by putting them together. Maybe what he really saw was a way to save his fortune, since he had several hundred million dollars invested in KMart and tens of millions in Sears Roebuck & Co. before he engineered the merger. And it almost worked: The combined Sears-Kmart was massively profitable for a handful of years after the merger. Then the recession hit, and the company never recovered. It essentially broke even in '08, '09 and '10, before losing $3 billion in 2011 - and the downward spiral began.
I agree. The only people who made money are those who shorted the stock after the merger. From there on, the company had no real leadership. Making money in retail is all about maximizing your square footage. You look at every square foot and ask "How much am I making here, and here, and here?" No one seemed to be doing that at Sears. They were just going through the motions, selling things because that's what they've always done, ignoring the changes in the marketplace. And let's face it: The marketplace completely changed in the last ten years, and Sears got caught sound asleep.
As the guy on here who runs the retail message board (see the info in my signature) I will say this.
1. KMART has been in trouble off and on since the early 80s. I am surprised they survived this year.
2. The was a documentary a few years ago on CNBC I think. It may have been one of the two they did about Walmart. They were talking about the competitors of Walmart. In the early 80s Walmart was rapidly expanding, but wasn't nationwide. KMART didn't pay any attention to what Walmart was doing and they said something to the effect of "We don't care about what a bunch of rednecks from Arkansas are doing."
3. I've always had an interest in retail. The year KMART and Sears got married was before I knew the retail message board existed. (I found out about it in 2006). And even back then I thought "Yeah that makes a lot of sense - two poorly performing stores getting married."
4. KMART did not learn from AMES before them. AMES, the long defunct Rocky Hill, Connecticut based chain went bankrupt once in the early 90s when they bought out the Framingham , Mass chain Zayre. AMES survived emerged from bankruptcy for a couple of years and went bankrupt again after AMES bought out a chain called Hills. That's what finished off AMES in 2002. (Hills cooked their books to make it seem they were doing better than they actually were. AMES said they never would've bought Hills if they knew how poorly the company was doing).
5. Sears Holdings (the name they used after KMART bought Sears) wasted a lot of money. They had this "genius" idea to have these Sears and KMART all-in-one stores. Some were called Sears Grand and others were called Sears Essentials. After less then 5 years the stores that were converted went back to the traditional Sears or KMART stores. (The ones that weren't closed that is).
6. I knew Sears was in trouble way back in July 2007. I was on vacation in King of Prussia, Pennsylvania, where the largest mall on the East Coast is located. I stopped at the mall to use the bathroom and have lunch. The Sears store was deserted. The mall itself was packed. That was how I knew Sears was in trouble. The Sears at the KOP Mall has since closed and is now a Dick's Sporting Goods and one of the first locations in the USA of the Europe based Primark chain.
7. Another list came out yesterday that had other locations that may close. Locations all over the country were listed, but locally (for me) Meriden and Danbury, Connecticut (the latter which downsized a couple years ago) may close after November 15th. And ESL, which is another company controlled by Eddie Lampert (the now former CEO of Sears Holdings) is looking to buy the Sears in Manchester, CT and KMART in Vernon, Connecticut.
1. KMART has been in trouble off and on since the early 80s. I am surprised they survived this year.
2. The was a documentary a few years ago on CNBC I think. It may have been one of the two they did about Walmart. They were talking about the competitors of Walmart. In the early 80s Walmart was rapidly expanding, but wasn't nationwide. KMART didn't pay any attention to what Walmart was doing and they said something to the effect of "We don't care about what a bunch of rednecks from Arkansas are doing."
3. I've always had an interest in retail. The year KMART and Sears got married was before I knew the retail message board existed. (I found out about it in 2006). And even back then I thought "Yeah that makes a lot of sense - two poorly performing stores getting married."
4. KMART did not learn from AMES before them. AMES, the long defunct Rocky Hill, Connecticut based chain went bankrupt once in the early 90s when they bought out the Framingham , Mass chain Zayre. AMES survived emerged from bankruptcy for a couple of years and went bankrupt again after AMES bought out a chain called Hills. That's what finished off AMES in 2002. (Hills cooked their books to make it seem they were doing better than they actually were. AMES said they never would've bought Hills if they knew how poorly the company was doing).
5. Sears Holdings (the name they used after KMART bought Sears) wasted a lot of money. They had this "genius" idea to have these Sears and KMART all-in-one stores. Some were called Sears Grand and others were called Sears Essentials. After less then 5 years the stores that were converted went back to the traditional Sears or KMART stores. (The ones that weren't closed that is).
6. I knew Sears was in trouble way back in July 2007. I was on vacation in King of Prussia, Pennsylvania, where the largest mall on the East Coast is located. I stopped at the mall to use the bathroom and have lunch. The Sears store was deserted. The mall itself was packed. That was how I knew Sears was in trouble. The Sears at the KOP Mall has since closed and is now a Dick's Sporting Goods and one of the first locations in the USA of the Europe based Primark chain.
7. Another list came out yesterday that had other locations that may close. Locations all over the country were listed, but locally (for me) Meriden and Danbury, Connecticut (the latter which downsized a couple years ago) may close after November 15th. And ESL, which is another company controlled by Eddie Lampert (the now former CEO of Sears Holdings) is looking to buy the Sears in Manchester, CT and KMART in Vernon, Connecticut.
In the spirit of Hallowe'en, so to speak, KRQE recently featured an extant Sears house in New Mexico: Estancia house ordered from Sears catalog in 1920s still standing.
As we all know, the Sears legacy is quite remarkable. The store's quondam slogan, "Sears has everything," applied to a broad range of products and services, including Craftsman tools, Kenmore appliances, DieHard batteries, and the Discover Card. Sears even gave us the WLS call sign.
One thing I hadn't considered, however, was the equality the Sears catalogue afforded African-Americans in the Jim Crow era. As historian Louis Hyman of Cornell told Mary Louise Kelly recently on NPR's All Things Considered:
One thing I hadn't considered, however, was the equality the Sears catalogue afforded African-Americans in the Jim Crow era. As historian Louis Hyman of Cornell told Mary Louise Kelly recently on NPR's All Things Considered:
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This is really funny if you enjoy the 'Family Guy' and liked Sears
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5087isMudEs
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5087isMudEs
not to mention that the Sears gag is also a Mad Max reference.
Good that Boscov's is able to continue to grow. They had some financial issues themselves but seem to have weathered them.
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