# Sears closing/bankrupt



## NorthernRedneck

Haven't seen anything here about Sears closing. I'm unsure if it's just Sears Canada or if it's the whole works. I have a friend who works at our local store. I went there today looking for sales as they are set to start liquidating all their stock. Sales don't start till Thursday. I saw my friend at work and because they aren't unionized he could be let go any day despite having 30yrs there. 

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## FrancSevin

Sears is going the way of Montgomery Ward and the Ben Franklin stores.  And for much the same reasons.


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## waybomb

Union or not, if they close, he's out of a job.


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## tiredretired

and JC Penny will be next.  Their stores are horrible now.


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## NorthernRedneck

I know the Sears of old is long gone. I know I haven't shopped there in years. They are often twice the price as other big box stores for the same brand products. 

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## GlacierSean

Some of the houses in my town are Sears catalog homes. People could pick a style out of the catalog and have it shipped on a railroad car. The buyer could assemble it themselves. It's crazy to think that a company that was so dominant is now about dead. Maybe history will repeat itself and Ikea and Amazon will offer houses in the mail.


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## Catavenger

GlacierSean said:


> Some of the houses in my town are Sears catalog homes. People could pick a style out of the catalog and have it shipped on a railroad car. The buyer could assemble it themselves. It's crazy to think that a company that was so dominant is now about dead. Maybe history will repeat itself and Ikea and Amazon will offer houses in the mail.


  They do:  https://www.buzzfeed.com/juliegerst...ouse-on-amazon?utm_term=.qaW1xXvPy#.xp0P51Rqv


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## Melensdad

GlacierSean said:


> Some of the houses in my town are Sears catalog homes. People could pick a style out of the catalog and have it shipped on a railroad car. The buyer could assemble it themselves. It's crazy to think that a company that was so dominant is now about dead.


Yup.  Sears owned the middle retail segment.  They had their own brands, and those were considered very high quality and a fair, but not cheap, price.  Kenmore.  Craftsman.  

And Sears owned the catalog business.  The internet is just the new version of a paper catalog.  Not sure why Sears (and to a lesser extent JC Penny) didn't understand that internet sales were nothing more than digital catalogs.  They still own a ton of real estate and could have very easily done "ships free to store" and "click now pick up in 1 hour" shopping IN ADDITION TO shipping to your home.  

Oh sure, they eventually offered an on-line portal, but by they time they did it they were already on the steps of bankruptcy and lost.  To this day their website is horrible compared to Amazon.  

WalMart also has an on-line portal for shopping, its, marginally useable, at best.  Their search engine for their products is lousy.  They offer a lot more on-line than in the stores, and they offer better quality products on-line ... but its difficult to find the items on-line compared to Amazon's search.  Not sure who will catch up to Amazon, but obviously SEARS failed.  JC Penny failed.  And so far WalMart is failing.






			
				GlacierSean said:
			
		

> ... Maybe history will repeat itself and Ikea and Amazon will offer houses in the mail.



Amazon already offers "tiny houses" that are pre-assembled and furnished.  They are built inside shipping containers and the container is shipped right to your property.  Cost is under $30,000 delivered.


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## tiredretired

Simply put it is Wally World for the instant gratification.  For example I buy all my Castrol motor oil and filters there as the 5 gt. containers are 30% cheaper then the automotive stores.  

Amazon Prime gets the bulk of my on line shopping.  For the Prime Fee I get an awesome streaming channel on the Roku and two day free shipping for the most part.  I even buy our pet food on Amazon.  Cheaper and the pet stores don't always have it.  

I live in a small town in a rural small state so many things are just not available on the shelf anymore like the old days and it is not cost effective to drive 45 miles one way to a larger city to see if I can find it.  Easier to plan ahead a few days and find it, click on it and have UPS drop it off at my front door.  

I am no fan of Bezos by a long shot, but the summbitch runs an efficient operation.


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## Melensdad

TiredRetired said:


> I even buy our pet food on Amazon.  Cheaper and the pet stores don't always have it.


Take a look at Chewy.com for pet food.  Biggest downside is free shipping requires a $50 purchase.  But its often worth it because the prices are typically lower than Amazon by several % points.


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## tiredretired

Melensdad said:


> Take a look at Chewy.com for pet food.  Biggest downside is free shipping requires a $50 purchase.  But its often worth it because the prices are typically lower than Amazon by several % points.



Thank you, sir.  I did not even know about that web site.


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## Catavenger

Melensdad said:


> Take a look at Chewy.com for pet food.  Biggest downside is free shipping requires a $50 purchase.  But its often worth it because the prices are typically lower than Amazon by several % points.



Yep that's where I get my canned cat food and litter. 
 With my crew it's easy to get to over 50 bucks.
 I had one problem where the caps on the litter big litter containers were not put on tight. When they came off I had litter all over. Fortunately I caught it before I brought the containers into my house.
 Still I had a big mess on my carport.
I pitched a b*tch and they didn't charge me for it at all. Some of the big jugs were sent upright so they didn't lose any litter so I ended up with quite a bit of free litter.
I also got a discount on the next order. Other than that I haven't had any problems with them.
What's strange is when I calculated the canned food by the ounce the box that contained fewer cans ended up cheaper (per ounce) than the box that contained more cans. So that's something to check on.
Just be aware  (some of) the boxes are HEAVY.

Buy at warehouse stores like Sam' Club and Costco, (A Vet told me to get cheap store brand dry at Costco, just as good but a lot  cheaper.), a good option.


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## FrancSevin

Catavenger said:


> Yep that's where I get my canned cat food and litter.
> With my crew it's easy to get to over 50 bucks.
> I had one problem where the caps on the litter big litter containers were not put on tight. When they came off I had litter all over. Fortunately I caught it before I brought the containers into my house.
> Still I had a big mess on my carport.
> I pitched a b*tch and they didn't charge me for it at all. Some of the big jugs were sent upright so they didn't lose any litter so I ended up with quite a bit of free litter.
> I also got a discount on the next order. Other than that I haven't had any problems with them.
> What's strange is when I calculated the canned food by the ounce the box that contained fewer cans ended up cheaper (per ounce) than the box that contained more cans. So that's something to check on.
> Just be aware (some of) the boxes are HEAVY.
> 
> Buy at warehouse stores like Sam' Club and Costco, (A Vet told me to get cheap store brand dry at Costco, just as good but a lot cheaper.), a good option.


 
 Just a note about CostCo pet food brand.  It is packaged by META Foods out of Meta MO.  They are one of my customers.  And while they generally do a fine job, they have had at least 3 major recalls since we started packaging for them.


 None of our products, which are the star shaped dental treats. (Bright Bites tm) But,  mostly in the dry bagged stuff for Canines.


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## Doc

Sears acquiring Kmart never did seem like a wise move.   I suspect that cost them plenty and is a big part of the reason they are going down the tubes.


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## pixie

The way I heard it ... Sears big retail stores are done but the small hometown stores are staying.
Ours sells appliances, lawnmowers, a few tools, some tvs and vacuums.


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## NorthernRedneck

pixie said:


> The way I heard it ... Sears big retail stores are done but the small hometown stores are staying.
> Ours sells appliances, lawnmowers, a few tools, some tvs and vacuums.


That may be the case in the states. The whole division up here is shutting down. We have a 2 story store here. There's already speculating about what will take it's place. The two most common stores mentioned are cabellas and Costco. We already have 3 Wal-Mart's here. 

Another store on it's way out is toys r us. We had a target here. A lot of hype about it opening only a couple years ago. They barely lasted a year before the whole Canadian division imploded

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## jwstewar

Doc said:


> Sears acquiring Kmart never did seem like a wise move.   I suspect that cost them plenty and is a big part of the reason they are going down the tubes.



Actually, even though Kmart had been in bankruptcy, they came out of it and they did the acquiring. Kmart bought Sears, so Sears was already in trouble by that point in time.


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## Doc

jwstewar said:


> Actually, even though Kmart had been in bankruptcy, they came out of it and they did the acquiring. Kmart bought Sears, so Sears was already in trouble by that point in time.


No chit.   That surprises me ....but does make more sense than Sears acquiring Kmart.


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## NorthernRedneck

So today was the first day of liquidation sales. I went just to check it out. 20-50% off everything. Here's the catch. And I literally shook my head and laughed in the store when I saw the average price of clothing there. A casual dress shirt that I can pick up at Wal-Mart for $13 is regular  $49 at Sears. Even taking 20% off the top I can still get 2 shirts at walmart for less than 1 at Sears. And that's just a plain shirt. And people were beating the doors down lined up 50 people in a row to buy this stuff. 

I was talking to my physiotherapist this morning and he was a little pissed. I guess he bought a fancy refrigerator there recently and paid for the extended warranty. Now he's out  $400. 

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## Catavenger

NorthernRedneck said:


> Another store on it's way out is toys r us. We had a target here. A lot of hype about it opening only a couple years ago. They barely lasted a year before the whole Canadian division imploded
> 
> Sent from my SM-A520F using Tapatalk



Toy's are sure expensive.

K-Mart sure screwed the pooch. They used to be as big as Walmart is now. I don't know what they did wrong.


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## FrancSevin

Doc said:


> Sears acquiring Kmart never did seem like a wise move. I suspect that cost them plenty and is a big part of the reason they are going down the tubes.


Actually, I believe K-mart acquired Sears.
http://www.nbcnews.com/id/6509683/n...mart-acquire-sears-billion-deal/#.WelbknmWy00

 $11 billion and it may well be the reason *they* are letting it go down.


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## NorthernRedneck

Lmao. My aunt and I were chatting last night about the "sales" at Sears yesterday. Here's her observations about the clearance sales. 


"Sears great liquidation sale!!! Last week, all winter jackets were on sale at 40% off. Today, they are 20% off. The red-ticketed ones were 50% and today, 20%."

And all the sheep just flocked to the store to cash in on those great deals. [emoji23]

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## rugerman

I worked for Kmart for 28 years, hen Walmart was moving up and Kmart decided NOT to match prices I knew that kmarts days were numbered, the problem was that the head honcho was a real estate man, had no idea as to how to run a retail business, closed a lot of profitable stores so he could sell the real estate. Then he let stores get by with low stock situations and high prices. 
   One day I came into work and there was a guy there who stopped me on my way in and asked me if I was the pharmacy manager, when I said yes he said that Kmart was closing this store and they would give me a timeline. No advance warning, offered 1 week of vacation pay for each year that I worked if I would stay til close of store. I took it and since I was close to retirement I went ahead and retired.


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## luvs

we sued sears once, & won-- $11 via a class-action suit~~ yay-- we got pasta that nite, & not steak~~


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## waybomb

Business needs to adapt.
But first they must recognize the need.
What really sucks is when the writing is on the wall and nobody seems to listen to what is being said. Happened to me and I left the business. 

But back to Sears.......
Sears was a big part of our early marriage life. A Sears outlet store was nearby, a huge one, Also a bit farther away was a Spiegel outlet and an Alden's outlet.

Just about everything we bought was bought from those three stores. When we moved away, there were no outlet stores (real outlet stores, not like the full price outlet mall crap they have now). So we continued to shop all three retail stores.

At one point we moved to Maryland. The first night in our new house on the bay was the hottest night of the year, and the AC stopped working. Had a home warrantee, turns out owned by Sears. This home was on Kent Island, which was essentially at sea level, and the water table was so high, one could not build a basement, so everybody had crawl spaces. Called them up, they sent a guy out the next morning, he was afraid of spiders so he would not go into the crawl space. The next day, another guy came out and he was claustrophobic. The THIRD day the guy came out and was afraid of snakes (we had black snakes on the island).

Three freaking days no ac.

Not one of them went to the heat pump where most of the controls are btw, and the heat pump is guess where - outside on a pad.
I went over to a neighbor's house, introduced myself, and borrowed some basic hand tools as our stuff had not arrived yet.
First thing I did was manually push in the contactor. It worked. Killed the power, took the contactor partially apart, wedged some cardboard in there to hold the contacts in, that house was COLD in the morning, let me tell you!. Picked up and installed a new contactor that day.

Never shopped at Sears again, ripped up my card, and told them to pound sand.

We bought so much from them. Every appliance, probably twice, many power tools, all my kid's clothes, many of our clothes, hardware, an engine hoist I still have, a maple woodworking bench I still have, and on and on. I still have a large corded angle grinder and a big belt sander, all at least 30 years old. 10" table saw, 10" radial arm saw, carbide blades up to 120 tooth, so much. Damn.

And I will never go in again.


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## JimVT

It's Not going to be missed in the outhouse.


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## NorthernRedneck

Won't be missed by me but I do remember as a kid always waiting for the wishbook to come out. I would go through the toy section over and over frantically making my list for Santa. 

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## snowstorm

NorthernRedneck said:


> Won't be missed by me but I do remember as a kid always waiting for the wishbook to come out. I would go through the toy section over and over frantically making my list for Santa.
> 
> Sent from my SM-A520F using Tapatalk



That makes at least two of us.   Oh the wishing and dreaming that catalog once brought the kids


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## NorthernRedneck

The sales are starting to ad up now as Sears increases discounts. The lovely missus and I went there looking for a new winter jacket for her. She walked out with a jacket and close to 300 in clothes with apparently 175 in total savings. 

We looked at refrigerators for the heck of it and found one we liked. Retail was over $2000. On sale for $1199. We held off on buying it so I could do my homework. Best I could find for the exact same one was on sale for $1699. So I've been spending the day emptying and cleaning out the current one for delivery of the new one this evening. 

There is quite the uproar up here over Sears closing as they could have saved the store but instead chose to give top execs huge bonuses.


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