http://www.hardwareretailing.com/sears-spinoff-building-relationships-with-independents/
8 replies (most recent on top)
Me @ my wife bought 4 Goodyear tires. Today in the the Hicksville New York store. People that work there don't know what they are doing.. took 4 hours. To do the job.what a shame.. we are in are early 50s.. Have always shopped sears @ Kmart.. It is a crime what the CEO has done 😡
"Never tie yourself to an anchor". That's exactly right. These people are chained to the Titanic of retail. They bought into the idea of the "Sears name", which doesn't mean much these days. A lot of small operators screwed up royally by getting into this. When SHC dies the whole thing is going down the drain.
And as Sears goes so goes the mom and pop store. When sears goes under how do they get product to sell. All of the money they spent remodeling their store to accomodate the appliances and they will have nothing. Never tie yourself to an anchor.
Yeah the sales will increase in those little mom-and-pop hardware stores but as Sears knows through their business model just because sales increased does not mean profit is going to increase Sears can't turn a profit on 25 billion dollars of sales. Sears may be convincing the little mom-and-pop hardware store to use their employees to sell Sears products and offer free installation to compete with the other big-box retailers. But the mom-and-pop hardware store likely has to foot the bill for the installation Sears might not pay for free installation they may just want you to sell their Appliances. Be warned little guy your swimming with the big fish she's now.
Small stores for people stupid enough to think Craftsman and Kenmore represent quality.
When I put in for my retirement from there, the next thing I got in the mail was a package from Sears explaining the huge benefits of opening my own Sears franchise.
I filed it under - I got my money, you aren't getting it back.
It fits right into the Eddie Lampert model of retail High profit, low investment, low risk. The independents take on the risk and do all the work. Too bad it isn't working out so well. SHOS has seen total sales decline for the past three years. I guess that's what they mean by "controlled growth" in the article. I feel sorry for the poor saps who fall for these Sears franchise deals.
And here are two more. Floor covering retailers for goodness sakes.
http://www.floordaily.net/flooring-news/two-floorcovering-retailers-add-sears-units