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Sears has another chance to avoid closing down

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Re: Sears has another chance to avoid closing down

#251

Post by mulmen »

cr0sh wrote: post #232
mark-r wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is it that makes the real estate valuable though? A mall with a big hole in it doesn't seem like a good investment. If Sears couldn't make a go of it it's hard to see how anybody else could.

Maybe the fallout shelters? Virtually every Sears standalone store - at least up thru the 1980s, was also a fallout shelter (with air raid siren and everything).

How is this a business? I’m not tuned in to the preppier community but from what I gather they would not be huge fans of rushing to a centralized location in an emergency. Also they’re a tiny market.

Re: Sears has another chance to avoid closing down

#252

Post by aj7 »

CoolGuySteve wrote: post #192
xigency wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I thought this as well until I heard a counter-point [0] which was very convincing. The reason Amazon is successful is not because you can shop online (from a catalog) and receive items in the mail. The reason Amazon is successful is because you can do those things and receive your items within two days. Before Prime existed, Amazon had very quick fulfillment, and after Prime two-day it became even better. The Sears…

Not to be snarky, but there needs to be a name for selective amnesia when an idea that seems obvious in retrospect is ignored later on. In this case, the thing that made Amazon so great, before Prime existed, was that it had the "Things you might also like" section. AFAIK it was one of the first online stores that used machine learning to recommend new and related items you didn't realize you wanted and to have user…

Amazon’s “recommendations,” complication and clutter are a mess. They are not a desirable feature for me. They also often don’t have the best prices. I still use them a lot, but feel ripped off by Prime. I have an Alexa, but wish I didn’t. Walmart’s online is good, uncluttered, low priced, and if you’re pissed, you can get in your car and physically return it immediately for a refund. I use it when I can, to try to dollar vote against Amazon.

Re: Sears has another chance to avoid closing down

#253

Post by aj7 »

bpicolo wrote: post #219
CoolGuySteve wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not to be snarky, but there needs to be a name for selective amnesia when an idea that seems obvious in retrospect is ignored later on. In this case, the thing that made Amazon so great, before Prime existed, was that it had the "Things you might also like" section. AFAIK it was one of the first online stores that used machine learning to recommend new and related items you didn't realize you wanted and to have user…

Is that really a primary growth factor? I've never once acted on an Amazon recommendation, and it's always felt almost entirely useless - "you just bought a vacuum, here's 15 more vacuums just in case you're a vacuum-obsessed lunatic"

Yup.

Re: Sears has another chance to avoid closing down

#254

Post by chipotle_coyote »

While I've read the various arguments over the last year or so about how Sears really wasn't terribly mismanaged by Eddie Lambert, the dingus who bought it and K-Mart in the mid-2000s, I continue to believe that he bears a huge share of responsibility for the company's collapse.

Yes, brick-and-mortar retail is in trouble. Yes, all department stores are in various stages of decline. But Sears fell very hard and very fast, and made uniquely terrible decisions like "we don't need to invest in infrastructure and upkeep because we have a great loyalty program" and "our various departments will do better if we make them fight one another for ever-decreasing resources" and "hey, we'll make some quick short-term profit if we sell off our world-famous captive brands like Kenmore, Craftsman, and Diehard that have literally brought people into our stores for decades."

Sears should really be in at least as good shape as competitors like Dillard's, Nordstrom's, Best Buy, or even Macy's -- the latter of which is arguably not in good shape, but for all their faults, they haven't been doing the corporate equivalent of bashing themselves in the face with a big rock for ten years.

Re: Sears has another chance to avoid closing down

#256

Post by dawnerd »

hrktb wrote: post #176
gibolt wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While this is generally true, imagine if Sears had honestly realized their competitors potential and tried to compete. They had the country covered in stores and could have easily cut shipping times down by shipping from the nearest one. Their stores were also a hodgepodge of junk all randomly mixed, and they never made their store a desirable place to stroll.

We could say the same for other big box retailers. I don’t know any that even comes close to te amazon experience, short of Yodobashi.con in Japan. I think it requires something very special for an organization to accept to canibalize itself. Apple is the only exemple that I would see at a behemoth scale.

apparently amazon can't even replicate it in their own Amazon Book stores. QR codes just to get prices? really?

Re: Sears has another chance to avoid closing down

#258

Post by codereflection »

wombatpm wrote: post #5

Sears had everything. Global supply chain, check. Top notch distribution operation, check. System and infrastructure to take orders and handling billing, check. Name recognition and established customer base, check. They threw it all away, ending catalog operations in 1993 a year before Amazon.com opened in 1994. They owned part of Prodigy in 1984! Yet somehow thought it was a better move to expand into bigger box re…

In some alternate universe, we're all using Sears Web Services and no one has heard of Amazon.

Re: Sears has another chance to avoid closing down

#259

Post by rurp »

CoolGuySteve wrote: post #192
xigency wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I thought this as well until I heard a counter-point [0] which was very convincing. The reason Amazon is successful is not because you can shop online (from a catalog) and receive items in the mail. The reason Amazon is successful is because you can do those things and receive your items within two days. Before Prime existed, Amazon had very quick fulfillment, and after Prime two-day it became even better. The Sears…

Not to be snarky, but there needs to be a name for selective amnesia when an idea that seems obvious in retrospect is ignored later on. In this case, the thing that made Amazon so great, before Prime existed, was that it had the "Things you might also like" section. AFAIK it was one of the first online stores that used machine learning to recommend new and related items you didn't realize you wanted and to have user…

In the early days of Amazon their book recommendations were much better than any other online source I knew of. I would often visit their product pages to find new books to checkout at the library. At one point I bought some books I didn't really need because I felt guilty about always using the site without buying anything.

These days I find the recommendations pretty useless and have a slightly different opinion of buying products there just to help out the company.

Re: Sears has another chance to avoid closing down

#260

Post by gotorazor »

gibolt wrote: post #137
xigency wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I thought this as well until I heard a counter-point [0] which was very convincing. The reason Amazon is successful is not because you can shop online (from a catalog) and receive items in the mail. The reason Amazon is successful is because you can do those things and receive your items within two days. Before Prime existed, Amazon had very quick fulfillment, and after Prime two-day it became even better. The Sears…

While this is generally true, imagine if Sears had honestly realized their competitors potential and tried to compete. They had the country covered in stores and could have easily cut shipping times down by shipping from the nearest one. Their stores were also a hodgepodge of junk all randomly mixed, and they never made their store a desirable place to stroll.

Walmart is following this exact strategy right now.

How are they doing?

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