Say Farewell To An American Icon

[Minimalist]

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/14/busin...ss&emc=rss

Sears, the Original Everything Store, Nears a Bankruptcy Filing

The result has been a long painful decline. A decade ago, the company employed 302,000. Today, there are about 68,000 people still working at Sears and Kmart, which Mr. Lampert also runs.

Now, the retailer is preparing a Chapter 11 bankruptcy filing to cut its debts and keep operating at least through the holidays, according to two people briefed on the matter who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the company’s plans.

Can't even blame the WLB for this one, its just piss-poor management and an inability to change with the times.  Of course if you dig a bit deeper you find that these are exactly the type of scumbags that the WLB put in charge of the country so, maybe he can be blamed?

A hedge fund manager and former Goldman Sachs banker with no experience running a large retail chain, Mr. Lampert took control of Kmart after it came out of bankruptcy in 2003 and then acquired Sears a year later. The company’s board came to be dominated by other wealthy investors, including Steven Mnuchin, the current Treasury secretary who had been Mr. Lampert’s roommate at Yale.
Mr. Lampert says his strategy was to move the company away from its brick-and-mortar legacy into the digital era.
His plan was to use the money saved from closing stores and selling off assets to reinvest in the business. But the company never gained traction online.

Birds of a feather!

[skyking]

One of my first jobs was at Sears as a service technician. It's been hard to watch, but I don't shop much there either.

[Schwa]

What'll become of the tower? New apartments?

[Gawdzilla Sama]

What'll become of the tower? New apartments?

It's the Willis Tower now, has been for years.

[brewer]

I'm gonna miss it, bought lot's of stuff (mostly tools/appliances) from them over the years.

[arewethereyet]

Growing up in a small midwestern town, Sears was the place to shop...the catalog specifically. Any clothes I didn't make were purchased from Sears. The order always took a while to arrive...a far cry from the two day delivery I have gotten used to. And any orders were delivered to another store in town that had an area set aside for pickup. The stuff didn't even come to your house.

I remember having quite a wardrobe of Hang Ten clothing. Later, Sears was the place to get things for my kids when they came along...everything from cribs and sheets to clothes and, of course, toys. I know I purchased bikes and trikes from Sears as well as games and smaller toys for my kids.

Pouring over the Sears holiday catalog was quite an event. My siblings and I would go page by page many times over to select just the right thing to find under the tree on Christmas morning. My first 'stereo' (read record player) was a plastic clamshell sort of thing in a sickly green that you could close and carry like a suitcase. Had that thing quite a while and got lots of use out it's tinny speakers.

How many homes had appliances purchased from Sears? Almost all of them.

They simply didn't keep up with their customer base. It wasn't even a brick and mortar thing...they just got to a certain point and stopped moving forward. They had a base but didn't work to attract the next generation or the one after that.

It's kind of sad really.

[Minimalist]

What'll become of the tower? New apartments?

It's the Willis Tower now, has been for years.

At least it doesn't say Trump on it.

[chimp3]

If you bought Craftsman tools you probably still.have them.

[Minimalist]

The brand was sold to Black and Decker a few years ago.

[CarveTheFive]

I remember I guess a bit more than a decade ago I wanted a new boom box type CD player stereo system. I went to Sears. Found one I decided I wanted but couldn’t figure out how to buy it so I left.

I bought a washing machine there a few years later and they pretty much forced a credit card on me.

Later I opened one of their envelopes and it was those checks you can write to yourself. I used it to “borrow” $2500 and never paid back a cent. I filed bankruptcy since then.