Our local K-mart looks like it has been on life-support for years, but I still like to shop at their garden center.

I never go to Sears, though.

A little about Eddie Lampert's tenure at Sears. Small wonder the hedge fundie and perennial finalist in the Worst CEO of the Year awards:

http://www.fool.com/investing/general/2015/05/20/why-sears-so-investors-should-lovehate-eddie-lampe.aspx

The Sears store got the boot, but KMart was spared. For now.

and it's not on this list

1990 Kmart was larger than Walmart

It was said they had no computerized inventory system so they
never knew what they had

It was sabotaged by a new CEO who launched a sticker price war
with Walmart

5 months later it went into bankruptcy, shareholders lost everything

But Eddie Lampert hedge fund guy bought it

Now, i don't believe there is an effort to fix any part of it

No renovations, few new products

The value is in the real estate

Just as well, we have too many retailers

This is the results of low salaries and non existent family wage jobs. Low income people don't have the money to go shopping, duh!

Walmart, and lots of other places are doing just fine. Sears is poorly managed.

In 2014 I was in sears about once a week (yet I almost never spent my money. Their shop your way rewards program was great back then).

I would literally get a coupon for 20 off 20. I would buy 20.01 in merchandise and end up buying it for a penny. Their customer service was so bad, I debated on if it was worth dealing with to get free stuff. If the stuff wasn't nearly free, I would drive past sears and buy it at Home Depot.

Also, a lot of their stuff went to crap. Craftsman used to be one of the best brands out there, now its just below average. Plus, since I expect them to go out of business soon, I don't consider their warranty to be lifetime. I have a Sears water heater from 1977 that still works. If they could still make stuff like that I would be waiting in line outside their door for them to open.

I have thirty-year-old Craftsman tools that still work like new. My three-year-old Craftsman mower may not last the current season.

I have a late 50's craftsman drill press.

If you offered to trade me for a brand new one, there is no way in hell I would accept it.

I do think we are partilly to blame though.

I bought my 50's drill press for 200.

I could buy a brand new made in the USA one that is just as good for 1,000, but Im too cheap to spend that kind of money. If used wasnt available (and it took a few months of searching), I would probably buy a middle of the road drill press.

We say we want the quality of old tools, but we are not willing to pay for them.

I use a bench grinder a lot, and everybody reccomended baldor, but I bought a 60's craftsman, and the result is a lot sale and one more blow against quality manufacturing.

wow was that a disaster

I went there a month ago and it was like I stepped into a time machine back to 1996. The old Little Caesar cafe they had in the store has been closed for years, but it's still intact as if it was still in operation. There were entire floor spaces empty of any display or products and the aisles were extremely narrow. All of the checkout registers were archaic and blocky, making it hard for the underpaid cashiers to do their job with ease. And on my last visit, all of the products I bought from there (some tools on clearance for my garage) had to be bagged with large black trash bags because the store had ran out of regular shopping bags and couldn't get anymore....at 11:30 am. :I

Crazy thing is, that store is being spared from closing.

back in the '70s. Except, I guess, there aren't people lining up outside to buy daily goods at your Kmart.

Online is just too easy and convenient.

There's a Fry's Electronics in my area. A few years ago the parking lot was nearly always full. A long line to get to the cash registers. Now it has the aura of a ghost town. I can't imagine how it is staying in business.

One of the things saving Fry's is that it's still family owned, so they don't have to appease shareholders looking for a "good quarter". They also own a lot of their locations, which means their operating costs are relatively low.

Our K-Mart was spared but a Fryes would be awesome here. Used to go to one in Nor-Cal. Miss it.

Unless they dramatically change and adapt, I expect they'll be totally gone within the foreseeable future.

It's a few minutes away from a friend's house. Sad to see these stores close, so many people will lose their jobs.

I think they've already pared down the stores in Oregon with the last round of closings. Thankfully the Sears in Portland won't close.

but Sears has been crappy for a long long time. Too bad because it was a great American department store at one time.

I agree with an earlier poster, I love Craftsman tools, but their mowers suck and their customer service is almost non-existent. I won a settlement with Sears a couple of year ago when my new mower was in the shop three times the first six months after I bought it - my settlement was a new mower. I had already bought a Troy-Bilt so the new one still sits unopened in its box in my basement. But Sears did not want to replace it until I got the Better Business Bureau involved.

The bottom line is most Sears products suck, their customer service sucks and they do not stand behind what they sell. Good riddance.

http://whysearssucks.blogspot.com/