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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.

#101

Post by kelseyfrog »

dv_dt wrote: post #21
kristopolous wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Our obligation is to personal profit at the expense of everything else. This is empirically the default operational behavior. It should always be assumed as opposed to our current strategy of always being baffled and shocked that it happens. We could be serious about this and restructure incentives away from naked kleptocracy to avoid it. I mean we never will, but we could...

If the passive investor class wanted more and better options to collect profits with low long-term risk they would actually support that kind of restructure - but alas it's all very short=sighted profit taking now that actually hurts long term growth. It's no small irony that Buffet's retirement aligns with the close out as an iconic holdout of long view valuation - even his more recent moves I think showed some retr…

> If the passive investor class wanted more and better options to collect profits with low long-term risk they would actually support that kind of restructure

How would that message be conveyed? Like, who would send it and who would receive it? Would it be more like an email or a phone call?

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

#102

Post by jonway »

dragonwriter wrote: post #76
craftkiller wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That ad was worth every penny. I _still_ quote that ad, and everyone over the age of 30 always recognizes it, yet I can't remember ads I saw last month. If only sears was still around to capitalize on the ubiquitous headspace they purchased.

> That ad was worth every penny. I _still_ quote that ad, and everyone over the age of 30 always recognizes it, yet I can't remember ads I saw last month. If only sears was still around to capitalize on the ubiquitous headspace they purchased. Sounds like they would have been better off investing more in staying around in the conditions that actually existed rather than buying attention that they could never benefit…

People flocked for this crap though, they were a consistent and reliable partner here. Times change though and everyone started just heading to Walmart, the modern version of sears in essence I guess, and Amazon who didn’t profit at all for like a decade and also never ever paid a dividend.

I wonder about comparing the total sales rev of Walmart or Amazon (lifetime revenue) to the lifetime revenue of Sears Roebuck and whatever, adjusted for inflation. This would probably paint an interesting picture of our consumer trends and corporate governance

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

#103

Post by jonway »

b112 wrote: post #34
lazystar wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I feel like a big part of the downfall was the huge lumbering corporate culture unable to cope with JIT supply lines and race to the bottom economies of consumer goods. i think its simpler than that. they got so big that they didnt pay any attention to all the waste, e.g. all the ad time that they spent on the old "I'll call today" A/C commercial.

I wonder if those networks had a hard time filling ad orders, so Sears ended up with a massive discount? If those ads were pennies compared to other spots, it could be deemed worth it. Parents often are nearby when kids are watching TV.

Hell no! TV ads were Goliath! Radio still stays relevant, too. Late night is where it dried up. (nowadays it’s podcast spot and insta bullshit? Eh.)

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

#104

Post by dragonwriter »

jonway wrote: post #102
dragonwriter wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> That ad was worth every penny. I _still_ quote that ad, and everyone over the age of 30 always recognizes it, yet I can't remember ads I saw last month. If only sears was still around to capitalize on the ubiquitous headspace they purchased. Sounds like they would have been better off investing more in staying around in the conditions that actually existed rather than buying attention that they could never benefit…

People flocked for this crap though, they were a consistent and reliable partner here. Times change though and everyone started just heading to Walmart, the modern version of sears in essence I guess, and Amazon who didn’t profit at all for like a decade and also never ever paid a dividend. I wonder about comparing the total sales rev of Walmart or Amazon (lifetime revenue) to the lifetime revenue of Sears Roebuck an…

> People flocked for this crap though, they were a consistent and reliable partner here.

By the 1990s, when the ad in question was around, Sears was long past its status as a retail juggernaut, and was trying (ultimately unsuccessfully) to regain it--this was roughly the last decade before they were bought by Kmart—and the loss was in large part because they had spent decades working harder on trying to do other things (which they largely abandoned during the 1990s, except for the consumer credit business that had displaced retail as the main revenue source, for their terminal effort to refocus on retail.)

> I wonder about comparing the total sales rev of Walmart or Amazon (lifetime revenue) to the lifetime revenue of Sears Roebuck and whatever, adjusted for inflation. This would probably paint an interesting picture of our consumer trends and corporate governance

Not really, without a lot of other data. Their dominance was for different lengths of times, and with difference size population bases. Simply comparing lifetime sales revenue adjusted for inflation isn't going to paint much of a picture at all.

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

#105

Post by potato3732842 »

DANmode wrote: post #91
potato3732842 wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You literally can't do that today in any jurisdiction with building code. It wouldn't be illegal, but the hoops you'd need to jump through (and they way they'd likely try and screw you at every turn) to string together a bunch of kit buildings and call it a "house" would make it so expensive that you'd be better off hiring professionals to build a house the normal way.

Have you tried living in a freer state?

Unfortunately yes. I wish it was that easy. That's why I said "jurisdiction with building code". Florida is free AF. They have pretty serious building code for anything people are expected to occupy because hurricanes. The mountain west is free, on paper, at a state level. But at a local level there's fucktons of jurisdictions that are basically run by carpetbaggers from California (if not in literal state of origin then spiritually) who make everything hard. The various offgrid cabin forums are absolutely chock full of horror stories about how those people run the place.

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

#106

Post by potato3732842 »

BobbyTables2 wrote: post #94
potato3732842 wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You literally can't do that today in any jurisdiction with building code. It wouldn't be illegal, but the hoops you'd need to jump through (and they way they'd likely try and screw you at every turn) to string together a bunch of kit buildings and call it a "house" would make it so expensive that you'd be better off hiring professionals to build a house the normal way.

Are double-wide trailer homes and prefabricated housing all that different?

From the perspective an enforcer that wants an easy meal without much risk to themselves they're a way tougher nut to crack. They're built by "big enough" business that getting their stuff engineered for all the various codes is an expense they can easily amortize over their production. And these businesses can afford lawyers and have every incentive to fight unreasonable stuff so the vultures in your local zoning board or building commissioner's office are unlikely to pick a fight with them. In contrast, some random guy is way easier prey.

But yes, on a fundamental level there's little difference between plopping a modular on a grid of piers vs plopping sheds on a grid of piers. The biggest difference is the level of finishing that's done at the factory.

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

#107

Post by tracker1 »

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.

They should have been... after Prodigy (an early online service that Sears and IBM co-started) failed, their CTO (or whatever the position was) was certain "the internet is just a fad" and they didn't invest. They literally had the infrastructure that if they'd just put their catalogs online for phone orders to start with, Amazon might not have expanded beyond books and taken off like they did. I remember when Sears shut down catalog sales, I knew they weren't going to last at that point.

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

#108

Post by tracker1 »

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.

They were too late... they delayed significantly... After Prodigy failed, "the internet is just a fad" was the prevailing belief in the mid-late 90's when they could have had an early lead with just an online catalog for phone orders to start with, adding HTTPS and online orders later.

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

#109

Post by tracker1 »

compsciphd wrote: post #79
dragonwriter wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> They were Amazon before Amazon, but just didn’t realize it. They did realize it (well, they obviously didn’t have Amazon as a reference, but...). And they enjoyed it for a long time. But, as has happened many times to firms very successful in one set of conditions, they failed to adapt to changing conditions.

except arguably they should have it in their DNA to adapt. How does the company built on mail order not adapt to the new mail order reality.

They invested heavily in Prodigy, when that failed, management thought the internet was a fad and didn't invest or even try. By the time they tried, they were way behind Amazon.

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

#110

Post by tracker1 »

cwyers wrote: post #12
silisili wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

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.

After that, when the internet buzz was really picking up (around Win95 release cycle)... The prevailing opinion from their leadership was "the internet is a fad." and they just didn't try moving into that space at all until it was way too late.
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