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Only 5 Sears stores remain in the U.S.

nytimes.com

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Re: Only 5 Sears stores remain in the U.S.

#41

Post by b112 »

ycombinatrix wrote: post #37
b112 wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My house, built in the 60s, is actually 4 Sears cabin kits. The guy bought them, and assembled them end to end, making a long house. Same guy dug the original ditch by driving back and forth with his jeep for an hour during spring rain. This gives a perspective on his can do attitude. But really, I'm living in the house still, so it can't be that bad.

>Same guy dug the original ditch by driving back and forth with his jeep for an hour during spring rain. wtf? how deep is the ditch?

When I bought, it was maybe 2 ft deep. 60s Jeeps weren't quite a wide as today, either.

I dug it out properly after buying. It was a perfectly good ditch though, but I wanted to drain more water at the back of the property, so I lowered it another 2 feet.

Re: Only 5 Sears stores remain in the U.S.

#42

Post by lumost »

nrhrjrjrjtntbt wrote: post #13
cwyers wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ironically they had the foresight, they were just too early/didn't execute. They ran an online service (co-owner with IBM and CBS) called Prodigy that competed with AOL and CompuServ, and they tried to do online shopping there.

Everyone is talking like creating Amazon was some kind of low hanging citrus to be picked from the tree.

People are talking about putting a mail order catalog store online. Presumably, sears already had the catalog, shipping infrastructure - so it really should have been about digital payments, and an online storefront.

How significant their shipping catalog was in the 1990s I do not know, scaling the online storefront would have required Amazon scale investments which a dividend maximizing company was unlikely to do.

Re: Only 5 Sears stores remain in the U.S.

#43

Post by busyant »

Since we're reminiscing, I remember Sears sold a "Sears-version" of the Atari 2600. I forget what it was called, but it was identical to the 2600.

My 9 year old brain was convinced that it was somehow inferior to the Atari-branded version of the 2600 and I was sad when my parents got me the Sears version for Christmas (it was probably cheaper than the Atari, I can't remember).

It didn't take me long, however, to realize it was the same thing with a different logo.

Re: Only 5 Sears stores remain in the U.S.

#44

Post by brushfoot »

mulmen wrote: post #32
LeoPanthera wrote: post #10

At one point Sears owned an ISP, a bank, and a nationwide stock tracking and distribution system. They were Amazon before Amazon, but just didn’t realize it.

I think they did realize it and tried as hard as they could and still failed. I was a Sears salesperson in 2003 and 2004. The whole operation took itself very seriously and embraced the internet and technology. They just… failed. I’d love to know how they missed because everything was in their favor.

Think of the kinds of people who vie for leadership roles at established companies like Sears was at the time. Those people aren't innovators and creators. They're management types, MBAs, bureaucrats.

And fair enough: When the ship is that big and there are that many people on board, you often don't want to "move fast and break things," because the downstream effects can be extreme. Now you've just broken a company that had been working for decades. You're incentivized to take small risks with high likelihoods of reward.

Of course, the problem is, at some point that becomes fatal. A balance can be struck, but it can be hard when the original driving force is long gone.

Re: Only 5 Sears stores remain in the U.S.

#45

Post by kstrauser »

busyant wrote: post #43

Since we're reminiscing, I remember Sears sold a "Sears-version" of the Atari 2600. I forget what it was called, but it was identical to the 2600. My 9 year old brain was convinced that it was somehow inferior to the Atari-branded version of the 2600 and I was sad when my parents got me the Sears version for Christmas (it was probably cheaper than the Atari, I can't remember). It didn't take me long, however, to real…

Ah, the Sears Tele-Games.

Re: Only 5 Sears stores remain in the U.S.

#46

Post by warkdarrior »

metalman wrote: post #38
b112 wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I bought a riding lawnmower used, 17 years ago. The mower was very well maintained, engine was good, and already 25 to 30 years old when I bought it. I wanted the manual. Sears parts still existed, and they shipped me a complete copy of the manual(photocopied) for 10 bucks. Manual listed all parts, breakdown, etc. I was able to confidently order parts, keep it running for a decade. That was one reason Sears was so li…

I will detail the evil anti machine from sears, combo washer dryer, drop the lid and it breaks the switch, the switch trigger is on the lid with a very long prong, dropped gently it works, fast it breaks, $150 plus service call, where it turns out the prong can be snapped off, leaving a stub that still triggers the switch, but wont break it. Next, the waterpump sits on three bosses, with spring clips, if it ingests a…

Holy run-on sentences, Batman!

Re: Only 5 Sears stores remain in the U.S.

#47

Post by theturtletalks »

mulmen wrote: post #32
LeoPanthera wrote: post #10

At one point Sears owned an ISP, a bank, and a nationwide stock tracking and distribution system. They were Amazon before Amazon, but just didn’t realize it.

I think they did realize it and tried as hard as they could and still failed. I was a Sears salesperson in 2003 and 2004. The whole operation took itself very seriously and embraced the internet and technology. They just… failed. I’d love to know how they missed because everything was in their favor.

Those who tell stories, rule society. Amazon's story of starting in a garage selling books to selling millions of things was just more interesting than Sears, which had been around for so much longer.

Amazon also wasn't like Sears, they depended heavily on 3rd party sellers to built their initial catalog. Sears didn't have 3rd party sellers until much later on. Amazon just leveraged those 3rd party sellers to figure out what they should carry and sell as Amazon down the line.

Re: Only 5 Sears stores remain in the U.S.

#48

Post by kstrauser »

silisili wrote: post #6
wkat4242 wrote: post #4

What did they sell? A bit of everything?

Literally almost everything, up to and including entire houses. I've lived in two Sears houses, great quality stuff if not a bit small by modern tastes. When I was a kid it was normal for parents to let their kids read the huge yearly Sears catalog to get ideas or pick gifts. By then they'd stopped selling items like firearms and houses but had pretty much everything else. If they had the foresight, they should have…

One thing that Amazon absolutely mastered was fast logistics. Sears thrived in a time where TV ads would sell things with an asterisk saying “allow 4-6 weeks for delivery”. They had 100+ years to bring their timelines down, yet Sears Prime with free rush delivery wasn’t a thing. I don’t know what it would have taken to revamp their supply lines to make that possible. And neither, I suspect, did they.

Re: Only 5 Sears stores remain in the U.S.

#49

Post by ksec »

silisili wrote: post #6
wkat4242 wrote: post #4

What did they sell? A bit of everything?

Literally almost everything, up to and including entire houses. I've lived in two Sears houses, great quality stuff if not a bit small by modern tastes. When I was a kid it was normal for parents to let their kids read the huge yearly Sears catalog to get ideas or pick gifts. By then they'd stopped selling items like firearms and houses but had pretty much everything else. If they had the foresight, they should have…

Do they sell it all under their own brand? i.e Costco Kirkland like or was it like old Amazon where every brand have their own exposure?

Re: Only 5 Sears stores remain in the U.S.

#50

Post by eesmith »

jbs789 wrote: post #19
klipklop wrote: post #7

Intentionally destroyed to get access to its real estate. I dunno how the CEO is not behind bars for what he did.

I think it would have been hard to recover but yeah when Lampert got involved it was all about the financial engineering rather than the operations. I bought the shares around then but sold soon after, turned off by the conflicts and the lack of focus on ops. (I vaguely recall some realisation that he had made money but the public equity did not… It was a bit of an awakening for the young investor who had bought into…

Also, https://www.pbs.org/newshour/economy/column-this-is-what-hap...

> In 2008, Sears CEO Eddie Lampert decided to restructure the company according to [Ayn] Rand's principles.

> Lampert broke the company into more than 30 individual units, each with its own management and each measured separately for profit and loss. The idea was to promote competition among the units, which Lampert assumed would lead to higher profits. Instead, " ... the divisions turned against each other — and Sears and Kmart, the overarching brands, suffered."

See also the 2013 Salon article "Ayn Rand-loving CEO destroys his empire" at https://www.salon.com/2013/12/10/ayn_rand_loving_ceo_destroy...

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