http://www.wsj.com/articles/sears-se...ker-1483623215

This has been coming for a while. Given that the Craftsman, DieHard, and Kenmore brands were the only things of value that Sears Holding owned, I can't say that I see a long future for the company. I guess they get to license the brand name (and thus continue to sell the tools) for 15 years under this deal. The fact that Crapsman tools have been Chinesium for the last few years makes me not even care anymore.

 

Sears is going the way of Montgomery Wards. Sears is bleeding cash like crazy and nothing can be done to stop it. These were once the two great retailers in the country. My Dad was an appliance repairman and worked for both. They will sell of the pieces that have any value and continue to close stores and stay on life support for a while. I don't think they will be around in 5 - 7 years. It is sad really for those of us old enough to remember what they used to be.

 

Exactly. The current management of Sears Holding simply cares about maximizing the value of their stock options before the company augers in - thus the sell off of the only parts that have value. Build the cash back up, raise stock value, then hit the silk.

 

They were one of the last major retailers to treat their employees well. They even had pension plans for their employees. Great benefits too. Of course this contributes to their eventual demise, along with the focus on stock market valuations. I don't think I'll be ordering my next house from them.

 

Its a shame they went from one of the greatest retailers in modern times to this.

 

I can't offer a good reply.If i did it would end up political. This all stems from cheap guys buying cheap stuff and we know where that comes from. We all know that is why company's like this are failing even when we know where the stuff now comes from for the last ten years. Just a shame. Done with this thread.

 

I don't think so, Sears sold cheap stuff also to include a lot of imports. This is pure mismanagement period.

 

That USED to be their plan......now their plan is to salvage whatever value, if any, is left in the company. The stock has been on a long term DOWNWARD trajectory ever since Eddie Lampert took over and combined the company w/KMart.

At the end of the day there's a very good chance the stock is worth next to nothing. They'll burn through this new found cash like they've burned through all the other cash. It's a slow motion train wreck.

 

Agreed. Classic crappy management. I just don't get it.

 

We have one in our town, we buy some stuff from there. Our Kenmore stove is a POS, Craftsman is the same as anything else now. No one can compete with Walmart, I liked Zellers when they took over KMart up here. They are gone now too. Walmart isn't anything special price wise up here but everyone flocks there.

 

Pan Am did the same thing years ago. They sold off all their best routes to stay afloat, but it just prolonged the inevitable.

 

The demise of another company that once made America great. We are actually renting a house on Lake Erie that was a Sears catalog home.

 

I belive the town i live in has the highest concentration of sears houses that where built and still up today. We think my house and my neighbors house are sears houses as they are identical.

They even made cars back in the day.

Its sad how a great empire has collapsed but just wait for it walmart will fall soon enough. Amazon is putting the hurt on everyone. Id rather see amazon make it than walmart.

As for the tools I never liked them. I prefer s-k , gear wrench brand.

 

I almost exclusively have Craftsmasn tools, hopefully that brand stays around for awhile elsewhere. Many years ago Sears and Snap-On were the only brands that offered a lifetime warranty. Now pretty much every tool manufacturer offers that (even Harbor Freight). The sad thing is the last time I went to a Sears to get a warranty on a 1/4 in. ratchet it was like pulling teeth to get them to honor the warranty. I won't miss them when they are gone.

 

Well, the SOLD cars. Sears never "made" anything. Kenmore washers and dryers were Whirlpool, for example. The Allstate cars were Kaiser Henry Js. One showed up at cruise night in Hagerstown, MD a year or so ago.

 

X to the 10 power wr1970!



This leaves me few choices when buying tools...I like estate and garage sales for this purpose, when time allows it. One can unearth the old school USA made tools. Snap Off is soon to follow with all of its tool lines. Marvelous....simply frigging marvelous. Welcome to the United States of China. Stellar job America!



Some Stanley is manufactured here as well as 99% of Proto and Armstrong.

We can fix this by staying out of harborjunk and any other junk tool crib selling this inferior unsafe garbage. Start purchasing Proto and Armstrong (I have). Proto and Armstrong are at par with Snap Off yet a bit less expensive....for now. That will send the message out to all. I wont even buy tarps and bungees at harborjunk! Why...they last 6 months. I found USA made tarps n bungees for the same price that will last years vs months... FOR THE SAME PRICE. Its up to the consumer...thats all of us...to send this message in the form of wallet deprivation to corporate america.

OLDER IS BETTER!

Done with this thread as well

 

I'm the same way. I've had my original set of Craftsman tools since 1974. Unfortunately, when you take one back now to get it replaced, you are trading in your old US-made tool for a Chinesium one. The quality of the new tools is crap. The open end wrenches have monstrous "lobster claw" ends now, presumably due to the lower mechanical properties of Chinesium.

 

LoL, is Chinesium an alloy of steel or paper mache?

 

The retail market has changed,all the top Canadian retail stores but one are long gone.
Sears used to be the go to place for the car guys but that changed when the quality of their tools started to go down.
Snap On, Mac, were professional grade top of the line tools for the pro's. Grey, and Craftsman were quality tools and could be used in the trade with some Snap ON and Mac tools in a supporting role.
Then the cheep imports started to flood the market and to compete, Craftsmen started to lower there quality and that was the start of the end in my opinion.
I still have my original Craftsman set that I bought for trade school in the 80's.
Today you have so many off shore brand's there is no room for a higher priced lower quality tool.
The tools that Canadian tire sells under the Maximum name is better than my original Craftsman tools. The tools look like copy's of Snap ON and there fit and finish are very good.
There not as good as Snap ON or Mac but they are of trade apprentice quality.
I cannot see top tech's using Maximum or Gearwrench to far past the apprentice years. Tools are a badge of honor and the guys are proud of their Snap On and Mac tool sets.

 

This is sad, I am a fan of Sears for some clothes, brand appliances, tools, etc. I was a DieHard Battery fan as well. I have an old 22 rifle from the JC Higgins days and remember the Ted Williams line of sporting goods. Very Sad...

 

Yeah, I have to buy my replacements off of Ebay.

 

Same here, or at Carlisle.

 

Lampert is actually trying to save this co but they are irreparably damaged. He's dumped a lot of money into it but at this point it's def throwing good money after bad. There is so little they do well. They can't compete in the click & mortar world. The fact that they have to raise cash right after Christmas shows they are done. http://www.pymnts.com/news/retail/20...lifeline-loan/

 

Am I the only one who sees the irony in the fact that the company who brought us the Sears Catalog couldn't figure out how to transition that model to the internet and make money at it?

 

I'm with you. Such a captive audience and they blew it.

 

The Allstate car was interesting. Of course it was a rebadged Henry J. There was one at the Sweethearts and Orphans show last February. It was the only one I have ever seen and the guy had another one at home. Sears sold them with Allstate radios, heaters, batteries, spark plugs and tires on them. This guy even had an Allstate swamp cooler on it. If anybody is interested, here is a link that will probably tell you more than you want to know about the Allstate.

 

I think you forgot the link.

 

http://auto.howstuffworks.com/allstate-cars.htm

 

It's more than this. Macy's just today announced the closing of 100 stores around the country, with 68 specifically identified so far, and I don't think that this can be simply chalked up to mismanagement.


Macy's is closing these 68 stores: Is yours on the list?

http://www.usatoday.com/story/money/...lose/96169742/


Also, it's not just Macy's or Kmart or Sears.

It’s Not Just Macy’s: Department Stores Are in a Death Spiral

http://time.com/money/4623760/depart...-sears-amazon/


With a few exceptions, pretty much ALL of retailing is in trouble, and it's due to the rise of onlilne shopping and sites like Amazon. It is so convenient to shop from home, and the selection available is so vast compared to what any particular store could ever hope to have in its inventory, that many people are doing it that way. Amazon's prices are usually the same as or cheaper than the local store, and with shipping getting to be 2-day with them and usually free, it's hardly an inconvenience to wait for delivery and thus it's hardly an inconvenience to buy this way.


How many people on this site buy parts from rockauto, Fusick, or other online or mail-order auto parts sellers? Lots of people do. Probably at least three-quarters, and maybe closer to 90%, of the population of this website has bought auto parts from an online retailer. In doing so you're not buying from a local, brick and mortar auto parts store. Since most auto parts stores are now part of a big chain, few people buying online probably notice or care that they're hurting local retailers by doing so, but it amounts to the same thing.

And yes, many times the only source for a particular part or a particular brand is online. But lots of things can still be bought through your local store. That Autozone or NAPA store still employs local people, pays taxes to the local community, and so forth, and this would be lost if those stores close.

 

Joe you are correct they were the leader in catalog sales in Canada as well.
Walking thru Sears today is quite sad it is a shadow of it's former days.
The Old power tools were also quite good as they were made by Dewalt ,Devilbiss,etc. They also used to carry Sun tune up gear in there auto centers.
I could see the decline start around the late 80's in the Canadian stores.

 

IMO: It's the economy!

Over the last eight years the job market has been shifting toward part time low skill, low pay service industry jobs. Has anyone ever put pen to paper to see what these minimum wage earners are making per week.

$10.00 per hr X 40 hours per wk = $400.00 gross
minus taxes $23.00
Minus SS $24.80
Minus Medicare $6.00
take home pay = $346.20

Fuel, car insurance, housing, electric, water, and if there's any left over they can buy food.

There is no money left over for them to shop at the mall.

My biggest pay raise recently was when fuel cost dropped from $3.80 per gallon to $1.85 per gallon. And now that's starting to creep back up even though we have millions of gallons in our reserves and demand has leveled off, and even dropped some.

It's the economy!

 

If brick and mortar retailers are failing, it's their own dumb fault. Seldom do I have a satisfying retail experience in brick and mortar stores. Empty shelves, out of stock items, merchandise in sealed boxes so that you can't even inspect it, employees who know nothing and don't care. The list goes on. I would prefer to give them my business, but they drive me to the internet.

Sears failing couldn't happen soon enough for me. I haven't spent a dime there in over 30 years -- ever since they accused me of trying to make an invalid warranty claim on a Die Hard battery. It was bad enough the battery failed in just three years, and then they call me a crook. Bye bye.

 

Same here.



I buy from the local store when it has what I want or can get it in a reasonable amount of time.
For "oddball" stuff, I check Amazon and RockAuto.
I also check them to see if they've got any "crazy-low" prices (like those 4-row radiators for $60 this past July).

Sometimes, though, the local stores make you go mailorder, like when NAPA tells me they can get the part in 2 days, but they'll charge me an extra $15 UPS fee, because somehow it doesn't get shipped on one of their trucks (they've told me this several times). When that happens, well gosh, Amazon's often got the same part with free shipping to my door in the same 2 days, and it's cheaper.
I do go to the local store and even pay more there, if they have or can get the part. If not, well, it's their funeral.

- Eric

 

I'd say more like the past twenty years, but, yes, the past eight years, too.

- Eric

 

There are two competing business models in my part of the country.
Walmart and Costco.
Costco and our local Super market "Pubix" operate on a customer service style business model where they have plenty of product to sell and plenty of employees to help you.
Sears, along with numerous other outlets cut cost on everything they felt they could until there was nothing left to cut cost on. This was done in order to boost their short term earnings. And this left them with no product on the shelf and a cheap labor force that doesn't care anymore. Combine that with the financial crisis of 2006 and you have a disaster that cannot be overcome.

Hopefully, we as a country will quite worrying about the bottom line so much and go back to building great businesses. Businesses that grow steadily over time and are built on a fondation that can stand the test of time. Like Ford not needing to be bailed out in 2006.
Unlike GM which went heavily into the financial market and exposed itself to risk it could not absorb once the economy hit a recession.

 

If I go local I want service, and very few part stores offer this in my area. I may as well order from Rock. My computer gives me as much info as the local counter guy that never heard of the old paper buyer guide catalogs that allowed you to match up parts by dimension or drawings.
I also order on-line from Walmart, free ship to store. The local stores that survive learn their customers and cater to them.
My local Ace started handling Craftsmen. I had a bad ratchet, took it 35 miles to Sears twice and the replacement was out of stock both times. When Ace started with them, they got me a replacement in 3 days.
One tool brand I grab at the markets are Cornwell. IMHO, at one time they were the best.

 

https://www.google.com/amp/amp.usato...?client=safari

 

Shareholder Greed.... This sad Sears story reminds me of Digital Equipment Corporation's demise.

 

The internet continues to evolve-Amazon. See the news tonight?, Sears is not only one that's taking a hit. I order most everything on-line and have it dropped on my door step, maybe its the age factor? But I'm sold on the convenience, price and do not have to fight the crowds and traffic in Dallas- 7million people in the DFW area now....

 

Jaunty has it right! And few others have made great points on local jobs and taxes! And no doubt customer service from big box stores has to work it way up to suck! I am still old school and buy 98% locally. I will do my homework first online to gain knowledge and try to buy local if the price is close!

I don't purchase anything from Harbor freight. My tools/box are Snap-on, Mac, Craftsman, Central, Starrett and Mitutoyo

Now what happens if the brick & mortar stores disappear and you need something quickly?

Pat