Article

2024-12-21 Economy

Downfall of America''s most famous retailer hits new low as beloved brand is left clinging on in only four states

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Posted by Fred 2024-12-21 00:00|| || Front Page|| [11143 views ] Top

#1
Sears was the place, for what, 75+ years?
It failed to see the Metro decay around it.
It failed to see the growth of Wally World in the suburbs, all until it was too late.

Add to it, the stupid move of purchasing K-Mart locations and then selling the CRAFTSMAN brand name.

What does Sears now have to offer, that many other store chains provide for less?

Posted by NN2N1 2024-12-21 05:33|| 2024-12-21 05:33|| Front Page Top

#2 But for one monumentally shortsighted, stupid decision, Sears should have been Amazon. This one will be taught in business schools for decades to come.

Mike

Posted by MikeKozlowski 2024-12-21 06:47|| 2024-12-21 06:47|| Front Page Top

#3 They had a catalog, they had product numbers, they had pictures. It was a analog version of what Amazon became. Suits content with shuffling rather than innovating.

Posted by Procopius2k 2024-12-21 07:38|| 2024-12-21 07:38|| Front Page Top

#4 ‘Taught in Business schools’…. The requirement of Wallstreet to be Profitable, Predictable and sustainable handcuffs public traded corporations from taking significant transformative risks to win in the Market Place in the future. see Sears, Kodak (who invented the digital camera), Blockbuster Video…. The list is long.

Posted by Airandee 2024-12-21 07:41|| 2024-12-21 07:41|| Front Page Top

#5 MikeK
You are dead on.
They were there doing it before Amazon.
Like millions of others, I ordered from the Sears Catalog many times, over my 40 years of using them.

Posted by NN2N1 2024-12-21 07:41|| 2024-12-21 07:41|| Front Page Top

#6 A Sears Langston – A Century Later…

Posted by Besoeker 2024-12-21 07:44|| 2024-12-21 07:44|| Front Page Top

#7 It's the curse of the centralized management system. Where they bring together all the management of an organization in one place, so it can be 'supervised'. Most groups succeed in spite of leadership, not because of it.
It's the "skyscraper curse", where a company gets a big building, and then dies. They get a big facility, with lots of space to grow. them they start filling the space, cause people gonna build their little kingdoms.
Then the whole business gets arteriosclorosis.

Posted by ed in texas 2024-12-21 08:40|| 2024-12-21 08:40|| Front Page Top

#8 They get a big facility, with lots of space to grow. them they start filling the space, cause people gonna build their little kingdoms.

The model our government adopted in the 30s.

Posted by Procopius2k 2024-12-21 09:08|| 2024-12-21 09:08|| Front Page Top

#9 Thing I always found about Sears - A prices and B merchandise.

Posted by Mercutio 2024-12-21 09:09|| 2024-12-21 09:09|| Front Page Top

#10 The government picked Amazon as a winner. I thought Sears was already gone. Can’t believe they are still afloat in California. There merchandise must be too unattractive to steal.

Posted by Super Hose 2024-12-21 10:38|| 2024-12-21 10:38|| Front Page Top

#11 What does Sears now have to offer, that many other store chains provide for less?

I miss the free walk-in-the-door replacement/no questions asked for broken Craftsman tools. Colorado mountain cold makes some brittle.

Posted by Skidmark 2024-12-21 10:40|| 2024-12-21 10:40|| Front Page Top

#12 ^ Die-Hard auto batteries were pretty good for the time, too

Posted by Frank G 2024-12-21 11:26|| 2024-12-21 11:26|| Front Page Top

#13 Christmas batteries; good in cold weather.

Posted by swksvolFF 2024-12-21 11:39|| 2024-12-21 11:39|| Front Page Top

#14 I have some Craftsman tools that I inherited both from my dad and my father-in-law. They're antiques now but they still work great. Then they outsourced all that manufacturing to China. But they lost me long before then. The catalog might have been great when people didn't have as many choices as they do now. But I could always find better clothes and appliances elsewhere.

Posted by Abu Uluque 2024-12-21 12:31|| 2024-12-21 12:31|| Front Page Top

#15 #4 add...Xerox and their Palo Alto Research Center who developed the CRT automated word processor that Apple ripped off. Xerox management didn't know what they had.

Posted by Procopius2k 2024-12-21 13:05|| 2024-12-21 13:05|| Front Page Top

#16 Name me the latest tech innovation coming from Apple.Woz left, Jobs died, and the company is just a cash cow to be milked with decade old innovation.

Posted by Regular joe 2024-12-21 14:49|| 2024-12-21 14:49|| Front Page Top

#17 There's a Supreme Court decision from long ago that decreed that Sears/Penny's did NOT have to remit sales tax to the various states for catalog orders. I've never understood fully why online companies didn't fight harder to declare that decision means THEIR orders don't require state-by-state sales tax collection.

Posted by Crusader 2024-12-21 15:44|| 2024-12-21 15:44|| Front Page Top

#18 ...because Amazon became big enough that they could handle it and accepting it helps kill off potential start up competitors. Technically, you are correct as it is interstate commerce and thus purely the jurisdiction of the federal government. The states didn't pressure Congress on the issue because they rightly feared Congress would keep the booty for themselves so they went the judicial fiat route.

Posted by Procopius2k 2024-12-21 17:35|| 2024-12-21 17:35|| Front Page Top

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