Sears - KMart

Last spring I worked on a remodel of a K-Mart in Menominee Falls, WI. It was made into a 'Sears Grand'. Several others were done including West Bend and Green Bay I believe. These are pilot stores to see if it works. They are pretty nice stores. It seems it is a "done deal." Tom

Great.

Now OSH is gonna be a K-Mart...

For you non Californians, OSH is "Orchard Supply Hardware", usta be a pretty good hardware store, then Sears bought 'em and they went 'upsacle'... Lost all the cool things like horseshoe tongs and v-belt pullys and turned into a a store full of nothing you need... Last straw was when they yanked out some of the last good stuff they had and put in an appliance 'center'... I'm sorry I don't go ta a hardware store to buy a 'fridge....

--.- Dave

I swore off sears (lower-case intentional) several years ago when it became clear to me that they placed CUSTOMERS well below the top of the list of "important things to consider" when doing business. After 3 separate incidents in less than 2 months of a VERY pronounced "take it or leave it" attitude, I picked "leave it".

Gary

I guess you are more patient than me..I would have bailed on 2 :)

Noticed that K-Mart now has a very large "craftsman" tool section (had to stop, out of town and needed a map book). To me it is clearly the final nail in the coffin of the craftsman name. At a glance, it appeard to be "dollar store" tools, stamped "craftsman" and priced as though they were decent quality.

By the way....this Kmart was advertised all over outside as having been a super-dooper remodeling job and you should come in to see the new k-mart. Same problems as the old one with a touch of "target" decorating. Still filthy, still lousy selection, still disorganized, still bottom of the barrel quality. Hard to believe that any management team could have such a bad case of "just don't get it".

Koz

========================= Sears shot themselves in the foot repeatedly, being far faster on the trigger than they were on the draw....

As Walmart was opening stores in the smaller towns, Sears was busy closing theirs. Both company owned and the catalog/associate stores. They were also busy sticking it to the sales people who actually generated their income through changes in the compensation structure. This also includes the screw-job they gave their Allstate insurance agents.

I don't think this was the result of some sort of cabal, but rather the result of a gradual change in management from people who had come up through the Sears ranks, were from the Sears customer base and thus understood the customer's wants, needs, and prejudices, to Harvard B-school and Warton graduates from affluent areas such as Scarsdale. [Ford & GMC are you listeneing?]

The end result was a product mix, sales stratagies, and company policies which were ideal for stores for the Scarsdale smart-set. The problem being there were few Sears stores in the up-scale affluent areas, the smart-set never shops at Sears, and the core customers stayed away in droves because of inappropriate product selections, store locations, hours and even store decour.

The customer exodus was exacerbated when a series of stupid moves by Sears such as performing unnecessary automotive repair work and selling used DieHard batteries as new were prosecuted. Other stumbles included the attempt by Sears to cheat the inventor of the socket lock ratchet wrench out of his royalties when Craftsman sold millions of the wrenches based on his patents.

These changes at Sears can be seen as a pilot study in minature of the changes in total society. In this context you may find the following quotes thoght provoking.

* All political parties die at last of swallowing their own lies. John Arbuthnot (1667-1735), Scottish writer, physician. Quoted in: Richard Garnett, Life of Emerson, ch. 7 (1888). * The newspaper reader says: this party will ruin itself if it makes errors like this. My higher politics says: a party which makes errors like this is already finished-it is no longer secure in its instincts. Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900), German philosopher. Twilight of the Idols, "The Four Great Errors," aph. 2 (1889).

Unka George (George McDuffee) ============================= When you give power to an executive you do not know who will be filling that position when the time of crisis comes.

Ernest Hemingway (1899-1961), U.S. author. "Notes on the Next War: A Serious Topical Letter," in Esquire (New York, Sept. 1935; repr. in By-Line Ernest Hemingway, ed. by William White, 1967).

Cue the apologists for any managment screw-job. "They were out to rape the company," or "they were trying to get something for nothing" or any of the other typical crap responses.

Sears is screwing their workers? Time to buy stock, they're going places....

Jim

Sad day indeed. I was a big OSH buyer and a long time Sears person. OSH was a very good store with very nice people. I noticed the start of the change when Craftsman tools come over there. I could buy just about any type of nut or bolt there that wasn't really really odd. They had 1 1/2" standard down to 2mm.

Such a deal. Maybe Craftsman tools at Kmart now... :-) or Kmart clothes at Sears.

Martin H. Eastburn @ home at Lions' Lair with our computer lionslair at consolidated dot net NRA LOH & Endowment Member NRA Second Amendment Task Force Charter Founder IHMSA and NRA Metallic Silhouette maker & member

Dave August wrote:

Yep - they lost my mom big time - rest her now - no wish book - so she looked at others. Then catalogs came out and more and more.

Parts wend down as well. Service - depends - I had my stove fixed three times. Same part - an electrical/electronic part - drives everything but the range top.

The third guy was nice and I was there to watch and help hold stuff. Then once working - I noticed it stopped - and why - a cut wire. New harness to order... - Oh - I have an iron ... in the shop - just a minute - Cool - I want to watch you!

So I patched in a longer loop to stretch and noticed broken solder joints at the far end - fixed them - and we pulled and tugged wires and it still worked. It took a bit longer, he learned something in trouble shooting and fixing a hot issue.

Nice when it works - expensive when it doesn't.

Martin Martin H. Eastburn @ home at Lions' Lair with our computer lionslair at consolidated dot net NRA LOH & Endowment Member NRA Second Amendment Task Force Charter Founder IHMSA and NRA Metallic Silhouette maker & member

F. George McDuffee wrote:

=================== Several problems with this other than the touchie-feelie ethics issues [although these are very real and have serious effects in the long term].

The seeming boost in profits that results is like the "rush" that an individual gets when they snort crack or smoke crank [meth]. It ain't real and its dammed expensive. If you keep doing it, the company goes into chapter 11 and the individual's nose fall off or their teeth fall out.

The stock holders get taxed on a "paper" profit, dividend and/or stock "appreciation" on what is actually a capital redistribution or refund of the money they [or the IPO buyer] put in the first place. Numbers are hard to come by, but a 1$ "paper profit" as a dividend or stock appreciation may have resulted 10$ - 20$, or probably more, damage to the corporation and dissipation of capital that it took years to accumulate (not all capital is money, much of it is expertise). Think of GMC declaring stock dividends for years while producing enormous and increasing losses.

To put this in perspective, think of one of your more no-load relatives who is between jobs, living at your house, sleeping late, eating your food and drinking your beer.

When you suggest after 6 months that it might be time to try their luck in another location, they say "not to worry -- I'll get this weeks groceries."

Sure enough when you get home, the pantry is full, the refrigator is full, and he even bought a case of the import beer that you like. You wife fixes dinner [not macaroni and beans this time!] and everything is just jake, and you are feeling bad about almost giving your relative the boot.

You decide to watch Monday night foot ball with your relative on the big plasma TV in the den, but when you go in the den the TV is missing. You are dialing the police to report the theft, when you relative stops you and says that the he had to sell the TV for money to buy the food, but this was ok because there was another tv in the kids' bedroom you could watch.

Unka George (George McDuffee) ============================= When you give power to an executive you do not know who will be filling that position when the time of crisis comes.

Ernest Hemingway (1899-1961), U.S. author. "Notes on the Next War: A Serious Topical Letter," in Esquire (New York, Sept. 1935; repr. in By-Line Ernest Hemingway, ed. by William White, 1967).

Right on the money.

In my previous life I worked in various levels of management for a large retail chain. It was interesting to see what changes would occur and how business would respond when different types of CEOs were in charge. I put them into two distinct categories: Product people and Bean counter people.

The product people ran the operation by creating excitement with interesting, quality merchandise at a fair price while treating employees as valued assets. The bean counter people ran the operation by looking at the P&L statement and cutting expenses and cost of goods (meaning stocking crap merchandise that costs less). Of course, in most retail the single largest expense is wages so they cut pay, lowered staffing levels, etc.

In every single iteration of this dance the bean counters got plenty of short term improvement in profitability but long term business decline. The product people got smaller short term profits but nice long term business growth.

Take a look at Sears - it's being run by Eddie Lampert, a Wall Street money manager who knows bubkis about being a merchant. Oh, by the way, while he was screwing the little guys at Kmart and Sears Lampert took home just over $420 million dollars in pay in 2004.

Robert

Heck, at the local Sears Grand in Austin (brand new store, not a remodel of an old Kmart) they are so lazy that many of the price stickers say Kmart not Sears so I guess they already do have Kmart clothes at Sears. And Kmart sporting goods. And Kmart housewares...

I think they are getting taught a lesson, though. The store is probably

150,000 sq ft and on a weekday they only need to have 1 of their 30 registers open its so slow. On weekends they may have 3 or 4 registers open. Pathetic.

Robert

Encryption =----

I was in a Big K this weekend and they have Craftsman Tools for sale. I was wondering at the time what was going on.

And Kmart/Sears now charges 15% restocking fees if the box has been opened.

When this merger went thru I really couldn't believe it. To me Sears and Kmart had almost nothing in common. I have been in many stores of both names but the Kmarts here in San Diego, especially the one nearest me was just awful. You could tell nobody cared and the customers would really trash the place. They closed it and reopened as a Sears Essentials. Kinda half Sears, half Kmart. Great selection, tidy store, pretty decent discounts, well lit and organized. Nobody shops there. I really don't see how they keep the lights on. The employees are bored silly and are obviously just hanging on as long as possible to their jobs.

I think that one went out the window about 10 years ago when they figured out about people were getting "Free Rent" on a Camcorder for a vacation by returning it when they get home. (They keep the tapes, of course.) Or "Free Rent" on an expensive power or hand tool by returning it when the job was done.

I'll bet they kept the old policy till recently out of tradition. But tradition was driving them to bankruptcy, sometimes you have to face reality.

This is a big problem for all companies - too many customers with totally defective morals. But I'll bet the Manager can waive the restocking fee on a true problem with the item.

-->--

Years ago, I had a problem with a month-old belt sander whose blower pulley bearing had worn enough to let its belt slip off and rub against the inside of the case and cut a hole halfway through it. But when I tried to get a replacement, not a refund, Sears treated me worse than their typical "free renter". The store's tool dept. had only two qualified people, a young woman who could tell the actual manufacturer of any tool from just the part number, and an older man with a big waxed mustache who seemed to know everything about Sears tools because apparently he owned most of them. Everybody else just hung around and talked to one another about how Sears calculated their bonuses and joked whenever that woman answered customer questions that none of them could handle. The store manager, a guy with the first name "Coy", was hostile, too, and when I found him he was scolding another disatisfied customer, "You're not getting a free TV!"

Some things may not follow. At my local OSH I went in to get some plumbing parts and talked to the plumbing manager that had been with OSH pre-Sears. He said that word came in from on high that they would be switching brands of plumbing parts and they only had the cheap junk. He and others like him howeled at the change and have subsequently got the process reversed, the cheap junk is gone and the old line is back.