I have heard rumors out of HE that we are switching vendors for most of the hand tools and these will begin arriving in the next several weeks. Can anyone confirm?
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Richard Sears must be spinning in his grave.
that "Craftsman", that is being sold by Lowes is the low-quality, easily rusting, garbage soft Chinese metal by Great Star and other, Harbor Freight level, Mainland manufacturers.
Apex and Vaughn used to be "the" Craftsman - US-made and properly priced. Not anymore.
Stick a fork in it.
Yep
Why are you assuming that this reset would be any different than the last 3-4 in tools and actually be for new product?
It’s to plug holes and get rid of the huge gaps all over the department by reducing the floor space used. That’s why they want corners blocked off and the aisles have been steadily getting wider. They’re just pushing around the deck chairs for the small amount of remaining product, nothing more. It isn’t the same as a softlines reset that necessarily involves new product.
Exactly who would be buying and from whence would the money be coming for this latest rumored "reset"? There are no buyers, there is no money, and there is no pipeline. Even if there were, it wouldn't be coming in for half a year at best.
Who needs new Craftsman tools when you have no stores and a broken e-commerce site?
Go to Lowes. They are the only ones selling Craftsman.
@elq:
Apex was the source for all torque wrenches and ratchets. They’re no longer dealing with Sears, thus no stock.
Vaughn was the hammer source (except the flex claws) and per a buyer on Pebble about 7-8 months ago they were no longer dealing with Sears.
Impacts and electrical tools are OOS because there are no vendors left. It’s why when the reset was done 2 years ago electrical tools went from 4 4’ gondolas to a single endcap.
No clue on adjustables, as that’s a Great Star sourced item.
FWIW, most everything in tools that’s been low or OOS the past 6-7 months has been listed in the MFB as “vendor delay” with a continually moving projected in-store landing date ~3 months in the future. It’s a sham by the Tools buying team to cover for the fact that the stuff isn’t coming and never will. They’re also cutting tools in the post Christmas reset down to a max of 260 linear feet in all stores, which is a little more than half of what most low volume B stores have now, never mind the A stores. The reset brochure also contains instructions on how to block off back corners with goldolas to make the department look less empty.
Tools vendors mostly quit shipping when we quit paying. Resourcing was in the works, but strangled by Corp payment issues, lack of cash to order anything, and constant change of Buying teams after each layoff, then most of the remaining Buying teams were just laid off. Good luck with any of it now. It is all import, so will take a long time to get approved, in production and in the pipeline. Time which the company no longer has, especially with no money left.
Ok that makes some sense but why are we almost out of all tool inventory? No impacts, no digi torque wrenches, no high end ratchets, no multimeters, no adjustable wrenches even, no banners except for some cheap non craftsman junk and the flex claws, almost nothing is left. Can’t even order it online for a customer.
- jwp thanks for clarification. That fact did not make it down to use L/G tool sales (-ex) grunts.
That is why that lawsuit confused me. Figured it was EL pulling a D*ck move on SBD
Part of the “sale” was that Sears retained a perpetual license to source and sell whatever they wanted in Sears/Kmart stores. SBD already sued and tried to prevent Transform from retaining that license and lost over the spring. There is no connection between Sears Craftsman and SBD Craftsman.
Craftsman is now owned by Stanley/BlackDecker. There will be no 'New' lines developed by
Sears. It's whatever the owners provide Sears to sell.
They started switching vendors to Great Star over 2 years ago. All they’re doing now is eliminating the last bit of open stock supplied by Apex (sockets, wrenches and tool sets with black latches mainly)(maker code “S”) in favor of Great Star (maker code “Z”). The Ultimate Collection stuff, screwdrivers and any tool sets with red latches are all Great Star product and have been for quite a while.
Apex apparently won’t deal after the bankruptcy, it’s just taken this long for the stock in the RRCs to be depleted.