I'm concerned more about myself and looking for a new job than about the future of this company, but still I wonder if Sears could have been saved? I’m a regular cashier here and I don’t understand much of the business processes, but I’m very sorry that not everything was done to save this company. Were there any chances at all that it could've been done?
18 replies (most recent on top)
Despite all the damage done by Lampert; the one redeeming aspect about whether Sears can survive is that there are still many, many customers loyal and dedicated to Sears and K-Mart. There are customers out there who have been loyal to the stores for 60-70 years or longer; their entire life returning to and supporting the brands. Sadly, there are now so few stores out there that for most people, they simply can't shop at a Sears or K-Mart because there isn't even one within driving distance. My grandchildren always loved to go there. We bought all of their toys there for Christmas, birthdays, and other times. Whatever we could use and they had we would buy it at Sears/KMart stores in Ohio. Now we are rewarded with no stores at all. Oh, we could still drive to the one lone remaining K-Mart in Michigan, and we will when we can, but how much longer can they hold out? When the routine rounds of store closings were first announced, the corporate people should have brought in the best turnaround person they could find to ascertain what needed to be done to refresh the stores and the merchandise being offered so as to transform them into viable businesses. Transformco has a name which would seem to indicate they should be doing this; instead they are only allowing the brands to vanish away. I can only hope that some stores could remain even despite all that has been taking place in the last few years.
I think Sears should be a community place to be, with:
A Sears Bank
A Sears Urgent Care Clinic
A Sears Foodcourt with carts and staff flown in from all over the world
A Sears Pop Up Shops with hot street designers and artists.
A Sears Crypto Investment Unit
A Classic Sears Store within a Store selling Kenmore, Craftsman, DieHard.
Definitely with coffee shop, and grocery store niches.
Basically make Sears so interesting, we have to got there.
@5qku+19N2p7Hq No CIO in the world can fix the complexity of the merged Sears and Kmart systems. Each CIO they brought in promised to fix or simplify many problems but all of them got worn out or shot down by the businesses. Instead of throwing out all of the legacy systems and build new and simplify and streamline the businesses wanted to keep their ways of running their business. Imagine just to simplify a POS application at the checkout the business will say we are using that to sell credit card. You can't remove that feature. We need it. OK, you get $20 from CC company but you just p-ss-d off all customers waiting at the checkout line? I can go on and on. None of the businesses in the enterprise wanted to work in unison. Each wanted to protect their turfs and trucking down the same useless and ineffective way of running a business. What worked 50 years ago no longer working but they didn't get that. Also with a CEO lacks of leadership and technology knowledge so it was only a matter of time that it ends badly.
I worked in I.T. at Corporate during Eddie's reign. He encouraged the business to submit project requests that would save the company 'millions'... many of those so-called 'savings' were inflated. We made so many changes to the legacy systems ... perhaps a better solution would have been to just upgrade to more modern software... never did that. Everything was done on the cheap. No enforcement of standards... the systems when I left there were a hodge-podge of mainframe (some of which is running on expired software), Unix, Windows and using dozens of 3rd party products... when something breaks it's difficult to fix. With the lack of money I am sure things haven't changed that much. I am just happy I don't have to carry the on call pager any longer.
No it couldn't have been saved.i was a victim of a corporate raider
They should have invested more money into loss prevention earlier on. They are doing it now but it may be too little too late. Theft and other forms of shrink ravaged the company over the years.
You guys just don't get it. Eddie isn't a id–t. Sears failure was part of his plan. Sears goes bankrupt and then his company buys up the real estate. He never cared about Sears.
Eddie the incompetent Lampert took Sears Commercial/Kenmore Direct from a majority market share to 0% market share. It minted money as long as he didn't get grubby ret-rd mitts on it, but as soon as he took over as CEO, it nosedived into a big splat. Only an id–t could have destroyed that business, and Eddie was that id–t.
Lampert would certainly get my vote as worst industry executive ever. In this case, we’re not talking about a few strategic blunders – this is systemic and consistent failure due to very bad, traumatic decisions it appears he has made unilaterally. I have no sympathy for Lampert. And while his asset stripping is disgraceful, more importantly he has stripped the careers and pensions from hundreds of thousands of working people, and that’s unforgivable.
I find it stomach-turning to read all of these analyses in the wake of the filing about “where it all went wrong” and how doing these two or three things would’ve saved Sears. I think Lampert’s only regret is that he couldn’t stretch out the charade a few more years and eke a few more dollars out of laying waste to an iconic brand. And that otherwise, this was a plan well-designed and well-executed: how to extract as much value out of Sears as is humanly possible.
He doesn’t have a clue about retailing and has never run Sears as a retailer. All of his actions have been financial and often to his own benefit. They have never been concerned with building up Sears or ensuring its long-term survival.
It is true that Sears had issues long before Eddie came on the scene. However, he is the author of its current fate and no amount of faux handwringing will change that. The markets know it, lenders know it, the public knows it and, most importantly, those who work for Sears know it.
The only ones who would defend Mr. Lampert are those who would admire a person’s cunning in ruining a business and negatively impacting so many employees, all for his own benefit.
Morally corrupt, the legacy of Mr. Lampert. It is heartening in a world of constant “spinning” for financial and political gain that a human moral compass still exists within us, the rank and file.
Sorry, I am late to the party! Not so much love for one of the worst CEOs in modern business history. Eddie Lampert’s tenure at Sears has to go down as one of the retail industry tragedies of the 21st century. Empires rise and fall, and unfortunately, Lampert’s lack of leadership, vision, and overall horrible decision making have led Sears on a nightmarish downward spiral for the past 15 years. There are countless numbers of CEO horror stories. Culture and the right leadership are everything. Lost in all of the publicity about the loss of Sears, are the passionate, dedicated current and former employees whose salaries, pensions are livelihoods will be stripped from them.
Worst ever — no defense. Lampert did not just lose lots of money for his shareholders and loss of jobs for his employees, he completely destroyed the Sears brand. Sears does not stand for anything anymore. He was not ruthless; he was clueless on running the company to create value. He never had the vision to evolve as the major retailer Sears once was, and he let Amazon become the major retailer who took advantage of the online world.
It was a Great Indoors near Woodfield. Not a Sears Grand.
We'll never know for sure now if Sears could have stayed successful in retail, since Eddie Lampert k–led any possible future by refusing to invest significant money in the business. But the original Sears Grand concept was a success, and might have been a new direction for the company. The first Grand stores were popular with the customers, and had good sales/profit. But when Lampert started making the decisions, spending money to build new stores was no longer an option. Instead, they came up with ridiculous "Sears Essentials", and we know how that worked out. EL had a vision of a minimal asset, internet based, high profit business, and no matter how much reality proved him wrong, he couldn't be steered from the course.
It's certainly true that Sears had troubles long before Eddie got involved, but he'll go down in history as the one responsible for putting the final nails in the coffin.
No.
There is no chance to save Sears. The stupidity was/is irreversible. The insane focus on MPAs, SYW, and Sears MasterCard will persist until the last store closes.
It’s all about the real estate. (Which
Is losing value an exponential rate)
No.
There is no chance to save Sears. The stupidity was/is irreversible. The insane focus on MPAs, SYW, and Sears MasterCard will persist until the last store closes.
It’s all about the real estate. (Which
Is losing value an exponential rate)
Amazon was selling books and Target didn't have an online operation when Eddie took over. There are a LOT of businesses that are profiting just fine at former Sears/Kmart locations. Kenmore Direct was still minting money when Eddie took over as CEO. Sears Holdings had the lowest investment per sq ft of any retailer. He had a lot of chances. He never understood that customers are the most valuable asset of all. Macy's and JCP weren't omnichannels like Sears. Sears and Kmart were the second and third largest retailers at the time of the merger. Eddie just blew it, and there are a hundred former executives who are more than happy to share what a tyrannical and clueless id–t he was the entire time.
Alan Lacy almost never gets the blame he deserves. Possibly because most people don't know the name.
Getting rid of Sears Credit wasn't the only thing he eliminated. Lacy's actions usually indicated short-term profit boosts at the expense of long -term viability.
Eddie Lampert was a wrecking ball no doubt. But Board records show that he hardly concealed his intentions in the years before taking over. And much damage had already been done by that time.
Lacy, on the other hand, didn't do the job he was hired for.
(And the Board of Directors didn't do the company any favors either.)
They were too stuck in their ways and just didn't open their minds to new ideas that came up. such a shame to have been so aggressive and all but done..
I worked at corporate for 25 years. I believe the beginning of the end is when Alan Lacy sold off Sears Credit. That credit arm of the company was very profitable. It seemed to me that we made minimal money off the sale of merchandise, but leveraged that when customers put items on their credit cards. Especially with the sale of large appliances. Sears was always known for friendly credit terms, say in the late 90's and early 2000's. The sale of credit opened the door of the takeover by Lampert in 2005. Also Eddie got rid of brands like ladies 'First Issue' by Liz Claiborne and Martha Stewart's brand in the K-Mart stores. Those big names draw customers into the stores. Stock buy backs also were big mistakes. Echoing the previous poster we didn't reinvest in the stores, pulled the plug on catalog too soon.
Maybe, if someone had been prescient and leveraged the catalog experience into internet commerce way back when. Or if Sears had not gotten rid of most of its experienced and knowledgeable staff in the 90s. Or had put any money at all into improving stores and merchandise.
Sears' problems go way back. And other mall stores like Macy's and JCP are having similar issues. So I'm not sure that anything could have saved the company, but no one really made a meaningful attempt to do it either.