More will be revealed in bankruptcy court, I have no doubt.

Now he wants to cash out his useless Real Estate that he coveted from the get go.

Yup,got to love that Libertarian Management style Eddie!

but that it was everybody else's fault. It always is.

Have been watching various Cities where Eddie Boy closed down operations. Minneapolis redeveloped the old main Warehouse and Retail Store at the cost of millions. Winner was Eddie,he kept suing until he finally got his over inflated price. The losers were the Residents of Minneapolis as well as the State of Minnesota. Have not been in the rehabbed Ugly Monster for three years,but the last time it sure appeared to be a waste of good Tax dollars put to work. That area needed more new housing rather than subsidies for specialty retailers that have a high mortality rate.

to himself...

Going bankrupt because they were honoring their employee retirement plan...

POS!

Oh wait that's never gonna happen. Good bye Sears, it was nice knowing you!

There is no path to survival, so it's time to pull the plug on it. More's the pity. It's part of the history of retailing. It began as a shark, devouring small town merchants. It will die after having been slain and eaten by Amazon.

RIP, Sears Roebuck and Company. You had a long run, but it's over.

It's just not as far advanced in its decline. But it's toast, too. So is Target. The brick and mortar store is finished, no matter how big it is or how widely spread. The operating costs are simply too high. The big department stores are already done. The malls are emptying. Amazon will own retailing, until someone else comes along with an even better business model.

Like him or hate him, Bezos is a patient person. He invests money in stuff well before it pops big. He has a whole army of manufacturers of all types of products selling on his platform. Even Dove sell it's highend soaps there. This is happening all over the world, even China (though Alibaba is giving him a run there). At some point, Walmart won't have the companies that started small but grew feeding it, that is when Bezos will finish Wally, because he will have those people in his pocket.

You can get your unique products on Amazon's search engine in less than an hour. They will show up in searches. If you have something wonderful, people will find it and buy it. You'll pay Amazon a known percentage of your revenues, but you can price your products accordingly. That way, Amazon has everything, but doesn't have to actually deal with marginal products to offer them for sale.

Etsy competes with that for handmade or unique items pretty well. eBay competes for one-of-a-kind items successfully.

Who will beat Amazon someday? If you can figure that out, you could start that up right now. In 20 years, you could be the next Amazon. I have no idea what that business model might be, and I'll be dead by then. But Amazon is vulnerable, too. There will be a next huge thing. If you're young, start thinking of what that might be.

Then Bezos brought in related products as he expanded online book sales, then he got Kindle, allowing people to read books instantly. Bezos nursed Kindle along, fixing problems to make it better. Even with books where the author sells nothing, Bezos makes money by making the books available to paying Amazon Prime and frequent customers. Big publishers are selling on his platform, so he gets a cut on a large percentage of the best selling books.

What can beat Amazon? Only Amazon, it gets sloppy, cheap or corrupt. There is an allegation that some Amazon employees sold competitor information for a price.

Bezos has his tentacles everywhere, in every single thing under the sun, like you pointed out giving a sales front to companies that could become major players with the right product(s). The effort is low risk for him, he gives a platform for an upfront fee, then takes a percentage of sales dollars if something takes off, PLUS, if Bezos see that a vendor on his platform has a multi billion dollar product, he has all the sales data, so he can chose to buyout the vendor in a way that is favorable to Amazon. I just don't see how Anazon can be beaten from externally.

People like to shop in person but stores need to get a handle on their real estate costs.

*Carson Pirie Scott department stores -- big in Chicago and recently went through bankruptcy and closed all stores.

So many of these companies go under because their CEO makes the fucking GDP of a small country. It's insane. No one person should make double or triple what his entire staff does. Something about this has to change.

my father was with Sears for 40+years until he retired, we've always been loyal Sears shoppers but they don't have the many customers they used to.

We live in a city with a lot of tourists so they keep it tidy and stocked. They always have cute seasonal items for the house.

Tactile experience especially is a draw, just as it is in learning, and many people are drawn to the physical marketplace (I'm not among them )
Retailers have to make some adjustments on their costs, like real estate/rent. And we have to get away from the late 20th century idea of a giant mall popping up everywhere.

As for Sears, they aren't dying-- they're committing assisted suicide.

"Lucky day. You have $50 in amazing surprise points"

Stuff like that. Hasn't changed for years and years.

Nobody cares about surprise points that are complicated to apply and not good on everything. I never shop there unless I see something great at Sears/Kmart on Slickdeals

These are the headers:


"$400 CASHBACK in points + extra 10% off online, just because you're AWESOME ❤"

"Gary, hi again 🚚 You're on a roll with these Tuesday deals"

It was one of the anchor stores there. The entire mall has been failing, with smaller stores dropping like flies. That cut down traffic to the mall, and the Sears store always seemed as empty as a church on Thursday morning.

What was interesting was that the closing didn't even make the local news. It was just gone the last time I went by there. Sears has lost all of its relevance to retail customers where I am. Soon, that entire mall will get shut down, due to lack of business. The other anchor store is Macy's, and will surely close before this year's holiday season.

I shop at Target and Walmart.