What recovery? SEARS and J.C. PENNEY are dying

[HenryBHough]

Tried to buy a major appliance in a Sears store a few years back.

Salesperson did not have the slightest understanding of the products.

When I finally did manage to buy one out of the catalog the specified dimensions were incorrect and it did not fit in the available space.

Major battle to have it returned.

Since then I have bought NOTHING from Sears though I will confess to having used a Sears parking lot for car pooling.

 

[Dont Taz Me Bro]

I'm not sure you can hold up Sears as an example of a bad economic recovery. They have been grossly mismanaged for a long time.

 

[Darkwind]

The market model is ineffective.

It's not the economy.

The market model says that there is a segment of the market that will certainly pay a premium for superior service.

Sears has customer service that is bottom of the barrel.

That segment is upper middle-class. Thanks to Republicans, there is no upper middle-class anymore.

Wrong.

 

[Dont Taz Me Bro]

Thanks to Republicans, there is no upper middle-class anymore.

God what an asinine statement.

Heed the advice of that old saying and don't argue with an idiot.

 

[bayoubill]

I still mourn the passing of Montgomery Ward...

it's where I always went for new tires 'n stuff from the time I was 15 (more'n 45 years ago)...

'til they closed down a dozen or so years ago...

 

[OnePercenter]

Thanks to Republicans, there is no upper middle-class anymore.

God what an asinine statement.

The market model says that there is a segment of the market that will certainly pay a premium for superior service.

Sears has customer service that is bottom of the barrel.

That segment is upper middle-class. Thanks to Republicans, there is no upper middle-class anymore.

Wrong.

Thanks to Republicans, there is no upper middle-class anymore.

God what an asinine statement.

Heed the advice of that old saying and don't argue with an idiot.

'Y'all' seem to forget that I'm a onepercenter. Really rich, Ivy League educated, sittin' round the club house listening to the old rich farts talkin' bout the chumps they got to wrap themselves in the American flag, believe that Obama is going to take away their guns, and worship Charles Koch as Lord and Savior.

 

[Synthaholic]

Montgomery Ward Catalog and Sears Catalog.
Ah. The memories.

Now we are doomed with Walmart.

And now you are starting to see venerable companies disappearing from Wal*Mart shelves, which is a major hit to their viability as major products. No more Mueller's pasta. A shrinking Del Monte. Chef Boyardee may not survive Wal*Mart's attack on their core product, Mini Ravioli. The Great Value version is $0.74 while the CB is frequently over $1.00.

Do you trust Great Value? I certainly wouldn't feed my dogs GV dog food. Would you? So shouldn't I be wary of their people food? The ravioli is OK, and the refrigerated cinnamon rolls are decent, yadda, yadda, yadda. But I'm not eating any GV meat. Or cheese. Or hams. Or coffee, which sucks.

There are many more GV products I will not touch, over the few good ones. But the way it's going, we may all be stuck with Great Value, or very over-priced name brands.

 

[Synthaholic]

Thanks to Republicans, there is no upper middle-class anymore.

God what an asinine statement.

It's documented. Started with St. Ronnie of the RKO.

 

[Synthaholic]

I still mourn the passing of Montgomery Ward...

it's where I always went for new tires 'n stuff from the time I was 15 (more'n 45 years ago)...

'til they closed down a dozen or so years ago...

Monkey Ward.

 

[Politico]

You know there's already a thread on this. But you also know the economy has nothing to do with it either so....

 

[Flopper]

Not the first time for Sears and JC Penny to be headed towards bankruptcy. I gave up on Sears in the mid "90's.

Sears has tried to set themselves apart from the big discount departments stores such as Target and Walmart and it just hasn't worked. For the past seven years, Sears and Kmart (also owned by Sears Holding) has been in the hands a of hedge fund manager who tried to manage the business as a financial holding company instead of a retail business. Bankruptcy and reorganization seems a distinct possibility. The company has valuable brand names such as Craftsman, Kenmore and Land's End. My guess is they will end up as an Internet retailer with a limited number of stores stocking what they sell on the Internet. The company started off selling from a catalog and that may be how they end up.

I don't see how they are going to compete with Walmart and Target.

 

[rightwinger]

Not the first time for Sears and JC Penny to be headed towards bankruptcy. I gave up on Sears in the mid "90's.

Sears has tried to set themselves apart from the big discount departments stores such as Target and Walmart and it just hasn't worked. For the past seven years, Sears and Kmart (also owned by Sears Holding) has been in the hands a of hedge fund manager who tried to manage the business as a financial holding company instead of a retail business. Bankruptcy and reorganization seems a distinct possibility. The company has valuable brand names such as Craftsman, Kenmore and Land's End. My guess is they will end up as an Internet retailer with a limited number of stores stocking what they sell on the Internet. The company started off selling from a catalog and that may be how they end up.

I don't see how they are going to compete with Walmart and Target.

Sears has also branched off their hardware stores

 

[rightwinger]

The market model is ineffective.

It's not the economy.

The market model says that there is a segment of the market that will certainly pay a premium for superior service.

Sears has customer service that is bottom of the barrel.

I agree....my only experience with their service and complaints has been bad

I also went to buy a DieHard Battery off them a few months ago. Understaffed and they tried to get me to buy alot of unwanted and unneeded services for my car. You can use new tires, your wipers look worn, want an oil change?

 

[TakeAStepBack]

It's a shame

Sears was the Amazon of the day. It's catalog was the way people shopped in remote areas

As a kid, I couldn't wait for the Sears Christmas catalog to come out

No indoor plumbing?

 

[Mr Natural]

Craftsman used to be the standard by which other tools were judged. Now they're crap. Every Craftsman power tool I've bought in the last 10 years or so went tits up way before it's time. The weed whacker, the leaf blower, the chop saw, and the straw that broke the camel's back was the snow blower. It was a 2 stage 12 HP machine that lasted two years. I went to start it up before a big snowstorm and the casting that held the starter motor to the engine snapped off. I went to back the Sears store I bought it from and they told me I should have purchased the extended warranty.

Sears, never again.

 

[TakeAStepBack]

I would never buy anything from Crapsman. The tools they make are garbage.

 

[rightwinger]

Craftsman used to be the standard by which other tools were judged. Now they're crap. Every Craftsman power tool I've bought in the last 10 years or so went tits up way before it's time. The weed whacker, the leaf blower, the chop saw, and the straw that broke the camel's back was the snow blower. It was a 2 stage 12 HP machine that lasted two years. I went to start it up before a big snowstorm and the casting that held the starter motor to the engine snapped off. I went to back the Sears store I bought it from and they told me I should have purchased the extended warranty.

Sears, never again.

Thats sad really....because the selling point behind Craftsman tools used to be that Sears stood behind them

 

[KevinWestern]

Jan. 25, 2014

Two of the largest retailers in America are steamrolling toward bankruptcy. Sears and J.C. Penney are both losing hundreds of millions of dollars each quarter, and both of them appear to be caught in the grip of a death spiral from which it will be impossible to escape. Once upon a time, Sears was actually the largest retailer in the United States, and even today Sears and J.C. Penney are “anchor stores” in malls all over the country. When I was growing up, my mother would take me to the mall when it was time to go clothes shopping, and there were usually just two options: Sears or J.C. Penney. When I got older, I actually worked for Sears for a little while. At the time, nobody would have ever imagined that Sears or J.C. Penney could go out of business someday. But that is precisely what is happening. They are both shutting down unprofitable stores and laying off employees in a desperate attempt to avoid bankruptcy, but everyone knows that they are just delaying the inevitable. These two great retail giants are dying, and they certainly won’t be the last to fall. This is just the beginning.

The Death Of Sears

Sales have declined at Sears for 27 quarters in a row, and the legendary retailer has been closing hundreds of stores and selling off property in a frantic attempt to turn things around.

Unfortunately for Sears, it is not working. In fact, Sears has announced that it expects to lose “between $250 million to $360 million” for the quarter that will end on February 1st.

Things have gotten so bad that Sears is even making commercials that openly acknowledge how badly it is struggling. For example, consider the following bit of dialogue from a recent Sears television commercial featuring two young women…

“Wait, the movie theater is on the other side,” the passenger says.

“But Sears always has parking!” the driver responds.

Sears always has parking???

Of course the unspoken admission is that Sears always has parking because nobody shops there anymore.

I have posted video of the commercial below…

A couple of months ago I walked into a Sears store in the middle of the week and it was like a ghost town. A few associates were milling around here and there having private discussions among themselves, but other than that it was eerily quiet.

You can find 18 incredibly depressing photographs which do a great job of illustrating why Sears is steadily dying right here. This was once one of America’s greatest companies, but soon it will be dead.

The Death Of J.C. Penney

J.C. Penny has been a dead man walking for a long time. In some ways, it is in even worse shape than Sears.

If you can believe it, J.C. Penney actually lost 586 million dollars during the second quarter of 2013 alone.

How in the world do you lose 586 million dollars in three months?

Are they paying employees to flush giant piles of cash down the toilets?

This week J.C. Penney announced that it is eliminating 2,000 jobs and closing 33 stores. The following is a list of the store closings that was released to the public…

read more WHAT RECOVERY? SEARS AND J.C. PENNEY ARE DYING >> Four Winds 10 - Truth Winds

Not sure if JC Penny's and Sears should be the "reference point" for how our economy is doing as a whole. Those are two businesses who are having a tough time competing and adapting to the new marketplace (vs companies like Amazon, etc). Even if the economy was booming, I still think they'd be struggling.

 

[Flopper]

Not the first time for Sears and JC Penny to be headed towards bankruptcy. I gave up on Sears in the mid "90's.

Sears has tried to set themselves apart from the big discount departments stores such as Target and Walmart and it just hasn't worked. For the past seven years, Sears and Kmart (also owned by Sears Holding) has been in the hands a of hedge fund manager who tried to manage the business as a financial holding company instead of a retail business. Bankruptcy and reorganization seems a distinct possibility. The company has valuable brand names such as Craftsman, Kenmore and Land's End. My guess is they will end up as an Internet retailer with a limited number of stores stocking what they sell on the Internet. The company started off selling from a catalog and that may be how they end up.

I don't see how they are going to compete with Walmart and Target.

Sears has also branched off their hardware stores

I walked through a large Sears store one afternoon last week. It was like walking through a mausoleum. I found only one sales person on the entire floor. The only customers in the store were in the auto dept and the pick for Internet sales. I was looking for a phone which Sears didn't carry so I drove across the street to Target. The store probably had a hundred or more customers.

I seriously doubt Sears would be making it even in a booming economy.

 

[rightwinger]

Sears has tried to set themselves apart from the big discount departments stores such as Target and Walmart and it just hasn't worked. For the past seven years, Sears and Kmart (also owned by Sears Holding) has been in the hands a of hedge fund manager who tried to manage the business as a financial holding company instead of a retail business. Bankruptcy and reorganization seems a distinct possibility. The company has valuable brand names such as Craftsman, Kenmore and Land's End. My guess is they will end up as an Internet retailer with a limited number of stores stocking what they sell on the Internet. The company started off selling from a catalog and that may be how they end up.

I don't see how they are going to compete with Walmart and Target.

Sears has also branched off their hardware stores

I walked through a large Sears store one afternoon last week. It was like walking through a mausoleum. I found only one sales person on the entire floor. The only customers in the store were in the auto dept and the pick for Internet sales. I was looking for a phone which Sears didn't carry so I drove across the street to Target. The store probably had a hundred or more customers.

I seriously doubt Sears would be making it even in a booming economy.

They sure are right about parking

Any time I go to a crowded mall I always park in the Sears lot. Plenty of good spaces close to the door. I generally walk through Sears without looking