Thread regarding Sears layoffs

Eddie must not use SYW in any reasonable way himself. It's so ridiculously broken, and beyond the usability nightmare, it can't even accomplish what it purports to do. Support calls to clueless techs who also have no idea what's going on because all of IT and accounting infrastructure is falling apart also fall into a black hole. He's just happy that he and Leena got to stick their names on a half dozen patents out of SYW and that's what passes for their baby since little Eddie is firing blanks.

People reporting which stores are going to be closed here:
Store closure thread pt. 2 - @11SeiVf6

99 store closures announced today 11/5

I really don’t understand why are you counting down. The OP stated that some kind of announcement will be made on or around certain date, never said it would happen on a specific date. The OP than stated the goal is to close all remaining Kmarts from November to February (again, not a date, but a date range, and said it’s a goal, please look up the word “goal” in a dictionary).

WSJ quote: nearly 100 stores are slated for closure by year-end, the majority of them Kmart locations, according to people familiar with the situation.

@gnew The article does not mention ALL stores to begin closing on Oct. 21, as the OP wrote. Well anyway, we will find out if this is true or not in 8 DAYS.

Read today's WSJ. All backs up the original poster's information.

I don't see why this got so many upvotes when it's obviously untrue. 10.21 is about 1 Week away. There is no way they would be liquidating all stores then. It's so obvious that this is unrealistic. Even if their plan is to close most stores (I agree it is), they would not announce this in advance of The Date.

@Rice Cake

I agree, this is getting ridiculous. Will more stores likely close? Yes, especially with the hometown buyout just days away.

Are we going to see more posts “all stores will announce liquidation on November 5th at 11:20AM CST”? Most likely.

Are they true? Most likely not.

More realistically you’ll slowly see stores closed as they are sold or the leases are sold/expire. The bulk majority of this recent batch were Kmarts with leases up in January. That’s why they are closing. The Sears leases tend to have more flexibility so it’s likely some will be downsized and subdivided/subleased. If they are cheaper than warehouses you may see stores used as sort of regional warehouses for the smaller hometowns and the DCs downsized/sold off.

Montgomery Ward and Woolworth were both bankrupt at the time they liquidated. Sears was technically bankrupt for several years and Eddie kept it out of court. Now with a clean balance sheet he could drag this out for some time with the same tactics he used before.

@Rice Cake That's fine. People can preface their predictions with caveats like "I think", or "probably", or "approximately". What vexes me is when people don't use such prefaces or qualifiers, and act like their statement is Gospel. Yes, 1 outlier can ruin their statement. Again, to use the football analogy, let's Say you're about to Watch a top college team play a very bad team. Your friend could use some hyperbole and state "Team A is so good that they're gonna Win by 100 points". Let's Say Team A Wins 98-0. Technically his statement was a lie. Team A Won the game, it was a shutout, they totally crushed Team B. But it wasn't 100-0, it was only 98-0. So people should hesitate to make claims like EVERY KMART WILL CLOSE BY OCT 21. LOL, even if Eddie closes every one but Guam, then the statement is inherently false. Your statement was thought out and reasoned. The OP's was NOT and that's why I continue to ridicule him, because I do not like hyperbole or exaggerations.

While anything can happen, usually retailers never announce total shutdowns in advance of a specific date. I remember 7/17/1997 and 12/28/2000 very well. Those were the respective dates that Woolworth and Montgomery Ward each announced its liquidation. While both chains were doing poorly prior to those dates, their announcements were nevertheless surprising to many. Both of those chains even began store remodeling programs not long before their demises, which added confusion to the shutdowns. Sears could be in a slightly different category in that they might end up staying in business with the smaller stores while liquidating the department store/big box format. That's just my opinion.

When it comes to SEARS/Kmart nothing really surprises me anymore and nothing should surprise any of you either at this point. Do I THINK there will be an announcement of all Kmarts to be closed by a specific date? Probably not. Do I BELIEVE that all Kmarts (and SEARS stores for that matter) will eventually be totally shutdown in the somewhat near future? Probably so. Do I KNOW that SEARS/Kmart will totally cease to exist in some form by let's say August 1, 2020? Absolutely not. BUT any of those claims are entirely possible.

Here's the deal....Things are bad and they aren't going to get any better. There is no saving SEARS and Kmart as retail establishments. Eventually they will cease to exist as we know them. It's hard to make an exact prediction on what the progression will be because ONE outlier can make someone's claim be untrue. For example if someone says "All Kmarts will be liquidated by March 1, 2020" BUT Eddie decides to keep one Kmart open until April 25, 2020 then that person's claim will be false even though the gist of their statement is almost entirely correct.

This is a RUMOR site. Take anything posted here with a grain of salt. A majority of the claims on here have been somewhat accurate (except the obviously outlandish troll posts that go one way or the other). There have been some strong claims on here that were almost entirely true even if the date was off by a few weeks or a number or figure was off by just a few. In general most of the genuine claims have been proven to be mostly accurate.

Also don't forget that sometimes when something is posted here Eddie or others in charge will change plans on the fly to purposely make a what would have been an accurate claim not accurate any longer. It is not uncommon for an announcement to be postponed a few days or a few weeks just to make what would have been an accurate claim on here now false.

Like I said....take everything here with a grain of salt. Things are NOT GOOD. Eight or ten years ago there were still billions of dollars in an account that could keep feeding the fire of a failing retailer. There is not a cushion like that to fall back on anymore....No more cash left to burn. This whole charade could fall apart in the next 90 days and it wouldn't surprise me (and someone's claim could be correct). A hardheaded Eddie could keep 50 stores open for another three years just to try and prove something (and someone else's claim would be correct). We'll just have to ride it out and see where this slow burning t–d decides to fizzle out.

Fake news. There is no way they will be announcing the closure of EVERY Kmart in October. Lies, man.

I don’t think this would happen at all, but if something like this is really scheduled, think it would be more logical for all of this to happen after the holiday season.

People can post what they want but posting fake news helps nobody. If CNN posted that Martians landed in Antarctica and the news turned out to be fake I would call them out. Post things that are true. Or if you're not sure post "I THINK XYZ will happen", not "I KNOW XYZ will happen". If you post that ZYZ will happen by ABC Date, and if that does not happen by That Date, I WILL Say "I TOLD YOU SO".

@4gyj I agree with most of what you wrote. That is why it is a true disservice when people post clickbaity things like this, which may (as you suggested) turn off people from applying, negatively influence potential customers, and perhaps upset some employees or their family members with rumors of closing that are simply not true. I mean, sure, when it happens, please, by all means, post the closings with a link so it is verifiably true.
Until then, these crazy "Chicken Little" stories are doing noone a service. This OP actually claims that he "KNOWS" (not thinks or heard BUT "KNOWS") that closing of ALL Kmarts & "SOME" Sears will be announced Oct. 21. It may be true but I doubt it. But this thread will age very badly if his alleged STATEMENT of fact (THAT HE CLAIMS HE "KNOWS) turns out to be mere clickbait. There will be a lot of "what happened?" going on in 20 Days.

@4vdi

There is one problem, even if it is clickbait it makes it harder to fill positions because it ends up in real news publications apparently now. We did a hiring event already and still have positions to fill with the national hiring event. Sure they’re mostly seasonal, but if the store isn’t closing those open non seasonal appliance and hardware jobs are not exactly bad. Not sure if I’d want to be the seasonal cashiers, store support, shoes, merchandise pickup though. Thing is if this scares people off and they can’t hire anyone everyone else is stuck dealing with it. It all trickles down, can’t get a seasonal cashier the customers will just cash out in even slower volume areas like mattresses. So where you might sell a few mattresses a day everyone will be dumping c-ap on your tiny register because the line is too long elsewhere. Can’t get store support? Managers will be running around doing it. Everyone suffers as a result. Now I dunno about other stores elsewhere but some of it is not pleasant, merchandise pickup is basically non stop from early November through Christmas at our store, 5 minutes isn’t gonna fly if they can’t hire people. I think they went through a temp agency already 2 years ago I’m not sure Eddie would put up his own dime for that though,,

I mean it doesn’t really matter if the stores actually close but false rumors make it worse all around if they don’t. You’ll also get asked hundreds of times if you’re closing. You can’t say “eventually” or “do you see any store closing signs yet?”. You also get asked at the most inopportune times when it clearly is obvious the store is not yet closing. You bite your tongue when you really want to say “No I’m just assembling this exercise bike because it’s better exercise than using it and we are definitely closing tomorrow”.

@3kce Exactly man! I'm beginning to wonder if it's clickbait. I mean, I have adblocker but I assume this site runs on ads (even though I can't see them). Few Weeks ago, Oct. 1. Then someone mentioned Oct. 15. Now someone writes Oct. 21. Later they will write Nov. 1. Then Nov. 15. Etc., etc., rinse & repeat. It's that old story (can't remember if it was chicken little or turkey lurkey) who kept crying about "THE SKY IS FALLING", except of course, that never happened. It's all about clicks. "Help, the British are coming! Save yourselves!" LOL! Then, um, nothing happens. Yes, if you had 1 Penny for every one of these clickbait stories, you WOULD BE WEALTHY! Kind of reminds me during the bankruptcy case. I would often find clickbait stories online "Sears has 2 Days, 6 Hours, 15 Seconds to survive if they can't make a deal". 1 Hour later "Sears will be closing in 2 Days, 5 Hours, & um, 15 Seconds". Except it didn't happen. Yawn. When they close, then Tell us about it. Until then, they're not closing. Yawn.

@4aaz

I haven’t looked at work boots in a while if it’s something new with hard security tags or not, our store has pretty low theft I don’t typically look for security tags like that. Some stuff is definitely from closing stores, got a few weird appliances that don’t typically sell around here, they were just tagged as the blowout sale though. Small appliances and tools though have had many full case packs, getting a lot of Koolatron branded small appliances. So unless the closing stores are sitting on cases of this stuff it has to be new, plus a lot of the new hand tools are in black “ultimate collection” style packaging (pretty much all the mechanics tool sets and wrench sets are like that now). Can’t really say much about the Christmas, it’s just typical stuff with a lot of the other typical stuff they send in every year with it (pillows, fleece throws, heated blankets, comforters, some with holiday patterns) and much of that stuff that usually gets marked down to a dollar in the spring.

They ship out stuff that will just get stolen like Levi's and high end work boots and a few other categories when your store closing is announced and then you receive a bunch of stock of tools and small appliances workout equipment appliances, a lot of which you couldn't even order the month before and other odds and ends, you get about 3 times the amount of product per truck as normal the first few weeks of liquidation so there is inventory laying around somewhere, seems like they starve the stores until liquidation is announced though

@4vpb if your Sears store is like ours we are getting truckloads of merchandise in all departments from closing stores. Last week we actually got work boots with the hard security tags on them.

@3sqh

If vendors aren’t getting paid and no merchandise is coming in how come we’re getting merchandise in our store? Christmas, small appliances and tools are coming in left and right.

Kenmore is not with much anymore, under 100M

"The end is definitely near." If I had a penny every time I've heard this statement in the past few years ... I'd be very, very wealthy.

Makes sense when the company isn’t paying vendors, ordering product and have a blowout sale going on and once again no reporting is working.... the end is definitely near

@3twk Thanks, well Said!

so much wrong with this. literally none of it is true. auto has no plans of being spun off and have zero offers on the table to do so, kenmore is valuable but that’s a stretch. soft lines is virtually gone and while the plan is to eliminate kmart, dates have not been set. nice try with your guessing game.

@2esd They will all close eventually. Just Saying it may not be on THE TIMELINE specified by OP. But they will all eventually close.

If the stores do not close on 10 21 it will good and I will be here to support all opinions as this is an opinion site.

@2dhn @2sal @2gxq Those Jacks are not me, the real "Jack" LOL. People can write what they want but if they cannot back it up, I will call them out on it, especially if they act like it's a certainty that what they are writing WILL happen. OP didn't write that they "think" or "heard" this will happen. They wrote that it definitely WILL happen. And if it doesn't, by around Oct. 25, I will be on here calling them out, and that is a guarantee. I am fully aware the stores will close but I am not 100% certain they will ALL be announced on Oct. 21. We'll see in about 3 Weeks.

One can never underestimate Eddie's capacity for fail. A $55 billion dollar company? Eddie can turn it into a bankrupt company. Losing $1B a year? Eddie can turn it into a $12B loss. 5,500 stores? Eddie can turn it into 200 stores. A $9B fortune? He can turn it into a $1B fortune. He can spin off all of Sears' properties, and instead of investing it properly in the business and customers, he can use it to line his own pockets, and failed investments worth less than nothing, bankrupting shareholders, his partners, and his investors too. Then he'll beg banks and borrow money, and borrow more from the equities markets, and he'll bankrupt them too. Holiday season? Eddie can lose $2B over a holiday season. Sure, Sears might last another two years or so. Eddie might find other ways to siphon other people's wealth and turn it into trash. Maybe he can destroy some other retirees' insurance benefits, their pensions, their livelihoods, as well as all the people who put their savings and funds into Sears in good faith while he s—ed it off into Seritage, ESL and his own pockets, because the bankruptcy code lets you do that as long as it takes you longer than two years. Never underestimate Eddie's capacity for fail. There's a reason that he's often acclaimed as the worst CEO in the history of CEOs, by other American CEOs. Not only is he screwing everyone at every opportunity partially by maliciousness, mostly by incompetence, he's also screwing himself every step of the way because he hasn't the foggiest idea what he's doing. No doubt he could continue to "Transform" Sears for the next 20 years, and his apologists, probably himself will probably be posting on here saying, SEE?!!??!! SEARS IS STILL AROUND!!!!

If every single freaking kmart without exception isn't announced on or by Oct 21, I will come back here and lay on the thickest slice of "I TOLD YOU SO", the OP has ever seen. Put up or shut up OP. Clock is running. This thread is on my computers favorite list. See you in A FEW WEEKS!

@1kai Nope, he is Telling his opinion. Which is 100% fine, but he shouldn't act like it's a definite fact. This individual claimed all Kmarts would be announced by Oct. 21. He will be wearing this if we should find out it's not the case.

The OP is posting what he knew when he got pink slipped. Could this change? Maybe yes, maybe no. Please don't condemn him. He is just telling the facts as of the date he left.

Innovell is now shipping 500 pcs,per day.and only receiving about 200 pcs per day inventory is being reduced. our buildings are all half empty. not much of a future here either

It's a good thing we are in the last couple of months here. The registers are so old that they are dying off of old age as we speak. Who keeps equipment for 40 years? The spikes that hold the bags at the register are eye level with a 3year old, and I often fear the worst while trying to ring up a busy mom. Many prices are not as posted, and the minimum wage employees like to give shoppers a lot of advice on how to increase savings, whether it's compatible with what we do here or not. Thanks, just venting.

@Skeptical I agree man. I hope what this OP write is true but if it isn't, let's come back after Oct. 21 to rub it in! That's the penalty for guessing without backing it up.

Thanks again for posting what you know, not what you think will happen. There are alot of people that speculate, myself included.
It takes courage to tell what you know, especially when you get criticised here for it. Its kind of like when they were told for years that shld would file bankruptcy and even when Lampert all along was basically telling them what his asset light vision of transformation was. People on here would dispute the facts and forewarnings. Thank you for sharing what you know

@1vbb - If you know so much, then could you please explain what "Quesses" are.

Here's what I know...you are speculating and posting as truth. Why would an ex HE person know so much? What about Innovel? What about Supply Chain? What about apparel and footwear? What about the RSC, DDC and RRC? etc etc Funny how this is all supposed happen 2 days before the next hearing? Quesses and opinion just to s— people in..

@1ubw Nope, he is right.