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Post by Deleted on Mar 22, 2017 19:35:46 GMT -5
I don't even know where a Sears is anymore. The one in Lansing closed 3 years ago. (I went looking for a decent suit - since they were running a close-out sale - for our renewal vows, only found an $8 tie.)
KMart we still kinda sorta shop at. Wife does the MyPoints thing. We get stuff practically free cashing in all these points.
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Post by fuzzywarble, squat cobbler on Mar 22, 2017 19:41:23 GMT -5
We were thinking the same thing
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Post by Deleted on Mar 22, 2017 19:55:11 GMT -5
I've never really shopped at Sears, though there's a pretty large one in the nearest mall, but any time I ever go to Kmart, it's completely barren and everything that is there is super overpriced.
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Post by Deleted on Mar 22, 2017 20:00:57 GMT -5
I got my grandpa's tools after my dad passed away. All Craftsman, all made in the 1940s-50s. Still rust and corrosion-free and all work fine. Even a torque wrench for a frickin' Studebaker.
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Post by HisRoyalGreeness on Mar 22, 2017 20:08:33 GMT -5
I worked for Sears from 2000 to 2014 when we closed our Slidell, LA store. Immediately after I began working for Sears Optical which is owned by Luxottica and still do currently. I work out of 3 Sears locations all within an hour of where I live. I can definitely attest to Sears being mismanaged. Has been for years. These new stories, which aren't too far from from how they've been for years now, just let me know it's going down sooner than anyone who is a Sears employee would like to believe. I'm glad I don't actually work for Sears. If it closes Luxottica has other brands I could work at easily(Target Optical, Pearle Vision, Lenscrafters) but I definitely feel for my fellow Sears brethren.
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Heartbreaker
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Post by Heartbreaker on Mar 22, 2017 21:27:08 GMT -5
So is Kmart in the States really that terrible? I've heard stories about it, and it seems weird to me because Kmart in Australia is very popular.
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Post by Drillbit Taylor on Mar 22, 2017 21:35:43 GMT -5
So is Kmart in the States really that terrible? I've heard stories about it, and it seems weird to me because Kmart in Australia is very popular. Yes. It is a clear third behind Target and Walmart for big brand stores of that ilk.
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Post by Wolf Hawkfield no1 NZ poster on Mar 22, 2017 21:58:33 GMT -5
So is Kmart in the States really that terrible? I've heard stories about it, and it seems weird to me because Kmart in Australia is very popular. Well I went to a couple of Kmart stores in America last year and they looked really grotty and that they had seen better days. Though I'm pretty sure Kmart in both Australia and New Zealand were having financial difficulties not long ago due to bad management.
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Post by Deleted on Mar 22, 2017 22:09:23 GMT -5
Yeah, just like A&S and Gimbels they'll never go out of business. Gimbels is gone, Marge. Long gone.
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Post by Deleted on Mar 22, 2017 22:10:05 GMT -5
I got my grandpa's tools after my dad passed away. All Craftsman, all made in the 1940s-50s. Still rust and corrosion-free and all work fine. Even a torque wrench for a frickin' Studebaker. While the Craftsman tools today fall apart immediately.
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Post by A Platypus Rave on Mar 22, 2017 22:13:10 GMT -5
Yeah, just like A&S and Gimbels they'll never go out of business. Gimbels is gone, Marge. Long gone. YOU'RE GIMBLES!
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Post by ayumidah on Mar 22, 2017 23:06:00 GMT -5
Most of the Kmarts in the area closed in the last three years, and Sears isn't doing so hot either, so it wouldn't surprise me. Yeah, just like A&S and Gimbels they'll never go out of business. It may take forever to limp along to finality doesn't mean it's not a dying brand. Do we need a Kmart/Sears morale twitter account?
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Post by Cyno on Mar 23, 2017 0:21:35 GMT -5
Kmart/Sears has been in and out of Chapter 11 for like 3 decades now. At this rate, I'll be more surprised when they DO bite the dust rather than manage to hang on like the cockroaches they are.
Though the closest KMart did go out of business a few months ago. It used to be a fairly nice store, but the goods became increasingly schlocky and the store felt like some relic out of the 90's compared to the more modern feeling aesthetics of other brick and mortars in the area like Target. Didn't help that the store always felt so dirty compared to its rivals.
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Post by Cranjis McBasketball on Mar 23, 2017 0:54:26 GMT -5
I worked for Sears from 2000 to 2014 when we closed our Slidell, LA store. Immediately after I began working for Sears Optical which is owned by Luxottica and still do currently. I work out of 3 Sears locations all within an hour of where I live. I can definitely attest to Sears being mismanaged. Has been for years. These new stories, which aren't too far from from how they've been for years now, just let me know it's going down sooner than anyone who is a Sears employee would like to believe. I'm glad I don't actually work for Sears. If it closes Luxottica has other brands I could work at easily(Target Optical, Pearle Vision, Lenscrafters) but I definitely feel for my fellow Sears brethren. What the Hell happened to Roebuck??
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Post by Baldobomb-22-OH-MAN!!! on Mar 23, 2017 5:31:42 GMT -5
doesn't surprise me. he K-Marts here all got bought by Zellers years ago, turned into Targets and are now gone after Target's Canadian collapse. the Sears we have is a total ghost town.
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Post by celticjobber on Mar 23, 2017 6:27:53 GMT -5
I haven't been to Sears in over a decade. And the last time I went to K-Mart, they looked like something out of a post-apocalyptic movie. With almost no other customers, and few employees around.
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Post by Dr. T is an alien on Mar 23, 2017 10:01:59 GMT -5
The local Sears close down last year and was torn down by the mall. They are building a Whole Foods in its place (not sure it will do well enough as the town already has a Fresh Thyme, a Lucky's Market, a fairly dominant local chain, and all of the local Krogers were remodeled to be really nice with a sizable health/natural food section within them). One of the K-marts in town also shut down (the one next to Target, unsurprisingly).
It is particularly galling to think of the incompetence involved. A moderately competent CEO could at least keep the Sears brand afloat thanks to their proprietary brands. Craftsman, Kenmore, and DieHard should be able to keep any store brand afloat, or at least that used to be the case.
You know what I cannot believe is still a thing in my town? Macy's is still kicking despite the fact that it looks like a damned ghost town every time I see it. I keep expecting them to join Montgomery Ward, Service Merchandise, and Kay-Bee Toys in that great shopping center in the sky but they endure. Maybe the rich people go on massive shopping sprees when us regular folk aren't looking.
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Post by Sephiroth on Mar 23, 2017 10:50:54 GMT -5
This isn't just natural change in the marketplace. Sears/K-Mart has been horribly mismanaged more than most. Here's a great article from 2013 about the idiotic strategies put in place by its chairman. All this in an attempt to use competition between the divisions of the company to try to increase profit, driven by an Ayn Rand inspired business philosophy. It is run like a mini free market full of disfunction, rather than synergy. "Five years ago, Sears Chairman Eddie Lampert broke the company into 30 plus autonomous businesses, each with its own president, chief marketing officer, board, and separately measured profit and loss." www.businessinsider.com/eddie-lamperts-sears-strategy-disaster-2013-7Another article www.triplepundit.com/2013/07/sears-worst-retailer-company-america/On top of that you had Crafstman tools turning to pure made-in-china garbage. The prior reputation of those tools alone brought a generation of men to the stores. Kenmore is another Sears brand that doesn't carry the same reputation it used to. As much as I have a soft spot for K-Mart, being from Michigan, there isn't really anything it does that Wal-Mart and Target don't do better and cheaper. When in Michigan, I'd much rather go to Meijer than all of them. As far as other failing big box stores, JCPenny is BY FAR the best place I've found to get nice, affordable dress shirts and suits, so I hope they manage to hold on somehow. Their idiotic re-organzing of the stores so that it is "low prices all the time" instead of eye-catching sales absolutely killed them. No offense to those that actually like her books, but I long ago concluded that when it comes to actual socio-economics, Ayn Rand was full of shit.
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Post by Deleted on Mar 23, 2017 11:09:22 GMT -5
Most of the Kmarts in the area closed in the last three years, and Sears isn't doing so hot either, so it wouldn't surprise me. Yeah, just like A&S and Gimbels they'll never go out of business. It may take forever to limp along to finality doesn't mean it's not a dying brand. Do we need a Kmart/Sears morale twitter account? Morale: High.
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Post by Surfer Sandman on Mar 23, 2017 11:41:52 GMT -5
All things must change, I guess. I don't know how any brick and mortar stores can stay in business much longer. All the mainstays of the past, JP Penny, Radio Shack, Best Buy, etc. are all SOL Especially RadioShack since they filed for bankruptcy last week (the second time in 2 years). www.businessinsider.com/list-of-radioshack-stores-closing-2017-3The one in my town is having a going out of business sale. Sad to see them go.
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