SEARS going under..

Bullitt said:
Lampert still owns 45% of SHLD.

All I ever hear is how much their real estate portfolio is worth. With rates so low, why would you buy an old decrepit SEARS building when you could build an energy efficient one with a portion of the cost, lease for five years, then sell out before the roof starts to leak.
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Wow, hattip Bullitt. That's the kind of stock-specific commentary we need to hear to help people stay out of trouble in the world outside tsp.
 
Lampert still owns 45% of SHLD.

All I ever hear is how much their real estate portfolio is worth. With rates so low, why would you buy an old decrepit SEARS building when you could build an energy efficient one with a portion of the cost, lease for five years, then sell out before the roof starts to leak.
 
Shamus13 said:
I managed at a store at the time of the acquisition. Kmart bought sears since they came out of their bankruptcy strong selling off realty and assets. Neither were able to reinvent themselves or streamline. The writing has been on the wall for a while. Really to bad.
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Do you have any stories to share about being a manager at SEARS? We had a really good manager when I worked there and then he left for greener pastures. An employee from the appliances section came over to replace him as the automotive manager and it seemed like it went down hill from there. I left for the military shortly thereafter and never looked back. I looked up my old store - he is no longer the manager there
 
nnuut said:
Google says that Unions have been voted in at some states to unionize Sears, probably not when you were working there. I have plenty of stuff in my garage in my kitchen that are sears products, like the tools I always liked their stuff. Their benefits to employees and competition from abroad and in the USA was just too much, they had to cut. Not a good place to work like it was in the past.
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Most definitely not a career anymore. I think its kind of sad.... When I left it seemed that high employee turnover became the norm and the hiring system was too complex it was often hard for the stores to replace the employees that left in a timely manner.
 
Google says that Unions have been voted in at some states to unionize Sears, probably not when you were working there. I have plenty of stuff in my garage in my kitchen that are sears products, like the tools I always liked their stuff. Their benefits to employees and competition from abroad and in the USA was just too much, they had to cut. Not a good place to work like it was in the past.
 
nnuut said:
Basically the Union demanded to many perks for the employees and put them in a situation of not being to compete with the competition that on top of world wide completion and flawed government trade treaties strangled them [NAFTA, GATT] etc. That has happened to many other companies in the past.
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SEARS had a union? I never heard of it. I remember the older guys that started working there in the 70's tell me about how they had to take multiple paycuts through the 90's to keep working. The only reason they still worked there was because of SEARS's generous pension plan that was offered in the 70's that the older employees were grandfathered into. Infact, after 6 months of working the old heads at the automotive department began telling me that I needed to either get back in school or start looking for better jobs. The SEARS that they started working for back in the day was a thing of the past. I have no idea what you mean by "world wide competition", the items that SEARS sold might have been off shored to other companies but the actual jobs of selling the items could not physically be off shored. As far as I know most craftsman tools are still made in the USA. As far as NAFTA and GATT go - its pretty much impossible to compete with an impoverished workforce that will work for a few cents a day.


I would like to add that Walmarts business practices probably pushed SEARS to lower pay and benefits in the 90s and especially in the 2000s
 
RealMoneyIssues said:
Hmmm, I thought Kmart bought Sears...
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I managed at a store at the time of the acquisition. Kmart bought sears since they came out of their bankruptcy strong selling off realty and assets. Neither were able to reinvent themselves or streamline. The writing has been on the wall for a while. Really to bad.
 
99percent said:
The KMart by my house just closed. The Sears store has tumbleweeds blowing through the parking lot.
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The Kmart by me closed a year ago. The nearest Sears isn't as busy as it used to be. I remember growing up and Sears was the only place to buy everything but lumber. Too much competition now.
 
Basically the Union demanded to many perks for the employees and put them in a situation of not being to compete with the competition that on top of world wide completion and flawed government trade treaties strangled them [NAFTA, GATT] etc. That has happened to many other companies in the past.
 
nnuut said:
Sears isn't closing but cutting waste I wouldn't count them out yet.
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By cutting waste they mean cutting labor costs. Its been a while since I worked at sears (2004-2006) But I worked there before and after they were bought by KMART. After the KMART buyout the base pay got cut and so did commissions. I worked in the automotive department installing tires and doing oil changes. When I first started in '04 there were atleast 6 employees doing ONLY tires and then there would be an additional 4-6 employees to do brakes/alignments/suspension parts. When I left in '06 we would have one person open and two people close the shop for tires. One person would be available to do brakes and alignments and the manager had to work up front helping customers because all the sales people left. We operated with a skeleton crew and the customers knew it. I would routinely have customers get angry with me that their oil change or flat repair took over 4 hours because we didnt have enough people on hand to help out. drove by the old sears auto center that I used to work at not too long ago and noticed that their operating hours have been scaled back - they are even closed on sundays now. I wonder if they dont have enough employees to cover all the shifts so they had to scale back their hours or maybe all the customers got fed up with the wait times and started going else where. I hope they crash! A company that cant afford to have enough employees and pay them fairly has no business being open.
 
Been a while since Sears has done anything creative. Being tied to malls is not healthy either.
Lost identity amongst Walmart, Target, Meijer ETC.
 
burrocrat said:
kenmore = good appliances. also, being able to properly fit a bra is a valuable life skill. it's going to be my second career. i consider myself an expert at it, i can usually do it by sight now. which i'm sure the ladies are thankful for.
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And Craftsman tools... lifetime guarantee!
 
MrBowl said:
Given enough time, someone else will rise up and knock walmart into oblivion. It's the cycle of (business) life
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Not as long as there are retirees who need jobs to make ends meet. And sad to say there are quite a few who need those greeter jobs.

Most people need Walmart for the inexpensive cheap goods. I can't imagine another business offering cheaper goods at Walmarts scale. But like you say, life is a cycle.
 
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