What does Sears sell that is special? They could put the tools and appliances in with Kmart and rebrand the entire operation as Kmart. A refreshed Kmart brand available in every market is a good all around store where families can shop for essentials year round. There is very little that Sears offers to customers on a weekly basis. Running two brands and multiple locations in every market just makes no sense. Convert Sears stores to Kmart and you'd have a chain with over 1000 locations and brand awareness. A Kmart with toys, clothing, tools, appliances, seasonal, household essentials, and furniture would be a very competitive store with a place in the market. Between Kmart and Sears, there are great products in every single category, but honestly Sears just serves no purpose when compared to other department stores and home improvement stores. Full line Sears stores usually require large markets, markets that already have every other competitor. Kmart can be present in small towns or big cities and can find a niche in markets where competitors won't go.
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A lot of old timers have replaced their Kenmore appliances that ran for 20 years or a tool that lasted 30 with the latest crap with those brand names and won't be back again.
One of the biggest problems is Sears demographics are a mess. Sears wants to attract the new blood, but they don't buy it. The only people that still think "Sears" is iconic are the old timers. Even now though the old timers are hating it because of all the points that they don't understand the customer service that is limited.
I had a customer ask me why their wasn't enough associates and I told him straight because the company keeps cutting and cutting. He was upset and said Sears isn't what it use to be once upon a time. I told him I know things have really changed to the worse.
The newer generation will think more of Lowes, Walmart, Target, Home Depot and course Amazon being basically even taking old timers now.
They tried this years ago. It’s called sears essentials/ sears grand. It did NOT work because like everything else they refused to properly invest in the concept. When the first ground up sears grand stores were opened in 2000-2002ish they were very profitable and did well. Sadly they made a really stupid move thinking they could replicate the success with cheaply redone Kmart’s as sears essentials. Did not work.
Even Sears named is badly bruised at this point. I think you have a point, but it's far too late, as others point out. Kmart had off-the mall locations that would be right-size for a discounter, but they had too little money to maintain them. Sears has over-large locations for their few profitable merchandise lines, and management was unwilling to take the aggressive steps they needed to take (going off mall to smaller, more local sites, and stopping selling the softlines that were no longer draws or even profitable). But like everyone says, the time to do that was 20 years ago, long before vulture investors swooped in.
At this point, they might do best if they stopped being Sears/Kmart, and just opened new small footprint, highty focused stores under a new name.
The future of this company is it has no future, period.
I haven't stepped a for inside of a Kmart in 15 years, ever since they closed in my city. Why would I?
I take your point about Sears having a name, but I don't think Sears name is worth anything at this point. The way I see it, Sears is using a worthless name to try and sell to a market segment that cares about a name, whereas Kmart is using a discount name to sell to a market that wants a discount store/doesn't care about the name. When Kmart has clean and well stocked stores with good prices, they're staying true to their roots as a discounter. Sears is nowhere near it's roots as middle America's department store for good quality and price, that's J C Penney, Home Depot, Lowe's, Kohl's.
Good idea...15 years ago. Now, too much debt and too many bridges burnt with customers and vendors. Reputation ruined.
Too far gone...... the time for doing something like this was a long, long, long time ago. The place you are describing is called Walmart and they have had a stranglehold on that type of retail business since 1989 (When they knocked Sears off the top spot). They beat everyone else to the punch.....
The one thing Sears has that Kmart doesn't is the name. Sears and Roebuck literally was Americana perhaps more than anything else in regards to retail. Kmart was just another discount retailer like everyone else that Walmart already ran out of business in the preceding 20 plus years. Reinvention, reinvestment, and reorganization should have taken place years ago. When Kmart declared bankruptcy back in 2002 it was proof that they were already at least a decade behind on reorganization at that point. Jamming a stick into the carcass of a dead cat and shaking it around like it's alive for 16 years is pretty much what you could say Eddie has done to Kmart. Pretty sad