Sears in perilous shape; will probably soon declare BK and eventually go under (IMO). That's what you get for selling out to China!

When I got married many years ago my father bought us a Kenmore washing machine from Sears. Delivery was free. These days they want $75 to bring it (we live 10 miles from the store) if you don't have their credit card! Screw dat! We now buy all of our replacement appliances in cash at Lowe's and they still deliver free. We don't even consider Sears for appliances at all these days no matter what the sale price is. Also I am in agreement about the Craftsman tools going to China crap! And clothing and shoes are way overpriced there too. Have been waiting for years for this location to go bye-bye!!!!!

Just go watch that Sears commercial from 1985 that I posted earlier in the thread.

It is depressing to know that those days existed and that they may never come back...

I quit shopping at K mart several years ago do to their overzealous security staff ,if i want to be followed around a store like some thief then i will commit a crime first - glad they are gone

Yeah, Gander just closed a bunch of stores, including ones by me. Lots of competition up here for those dollars from Cabellas and other regional retailers.

I have never heard of Cabellas so that may explain why Gander and Bass Pro (including Dicks) are doing pretty well down here in the south. Not as much competition...not as much of a market glut.

In addition, Sports Authority just shut down for good too. They could have diversified like Dicks has but they stuck their heads in sand and it cost them....

I read that it had already been sold to Black and Decker in January. When I read that, I felt the end was near.

I knew the end was near for Sears when they started allowing their craftsman and Kenmore branded products in other retailers other than Sears. You don't do that unless you are hard up for cash.

In fact, those two brands are all that probably will be left of Sears after bankruptcy - they are the only thing of value they have left, other than a few empty store fronts.

I read that Sears employs 140,000 people. They have treated north america well for many years. What a shame.

Not all is well with Walmart, they were late into On-Line shopping. Companies end up competing with themselves, the on-line outlets stealing business from their own Bricks and Mortar outlets. Walmart have to compete with on-line specialists as well as e-traders selling from their spare rooms.

The upkeep, supply and staffing of large stores is a logistic nightmare when compared to the cost of a e-commerce web site, highly automated warehouses and Uber style distribution / delivery networks.

Malls in their current guise will be a much less common-place and become more exclusive. Big box stores will become smaller, more competitive and stock a narrower range of basic products.

Life for retailers is becoming tough as people have less money.

No more fapping to the sears catalog ? Damn .

It's not the fault of the rank and file employees. It is the CEO's and board members that need to be called out for this.

In fact, their careers should end based upon what they did.

Sadly, they have been making poor decisions for decades and the only reason they hung on for so long is they were in business for well over 100 years and amassed a huge fortune and massive real estate portfolio, much of it choice real estate. I feel bad for the employees but lets face it, that goose was cooked 20 or 25 years ago. Would be interesting to trace back to that time, who or what exactly tarted their colossal fall from grace.

If Sears were making commercials in 1985, they must have started to feel the pinch back then.

Nothing in life stays the same for very long, companies have to keep adapting - or die.

100 years ago, there were big companies producing buggy whips - there are none today!

Eddie Lampert is so good that he can even fuck up a wet dream with his eyes closed and both hands tied behind his back!!!!

Amazon and Walmart = Deep State NWO Satanic Elite

Cabellas was just bought out by Bass Pro, and are similar stores. They are big in the middle of the country, from Minnesota all the way down to Texas

I totally agree.
Time for them to reap.

It is the job of the owners and shareholders to employ directors and managers who have vision, rather than relying on asset stripping and store sell-off's.

Employees who didn't see the writing on the wall only have themselves to blame. Older employees lazily holding out for time pushed their luck.

A case of "Dog eat dog".

haha. that commercial was cool. Yep 1985 was some great days even tho I was 5 years old... wish it was still like that.

Got my first girlfriend in kindergarten in 85'.... Kristy Breaux.... man she was cute.

Btw.... The Sears Catalog in 1985 was like Porn to a young lad....

anyhow... the hell with that Chinese cheap metal bullcrap...

Just the way poorly regulated capitalism works. Money eventually gravitates to the rich and most aggressive.

Welcome to man's natural order of kings, their armies and their subjects.

It's not only Sears that is going out of business, but dozens of retailers are on the wire, too.

From an article that should be read by everybody. In part:

RETAIL DEATH RATTLE GROWS LOUDER
Posted on 25th May 2014 by Administrator

"If you think there are a lot of SPACE AVAILABLE signs dotting the countryside, you ain’t seen nothing yet. The mega-chains have already halted all expansion. That was the first step. The weaker players like Radio Shack, Sears, Family Dollar, Coldwater Creek, Staples, Barnes & Noble, Blockbuster and dozens of others are already closing stores by the hundreds. Thousands more will follow.

There has been no housing recovery. There has been no jobs recovery. There has been no auto sales recovery. Giving a vehicle to someone with a 580 credit score with a 0% seven year loan is not a sale. It’s a repossession in waiting. The government supplied student loans are going to functional illiterates who are majoring in texting, facebooking and twittering.

Do you think these indebted University of Phoenix dropouts living in their parents’ basements are going to spur a housing and retail sales recovery? This Keynesian “solution” was designed to produce the appearance of recovery, convince the masses to resume their debt based consumption, and add more treasure into the vaults of the Wall Street banks.

The inevitable shuttering of at least 3 billion square feet of retail space is a certainty. The aging demographics of the U.S. population, dire economic situation of both young and old, and sheer lunacy of the retail expansion since 2000, guarantee a future of ghost malls, decaying weed infested empty parking lots, retailer bankruptcies, real estate developer bankruptcies, massive loan losses for the banking industry, and the loss of millions of retail jobs. Since I always look for a silver lining in a black cloud, I predict a bright future for the SPACE AVAILABLE and GOING OUT OF BUSINESS sign making companies."

Lots more of the logical argument for economic doom here. The author did his research:

[link to www.theburningplatform.com]

Business recovery? How! Nobody's got the money to buy!

Ahem...

[link to www.bizjournals.com]

Their closing store discounts ON CLOTHES are good, heck, their prices on clothes in general are good, before ours closed last month, they had clearance racks of name brand stuff listed for under $5.00. Then a few months later, they sold the Craftsman brand to Black & Decker, and then had a 2 month long liquidation sale, and are now gone. I'm not sure where one is still open around me in NWOH anymore even.
Everyone speaks badly about them selling chinese goods, but they were better than walmart. Heck, everyone hates walmart and they have a horrid reputation (deservingly so) but then goes to amazon and thinks they're legit, AMAZON is even WORSE! Straight from china to your door no middle man very few full-time employees automated to hell, very bad company when it comes to what's good for Americans.

Malls aren't closing because there's better deals online malls are closing because the majority of Americans no longer have disposable income to spend! There were always cheaper places to buy stuff, discount stores, catalogs, mail order services, etc, but people had FULL TIME WELL PAYING JOBS because BOTH POLITICAL parties sold us out and now you're lucky to work full-time at any wage, let alone a good wage, no one at a good wage is without danger of being replaced by someone H1B visa holder at 1/3rd of your wage then assholes claim oh no, it's not to save money, it's because we "can't find skilled workers" FUCK THEM! Lies!

Craftsman brand already been sold....its owned by the Black and Decker/Stanley group....Craftsman brand is also sold at K Mart and Ace hardware....

I stop buying tools once they went China....you can buy Harbor Freight "Pittsburgh Pro" line of hand tools which is current Craftsman equivalent for a fraction of the cost...

I recently went in one that is going out of business. According to the salesman that worked there, this particular store is the largest selling store not only in the state, but in the region. They are closing this store and keeping another store open across town that doesn't make money. I asked him why and he said it was easier to get out of the lease for this store. Doesn't make a lick of sense to me that you would close a profitable store and keep an unprofitable one open.

That's really weird. I guess there are different economies all through the U.S. as if they are different countries.

As I said before though, down here in Florida Gander and Bass Pro are usually packed. Then again, it is the south and despite it being Florida there is still a TON of primo hunting and fishing land all throughout the state.

The dirty secret of liquidation sales is that you are still essentially paying the price the store would originally sell it at. They mark it down 30-40% from MSRP which is basically what the store is already doing without advertising that fact.

The liquidation company just makes that little number their primary marketing angle.

Ugh!

I call that the "Spending dollars to save dimes" financial strategy.

The worst thing you can do is still hand over control of a company to a bunch of "experts" with degrees that know everything a book says but know nothing about what it means.

Give me street sense, common sense, and industry insider know how over a financial advisor or stockbroker with an MBA any day of the week....

To be fair, Even the usa made craftsman were never the best....they are what I consider "semi pro"....I use tools for a living and I buy mostly USA....Look up Wright tools....they're a old fashion family owned tool company...they turn out combo wrenches 2nd to none including Snap On....

so, when is Trump going to save the Economy?

right now he's all busy working on a new Healthcare System
that's an even bigger disaster than Obamacare.