Thread regarding Sears layoffs

Meant trash cans. Way too early in the morning

Wonder where they'll hide the trach cans used to collect the water from the leaky roof in the atrium :o)

Pretty much all of Sears HQ has been on sale for ages. No one's buying.

@1qpt+1ejppm32 You off your meds, or something, bub? I never worked for Sears, nor have I had anything to do with the company, other than being an occasional shopper, when there used to be a Sears/Kmart, within, um, 100 miles of me. That hasn't been the case for about 10 Years now. I'm just an interested retail observer. You must have me mixed up with another Tommy.

@cmt+1ejppm32 Dude, seriously, try adding a TL/DR version. Nobody here has the patience to read all that.

"Over the years I see other ways Sears and Kmart failed too. If you go into a Sears (or Kmart for that matter), it seems like they discontinued store maintenance and remodeling years ago. "

This was Sir Eddie's philosophy...why waste money on remodels when nobody cares (or something like that).

Yet how many remodels does an average Walmart or Target go through in it's lifetime? Half a dozen? More? But "nobody cares"

Hey Thomas (Thankful Man Tommy)

Why do you care where the HQ is you don’t work for them any longer. I think they got your store back in 2017? Right!
LOL! Wouldn’t you like to know all the answers; they never told you SM on conferences calls then. Why would they tell you now? (Roll Tide)

That is, assuming they can even find an interested buyer for what I’m sure will be well above market value. It’s a rotting corporate campus that has had minimal maintenance over the last decade. Knowing transformco, they are going to want a lot of money for Hoffman. With the way ‘work from home’ is going at many companies that once had huge offices, I predict this will be a difficult sell without taking a significant loss. Many corporations are realizing they just don’t need all that office space anymore.

Not yet listed at TransformcoProperties.com , but perhaps that is coming soon?

Prediction: Hamilton is closes and becomes the HQ and distribution center due to its strategic location between the remaining stores.

Wow, a lot nothing new to read here. WIth all this company amounts to now, they probably can run corporate out of the Kmart breakroom in Hamilton.

No need for a headquarters if you don't have many employees.
No need for many employees if you don't have much business.

They will probably lease back some office space in Hoffman Estates until the remaining stores are closed.

I don't work for Sears but I have followed their decline through the Dead Mall videos and the news, I suspect that Sears is closing permanently sometime in 2022. They seem to have been closing most of their Sears stores. Their headquarters goes up for sale early next year. They closed their auto centers and driving schools too. Many Kmarts have closed and there are only a handful of them left.

My thoughts are that when Eddie Lampert took control of Sears, he ran what was one of America's best retailers and years ago the largest employer in the country into the ground. First of all, in the 1990s Sears was losing ground to many specialized retailers including Home Depot, Lowes, Macy's, Best Buy, Circuit City, Ikea, and others. The changing demographics ki---d some of the traditional department store models. If Sears would have been smart, I think their best bet would have been to drop apparel and create stores that focus on appliances, tools, automotive, and similar lines that Sears has been known for and create a model that was similar to Home Depot. I also could see them having success reforming Kmart with the quality and looks that rival Target and Walmart. For a while I thought that they had hit that target with Sears Essentials but the foreclosure crisis of 2007-2009 ki---d those stores.

Additionally by the late 1990s, Kmart had become a junk store chain even when compared to Walmart and Target in terms of the quality of the merchandise they carried. Later, Kmart and Sears would merge. While Sears had higher quality merchandise, both retailers were struggling. It seems that they did not enough in Kmart to turn its quality around.

Over the years I see other ways Sears and Kmart failed too. If you go into a Sears (or Kmart for that matter), it seems like they discontinued store maintenance and remodeling years ago. When you compare this to retailers that maintain their stores and keep them fresh like Target for example, Sears/Kmart pales in terms in comparison in terms of looks and design. Some of the Youtube videos WallieB26 and This is Dan Bell s of closing Kmarts and Sears stores show that some of the store fixtures have not been replaced since the 1980s or earlier in some of them. It also seems like they have not been doing much advertising for new things at these stores either. Doing some remodeling would have helped inject new life into the brand.

Another thing i think that ki---d Sears was the desire for Eddie Lampert and his crew to buy the store chain not to run it as stores but to strip it apart and flip its real estate. We have seen this trend through a company called Seritage Growth Properties which manages selected former Sears and Kmart properties which Eddie Lampert is on the board of and is owned by ESL Investments as well.

Lastly, the decline of the Electronics store model also hit Sears business hard. Back in the day Sears had a large electronics section with the latest TVs, VCRs, Stereos, etc. Nowadays the invention of the smart phone ki---d the market for many other electronics gadgets cutting into Sears and Kmart's business. This also ki---d other chains including Circuit City, Fry's Electronics, Incredible Universe, CompUSA, Computer City, Radio Shack, Camelot Music, Musicland, Suncoast Motion Picture Company, and others too. YouTube user 8-Bit Guy has a great video on this.

Eddie Lampert ran Sears into deep debt prior to the bankruptcy. For seven years prior the company was not even making a profit. Eddie Lampert had to fork over his own cash to keep it running. All while Sears was closing stores and bleeding its assets. The creditors of Sears filed a long brief in the bankruptcy case that they did not want ESL Investments to buy the company and showed all the fraudulent and questionable actions and even insider actions that lead to its demise. The last seven years prior to Sears Bankruptcy has been a slow bleed out of the company.

My prediction for 2022 is that they will be closing all their remaining stores. I suspect that if anything is left of Sears and Kmart my prediction is that it will become an online only retailer through a sale of the name.

Cue the elevator guy making about 7 videos on this topic, "going over" what we just read in this article.

Ha! I saw that too, and was about to post it but you beat me to it LOL! So what does this mean, exactly? Will this mean that all the remaining Sears might close? Or would the company just be based at some other location? There is also Sears.com, etc., although I think that's all run from off Shore. And of course there are 100's of Sears Hometown stores, though their HQ might be elsewhere, I'm not sure.