Instead, got rid of catalog ordering... Epic Fail

and mortar. Think they have had a huge store in every old mall in the US. And, whoever told them to focus on racks and racks of cheap "almost stylish but not enough" clothing was probably one of the worst business decisions ever made.

It was right there for them but they had no vision. Into the dustbin of retail history they go.

So shocking they missed the internet in favor of bricks and mortar...

There will be economists who make their name on the case study of this company...

They just did it really, really badly. I can recall doing Google searches while shopping and getting hits from the Sears website. In addition to their own products, they had redirects from other retailers, but with much higher prices swapped in. It was the middleman-from-Hell business model. I guess nobody told them how easy it is to comparison-shop online.

It needed to adopt that snazzy Target look.

The jobs lost at Sears will be picked up by Amazon, Walmart, and other retailers. Sears executives made dumb decisions, and that is what happens in a competitive marketplace.

to low paying, exploitative, warehouse jobs at Amazon where they hardly get bathroom breaks?

Have you not heard all the horror tales of working at Amazon? Google it.

And Amazon is what, going fire workers they have to hire ex-Sears workers? No, there will be jobs lost as in all bankruptcies.

Looks like Sears employees priced themselves too high to stay competitive. In a competitive economy such as ours, that is the rule.

Sure, I wish every retail employee made as much as a graduate engineer. But that is not realistic. Training required is much longer and harder to become a good and productive engineer compared to retail employees.

Those mother fxxxkers are way overpaid for what they do.
Talk about white collar robbers #1.

So, newbie, are you tryng bring Friedmanomics to DU? Sorry, that blame-the-victim view has been the downfall of our economy and brought misery to tens of millions of Americans.

just because Sear's executives were stupid, you want some how for Sears to stay alive? Where is the money coming from to subsidize Sears? From other retailers?

Amazon is one of the largest outfits in the world, employing more workers by orders of magnitude than Sears, and it is great to see they jacked up minimum wages there. They can afford it, they are very efficient outfit.

I said nothing of the sort about subsidies, retail jobs, or whatever else you are going on about. My post was about you blaming the victim and you responded with some off-topic pre-ordained ramble about subsidies and praise for how wonderful Amazon is. Like I said, your Friedmanomic worshipping of guys like Bezos is BS and doesn't belong on DU. 30 years of it has destroyed, not empowered workers, even with Amazon's late-to-the-party raise from an owner who makes $275M a day.

The whole issue is Sears employees will lose jobs due to Sears failing. I definitely do not blame the employees. It is 100% fault of the executives running Sears. They had the wrong merchandise in the stores, had the wrong advertising (such as curtailing catalog sales), and perhaps the employees were paid too much in relation to other retailers. But I never said it is the fault of employees themselves for negotiating higher wages than prevailing wages in retail. The fault lies with management who negotiated those wages. Never blame the beggar for getting a big handout. Always the blame is with the giver.

As for Bezos, if you bother reading my posting history, I am totally against the Trump tax cut for the rich, with people like Bezos receiving Billions in tax reduction. No executive deserves tens of millions in compensation. I know that story from the inside, having worked many years in a manufacturing outfit. The outfit was prosperous because of ingenuity of the engineers and the hard work of shop workers. The CEO was paid 100 times more than average worker for doing what? Counting profits? He did not even go on the road to sell our machines. He hired board of directors who were his friends and cronies, and they went along with his outrageous compensation.

I would be strongly in favor of a law which says no one in a corporation should be paid more than 25 times the lowest wage in that corporation. I might even concede 50 times. If that happens, watch the wages of all lower end employees rise up, and deservedly so.

"Looks like Sears employees priced themselves too high to stay competitive."

Your words, not mine.

my statement may not be clear to people who do not know me well. My statement did sound like Sears employees were the only ones to blame. Actually I was merely stating the main reason Sears is failing. Which is that the wage levels of Sears employees were too high compared to other retailers. I have personally known Sears employees who retired with very lucrative sums, much higher than other retailers in Chicago.

But I never said in my post that Sears employees take the sole blame. I never blame the recipient of an excessive benefit. The blame always goes to the giver of excessive benefits. It reflects on ineptitude of the management who failed to comprehend there is fierce competition in retailing.

They were good at sporting goods too. Hunting stuff (although i've never been a hunter), their baseball equipment and sneakers were pretty good, (i had a pair of red, low cut, basketball shoes with a white stripe. I went to a red/white grade school and the cheerleaders were nuts about my shoes), my dad bought my first set of junior golf clubs there when i was 8 (confirmation gift).

And at the store we went to, the candy counter was terrific. It was right at the stairs that went down to hardware and furniture and housewares.

As the leader in catalog merchandising, they REALLY missed the boat as the internet age blooomed.

reorganization. All things family and home. Yet, higher quality (like American made). I have to buy a hose nozzle a couple times every summer after they fall apart.

Man, I didn't get anything when I got confirmed. Lucky dog!

And I had to wear a frumpy two-piece dress that was a hand-me-down from my cousin!

I think I'll bring it up to my mother at Christmas when we wax nostalgic

I've opened a can of worms!!! I went to the cathedral school so we got confirmed a year before everyone else. (We were SO special!)

That said, i recall everybody just wearing their school uniforms, boys and girls. I could be wrong, that was a long time ago, but thinking about the pictures my mom used to have around. (She's dead quite a while now, so i can't check with her.)

So, the girls in my 4th grade class wouldn't have that discussion with their moms at Christmas, if i'm correct!

How so cool we Catholics were when they said the Our Father at a public event and we stopped at the end when we it went into "And the power and the glory"... And all of us Catholics would look around with our mouths clamped shut - because it was supposedly SO wrong to say that - like we were so special.

Thing is, as a high mucky muck altar boy at the cathedral school from 4th grade to 6th grade we didn't say that part, then all of sudden, there it was! Like it magically appeared. Of course, the whole magic thing is sort of consistent with all the rest of the magic we were supposed to believe.

al of us girls after catechism telling us to never ever french kiss boys. We were so petrified of him. If you were two second late to mass, he would stop and just stare at you until you sat down.

just graduated from high school and had like three parties, got a car, and a trip to a beach house with his friends. I remember distinctly, getting a hair dryer. No parties except my friends and I went to the beach and the cops called our parents to come pick us up.

I didn't have much to choose from since I basically had play clothes or my school uniform.

My Confirmation name was Bernadette, for no particular reason. Speaking of mail-order, maybe I should send for some Lourdes water to cure my chronic pain!

I got a suitcase for my high school graduation. It could have been a hint, but I was 18 and already moved out during the semester

Excited to find Julie, thinking, never heard that as a saint's name but it was!

It was a very pale blue and very pretty - but I stood out. My mother said I had to wear it since it my grandmother just bought it for me and it was brand new. And I got a silver charm bracelet from my aunt and uncle, it had a tiny book as a charm which opened up to the entire Lord's Prayer! I thought that was cool. I was only 10.

I had Arnold Palmer Charger woods and Sam Snead Blue Ridge wedges.

Dad was sharp enough not to buy a driver for me until I was strong enough at about 14. Prior to that I was hitting 3 wood and doing great in the junior tournaments alongside kids who were wild with the driver. I remember their moms walking alongside me and saying they wished their son would just hit the 3 wood off the tee.

It was so exciting to head to Sears to buy that huge Arnold Palmer cherry colored Charger driver when I turned 14. It would look minuscule now but at the time I wondered how I could wield it. I had it all the way through college when mom and dad replaced it with a full set of Ben Hogan Apex persimmon woods for graduation.

My favorite Sears was in Coral Gables. Very classy location. We got the Christmas tree there often. That store is still hanging in there and receives comparatively good reviews for Sears in this era. I've been there a couple of times in the last year or so for pickup orders, after finding great deals via the Surprise Points but mostly for nostalgic purposes.

...that old Sears is a big county office building. The store moved way out west of the river to a big mall a long time ago.
BTW: I bought my dad a Blue Ridge SW for his bday when in HS
I played George Archer's in HS, and Wilson Staff in college. So I was a Wilson guy

would spend hours looking thru it.

My mother loved the carmel corn they used to make at the local Sears store. She'd make up a reason to go there so she could buy a big bag of it and eat it while in the store.

She did not share her carmel corn with anyone, myself included!

How rude!

I do think they made a lot of fine tools at one time. The one where I live now is known for doing oil changes for $16.99 (great deal!).

While never a great Sears shopper, I am in any event very sorry to see them go!

My sister and I would get on the floor and pour through the pages looking toys and ideas. Going online just isnt the same.

and would play with them for hours. I had a box under my bed with hundred of cut outs from lots of yrs catalogs.

My grandparents' outhouse wouldn't have been the same without that catalog.

I live in a house that was built in 1954. There’s a chain link fence around the back yard that came from Sears...it still has the metal tag tag on the double gate that says “Sears”. My fondest memory of Sears is the picture I have in my mind of my late father perusing the aisles of Craftsman tools...he never met a power tool he didn’t love and have to have. I even mentioned that in his obituary. Yes...losing Sears makes me sad.

things like that. When he bought a hammer and it lasted for so many years you can almost picture what it looked like.

Recently, the top brass at Sears had decided to outsource the manufacturing of Craftsman hand tools to places like China and Taiwan. The sockets, ratchets, wrenches and other hand tools you buy are now being made overseas. The quality is nowhere near as good as the USA made stuff.Mar 27, 2013

Getting new clothes for school. When you walked in you smelled the fresh Carmel corn and popcorn. It was a special treat to get some hot cashews from the candy counter. There was a guy in a glass booth making things on a radial saw swadust flying . Oh the smells. Salesmen demonstrated vacuums, washer dryers balloons everywhere. Great kid memories for sure.

had candy and nuts because I would 100% remember that too !

Wow - had forgotten how you could once actually see a vacuum cleaner work before you bought it. Last time I bought one, they were all on an upper shelf somewhere, tied down. You couldn't even lift it to see how heavy it was, let alone try it. I thought - geez, are they really worried someone is going to steal a vacuum cleaner?

My parents would get cashews and peanuts for themselves and malted milkballs for me.

.....also good appliances, medium priced goods of all kinds; not the cheapest choice, but solid, sturdy, good service - those are my remembrances.

Now it seems we are almost reduced to high priced Neiman Marcus, or Walmart. The medium priced large department stores are struggling, I hear, but that's where I like to shop. You can't buy everything on line. At least I can't - I need to ask questions about products, try on for size, feel and color of things, etc.. There is nothing like in person shopping, (although tiresome walking is included!)

you end up with a mish mash. Yes, how people can buy shoes online is a mystery for sure.

Fabric - sad - guess no one makes curtains and clothes anymore like we did.

I would sew a lot of my clothes and bought fabric at Sears. Especially remember buying their kettlecloth for a dress.

Kenmores were awesome. Maybe that's why they went out of business: The junk that they have to compete with that needs replacing regularly....???

You only needed to buy one Kenmore anything, so, it was ironically bad for sales.

Even before the local store closed here about ten years ago. It was about the only store in my town with women's clothes that were not all made for teen-age girls, that were at an affordable price, and were fairly well-made. It was also the only store where I could go in to buy an appliance, and not have to wait for 25 minutes to get someone to help me--if I could even get help. It's sickening what happened to it. With the right leadership, they could have salvaged that business.

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Those houses were so cool.

don't even think about - like built in ironing board ! I am in the midst of looking for a house plan and you'd be amazed how few even have an entry coat closet. Wonder if people are taking these old Sears plans and building them now with updated electrical, etc ? So few have first floor bedrooms tho. Guess you could add.

they sold entire house 'kits' that you and your (sometimes not-so-handy) friends could assemble. Many of these are still standing. Typically they arrived at the local railroad depot and you had to find a way to get all the boxes and packages to your building site.

The whole family was conscripted into forced labor every weekend to build his damned car barn. Strangely enough, when I grew up I, too, bought a barn kit from a local farm supply store and my retired dad dutifully built my new barn,showing up everyday even while i was at work.

I haven't been inside in years. And the last time I was, it was so deserted, I almost expected some tumbleweeds to go blowing by.

I would look at it to pick out what toys I wanted for Christmas.

when I heard Kennedy was shot! Will never forget watching a wall full of tvs , all with the same horrible story!

I have fond memories of the catalog too. It was fun, you could look at all kinds of things. On the other hand I guess we can see how we were being trained to be consumers, which was not the greatest use of our time. lol

instantly flashed through his mind, we are trying to pay for 4 kid's Christmas gifts - no way can I pay for 100 broken ornaments. He's still kicking. 96 yrs old WW2 navy vet. His mind is shot (and I have a million things I wish I could ask him about) but still bowls every Wednesday. So frail my 93 year old mom has to hold his belt when he bowls cuz she's afraid he'll fly down the lane. He would absolutely, positively hate Trump - Dem blood through and through. Sorry to go on, feeling nostalgic today.

Wish we had had the catalog - guess we didn't cuz we had a town store?

Best to your parents.

When I was a kid, I loved looking in it to see the bones in my feet. Fortunately, my mother was skeptical about x-rays and rarely let me do that.

Sears is responsible for its own fate, though. It could have adapted to the changes in retail marketing, but failed to do that. First, Walmart and Target moved in with lower prices and brand new stores. Then, along came the Internet. Sears failed to respond to either in a way that allowed them to compete.

On the other hand, Sears was responsible for putting thousands of small town stores out of business with its catalog sales. At one time, every small town had a department store or two downtown. Usually they were named after the owner and bore that family's last name. Sears offered lower prices, more selection and delivery of goods in its enormous catalogs. The small town department stores disappeared over time. They could not compete in selection or pricing.

Now, Sears is seeing its time as a retail leader vanish. It failed to adopt new marketing strategies, despite it being the first of a new marketing strategy of its own in the early 20th century.

So, am I sad? Yes, for their shareholders, but not for the brand. It has fallen victim to its own methods.

But, there was an independent shoe joint in our city that had one. When i was a kid, it was just a floor display, because by the time i was going there with my mom, they knew they shouldn't be using those anymore.

As to their methods, since they were a "shop from home" giant long ago, they really missed the boat with the advent of the internet. They could have been Amazon before Bezos was out of high school.

Last edited Wed Oct 10, 2018, 04:28 PM - Edit history (1)

grasp how important it was going to be. They were too busy building new stores to compete with all the Walmart stores. They thought they could use their considerable momentum to block Walmart's success. They were wrong.

When the World Wide Web, as they called it then, started, I converted my hobby of collecting mineral specimens into a business right away. I had the second or third website selling those specimens on the Internet. I bought some stuff at a mineral show at wholesale prices, took some photos, and launched the website, using Compuserve's web design widget. The site went up. Within a week, I had sold every last specimen I bought at that show, and was scrambling for more.

I made a quick trip to another mineral dealer's location and bought all of his "junk" specimens. He normally dealt in high-value specimens and bought whole collections. He sold at those mineral shows. He was glad to get rid of the "junk" at truly amazingly low prices. I literally cleaned out his rented storage spaces. He thought it was great. I worked like a dog, photographing them, writing descriptions and putting them on the site. They sold like hotcakes. That market was wide open at the time.

I kept that business going for several years, but other dealers soon figured it out and launched their own websites. After a while, there was no more surplus for me to buy, and my business model began to lag. I decided to bag the business, so I sold all of my remaining stock to another dealer, made a small profit on that, and shut it down. But, for several years, it was a great little business.

Sears didn't see the opportunity, so it missed its chance. Bezos saw the opportunity and used books as his initial offerings. Now, Amazon sells literally everything. Competing with it is almost impossible now, so smaller businesses are tagging along by selling through Amazon. Of course, Amazon takes its cut of every sale, without having to do anything. What a deal!

Shuffle other people's money around, lend some temporary excess as line of credit to other big corporations, make tons of money and really not do anything!

front porch shipping, too. It's not just a website operation. In the end, though, that might be its downfall. There's room for someone to come in and just do the website end and offer lower cost to small businesses who will drop ship all merchandise. Etsy's doing that, but started off with a "craftsy" business model. Amazon's doing it, but is in competition with its drop-ship clients for all sorts of merchandise.

Amazon has some weak spots, but still has things like publishing and data services it's offering as a backstop. I don't think it's overall retail business model is going to last for decades. I believe it will be replaced with something else, probably from a startup that is already in business and quietly growing in the background.

Amazon has top loaded its costs with giant warehouses and fulfillment requirements. I think that's its vulnerability. And now, it's trying to move into brick and mortar operations. There are dangers.

We'll see, of course.

During "New Rules" he commented about Amazon opening a "self pick up" center. His punch line was "Congratulations, Amazon. You've invented the store!"

Their "best" and most expensive BB gloves, camping tents etc. were "Ted Williams Approved"

My entire year revolved around it. Oh the joy of pulling it out of the mail each September! After my brother and I had gone through it and made up our wish lists, my mom took the catalog away because she dog-eared the pages showing the toys we wanted. One year I found her dog-eared copy. What a thrill to find out in advance what Santa was bringing.

I also miss the Sears photo studio where generations of families got their pictures taken for a reasonable price. Not sure if all Sears stores had them. Ours was on Dixwell Avenue in Hamden, Conn.

Manchester. Hamden was where our friends lived and me and my college boyfriend lied to my parents and spent the night - saying a storm was too bad to drive home. Bad.

Ya, that figuring your xmas gift thing can back fire if your sisters and brothers asked for the same thing. LOL

omg geez - forgot about the photo studio ! think our school made us go there for class pics.

they really did have it all - all things family ! what a great idea that would be to bring that back.

The Sears Christmas catalog was a much anticipated event every year. While I was in high school, I got most of my clothes for school from Sears. Even underwear. They carried very attractive and well made skirts and sweaters that were well made and held up to multiple wearing. I’m 67 now, and I can still remember what some of them looked like.

Orders were place by phone, and when you’d go to the store to pick up an order, the clerk would typically read thru the order to make sure you’d gotten everything you asked for. One time, when my mom and I went to pick up one of our orders, the young man behind the counter pointed to one item on the list and said, “I can’t make this out.” It was for undergarments, easy to read, and my mom’s assessment was that the guy was not comfortable saying the word “panties” out loud.

My dad was employed by Allstate, which either owned or was owned by Sears (can’t remember which), so we even got an employee discount on all purchases.

The ranch is gone. Nonna and Papa are dead. I am the only one who keeps the traditions alive. My siblings and cousins all moved away. The mines are closed. Hunting went from a shared experience to bring in supplemental food, to a rich man's pay to play. Every stupid restaurant is a chain that is essentially a Bennigans clone.

When I was a kid, we had the catalog store. You went down with Mom and picked out your school clothes. Two weeks later you drove into town and picked them up.

Crazy huh?

more like the way you remember. We drove through Shenandoah area in VA last summer and it was so refreshing to see old time Americana - family businesses and local coffee shops and comfort food. When we drove further north and saw the first Walmart, it looked so disgusting.

It was so refreshing moving here from the DC suburb of Fairfax. Many of the locally owned stores/restaurants are still here. Sadly, based on traffic comparisons, we're not too far from also becoming a DC suburb. Maybe not in my lifetime (I'm 73), but definitely happening.

change. Strong local government? I know...my favorite place on earth is Block Island off Rhode Island ..a step way back in time. McDonald's offered them millions...and they (citizens and govt) said no.

Because they sell 100 percent cotton pants and Tees that I wear for exercise. I adore the nightgowns.

My deceased father would go once or twice a week to look at the tools. I have so many memories of being with him and looking at tools. I’m happy he was not alive when it closed!

My sisters and I would look at the Wish Book every year and pick out a Christmas present. So many happy memories.

My sister and I would lay on the floor on our stomachs, giggling at the underwear section of the catalog. My parents loved Sears. Every summer before the school year started, Mom would take us to South Coast Plaza, where we'd pick out some of our clothes for school at Sears, their anchor store. I can still remember walking down the aisles, smelling the popcorn, and buying Swedish fish at their candy kiosk.

First Montgomery Wards, then Sears. I wonder if JC Penney will be next. All of these dying middle class stores, for a dying American middle class.

The Sears in my city was three stories and like a mini mall. My Dad would take me there as a reward. I got my first pair of blue jeans there and there was a chemistry set in the toy department I wanted and pestered my parents for it. Christmas morning I got that chemistry set. So many memories. All because a greedy hedge fund guy destroyed the company so he could get more richer. I hate leveraged buy outs, they should be outlawed. I curse Reagan and the repuke party for destroying our country.

Same here! Toughskins.

.... but their fate was sealed when they refused to recognize the shift in the sales model..... which is ironic since Sears was the Amazon of the world 100 years ago.

…..us pick out fabric...and the pattern.. for a new Easter dress...or any dress! Mom could whip it up in no time.

when I visited my grandparents.

And of course, the was always the infamous Man on Page 602.

There a YouTube video about him, but for some reason it won't link here.

had the world by the ass and they fucked it up

The company I worked for "rented out" Sears with a few other companies - the store stayed open extra late for us. They had pictures with Santa, waitstaff with hors-d'oeuvres, a string quartet, wandering carolers, and we got a few discounts on purchases. It was a very capitalist Christmas, but also because they spared no expense in decorating, it was one of two times I felt like I was really at a Christmas party that would be part of a story - like when the Ghost of Christmas Past takes Scrooge back to a Christmas party when he was younger and worked for a Mr. Fezziwig. This was in the 90s when the economy wasn't just booming for the ultra-rich and before Sears was taken over by Eddie Lampert, who worships at the altar of Ayn Rand. You can point the finger at a lot of things for Sears' demise, but you have to include Lampert's injecting objectivism into the store's culture so that instead of working with each other to better Sears as a whole, he had different departments doing whatever they could to get ahead of other departments (and I don't just mean in the stores but different divisions in the company).

TlalocW

I used American Express checks during my travels to England, Sweden, France, India and Egypt in 1969. Never had any problem anyone refusing to accept my checks, including in NY city. Even small stores in France & India & England accepted my checks with pleasure. Because the traveler's checks are safer than cash. American Express stands behind any fraudulent use.

I had just a couple of $20 traveler's checks left upon return to United States. So I go shopping one day at Sears store on Stoney Island st in Chicago. I picked up a few items and tried to pay with my American Express checks. The retail clerk refused to accept them! So I had to make a trip to the bank to cash them. Sears employees were so ignorant in that Sears store.

I still remember that incident because I traveled the world, and not a single problem anywhere with traveler's checks. Then I come back to my home town of Chicago where I purchased those traveler's checks and the stupid retail clerk at Sears has no clue!

and Montgomery Wards I guess they were the Amazon of their day.
We made paper dolls with the old catalogs - huge wardrobe.

Such is the miracle of the free market.

Sears and Penney's.

My grandmother got both catalogs.

I don't think Mom ever got to see either one.

I almost always got the fruit slices btw.

Sears would fly Santa in on a helicopter to ring in the Christmas season. Crowds would gather to watch.
In the 40s and 50s they'd hold raffles or other types of giveaway promotions. My mother won a
Kenmore mixer at one of them, right at the time they introduced cake mixes. We ate cakes and cupcakes for years.

I grew up in Manchester

my father worked there till he retired, we were always loyal Sears shoppers. My father is gone now, I know he would be broken hearted if he were here and hearing this news.

I remember paying for Sears appliances at $20 a month for years on end. It bought brand loyalty. I think their biggest business mistake was when they did away with the store credit card. It gave people a reason to go elsewhere. They tried to bring the card back many years later, but it flopped. Very poor management.

While I don't remember it, obviously, I have a fondness for Sears, especially the old Santa Monica store. That's where I decided to start "heading for the surface."

He collaborated with Booker T. Washington, and provided half the money, requiring the local communities to supply the other half. This is believed to be the origin of the matching grant.