http://www.cnbc.com/2016/12/08/sears-reports-wider-third-quarter-loss-as-sales-continue-to-suffer.html

Sears sales continue to suffer. Things aren't getting any better at Sears — in fact, they're getting worse. Sears has already made movements to close it's stores for good. It's likely this will be the last year for Sears.

They might be another famous store that disappears forever. Any good stories about shopping at Sears?

If they close down, I'm sure I'll buy some ridiculously discounted shit during their closing sale.

My second job is at a Sears warehouse and I can tell you the company is fucked.

I've had nothing but bad experiences with sears. A few years back, I had gone in to get a new mower. I wanted something simple to do my yard. Nothing fancy. Just a push mower. I found one on sale that I liked and the guy said " Oh sorry, that one has already been picked out. But we do have some zero turns and a few riding mowers..."

"No, I wanted the push mower that you have right there and was supposed to be on sale, with the price tags still on the damn thing. If it's not for sale, then you need to get it off the sale floor."
The guy smiled and shrugged and pointed over to a riding mower again "This baby will have your yard cut faster. Make the job easier... You're really getting a deal..."
I said "The hell with it" and started making my way to the door.
The sales guy put his hand on my shoulder and said "Let's talk this out. I can get you another push mower, it might be a little more expensive." I just continued my way out and left.

They went out of business a year later.

My uncle had gone to the one in my town about 15 years ago. ( That sears is defunct now.) He bought a riding mower, took it home and fueled it up... It didn't start. He contacted Sears and they said because he fueled it up, it voided the warranty. He brought it back down to the sears and threatened to torch it in the parking lot. They got corporate on the phone who issued them to give him a full refund and a voucher for free maintenance on any car or lawn equipment he got. He took the refund and went somewhere else and shredded the voucher.

Most of the big retail stores are doing poorly. K-mart, JC Penney's They're going belly up everywhere. Walmart has a lot of them cornered, they've lost a lot to internet marketers like amazon and E-bay.
It's unfortunate but this is what's happening.

In the 70's and 80's the Sears near Rutgers U had a lunch and candy counter. My Pop would buy broken Craftsmen wrenches at the local auction for next to nothing, then bring them into the store for a replacement (guess a lot of folks hadn't heard about their lifetime guarantee). My Ma and I would tag along, get some scoops of choco candies and lunch, both of which were very good.

It was the last place I had a true fountain soda, where they'd add official Coke/Pepsi extracts like cherry and vanilla (the real shit yo, not the imitation stuff). A lady at the lunch counter said her manager hoarded away the last few cases of Coke and Pepsi extract for himself... hope they fired his ass. The extract bottles were similarly shaped to their Coke/Pepsi consumer bottles, only much taller and slightly wider. Every case of the extract included a mostly metal squirt pump for dispensing, and it sure did make the ice cream floats even that much better.

Yeah, other stories too. My folks bought a very expensive full-sized VHS video camera that developed problems, and Sears actually serviced it. Had a wonderful conversation with a physics professor about string theory while we were waiting on line for our repaired products. Anyway, that camera was production quality and served well for many years, think I still have it, despite the sticky shutter and wonky red chip (it turned out it was a 3CCD, one CPU per primary color, quite advanced).

Also remember: K-Mart and Sears joined forces a few years back, so they'll both sink. Damn you Wal-Mart, you made your initial reputation on stocking only American made goods (back when they were destroying the South's local stores and economy), when it clearly wasn't the case. And damn you Slick Willy Clinton, for paving their way into China.

I keep hearing that Sears is going bankrupt, yet for whatever reason they haven't completely gone away. Then again, the few stores that can turn a profit (or at least enough to stay open) are still open. The one in my hometown actually is still open and is realitively busy, (if mostly because the mall is probably keeping them open) and most of their merchandise is decent.

Of course, I'm not going to imagine that store is going to last much longer, but for whatever reason, it's has been open for this long.

At 12/11/16 07:09 PM, Grammar-Nazi wrote: If they close down, I'm sure I'll buy some ridiculously discounted shit during their closing sale.

Everybody will try to cash in when that happens. How is your local Sears?

I think I bought a new vacuum for my mom from Sears a few years back. Unfortunate to hear the stores are suffering. That's gonna leave a lot of big empty buildings.

At 12/11/16 08:31 PM, Valjylmyr wrote: My second job is at a Sears warehouse and I can tell you the company is fucked.

Tell us all about it. What do they do wrong?

I got a snowblower from there (26 inch Craftsman btw) and its lasted for over 10 years. and I got it at sears at a great fucking price if I remember right. if there's a closing clearance i'm fucking going for a 30 inch snowblower and a riding lawner.

I DON'T GIVE A FUCK I'LL THROWDOWN!

Probably suffering because they're jack of all trades, ace of none. They should have stuck to tools and hardware. Instead they do that, clothing, electronics, automotive repairs, etc. Only their tools and shit are real top quality, everything else is close to second rate.

They tried too hard to be Walmart.

At 12/11/16 09:05 PM, Mrccbirdguy wrote: I've had nothing but bad experiences with sears. A few years back, I had gone in to get a new mower. Just a push mower. I found one on sale that I liked and the guy said " Oh sorry, that one has already been picked out. But we do have some zero turns and a few riding mowers..."

I said "The hell with it" and started making my way to the door.
The sales guy put his hand on my shoulder and said "Let's talk this out. I can get you another push mower, it might be a little more expensive." I just continued my way out and left.

They went out of business a year later.

That was a very bad experience. Can't blame you for not shopping there every again.

My uncle had gone to the one in my town about 15 years ago. ( That sears is defunct now.) He bought a riding mower, took it home and fueled it up... It didn't start. He contacted Sears and they said because he fueled it up, it voided the warranty. He brought it back down to the sears and threatened to torch it in the parking lot. They got corporate on the phone who issued them to give him a full refund and a voucher for free maintenance on any car or lawn equipment he got. He took the refund and went somewhere else and shredded the voucher.

Another bad experience at Sears story. I am starting to think most of their stores have really bad customer service.

Most of the big retail stores are doing poorly. K-mart, JC Penney's They're going belly up everywhere. Walmart has a lot of them cornered, they've lost a lot to internet marketers like amazon and E-bay.
It's unfortunate but this is what's happening.

Walmart has blown many other stores out of the water. Especially, many Mom and Pop stores.

At 12/12/16 09:47 PM, DoctorStrongbad wrote:
Walmart has blown many other stores out of the water. Especially, many Mom and Pop stores.

But it's really bad that they are. They start off by having lower prices and the convenience of having everything at one store and then when most of the competition has died off, their prices go really high.

In the town I live in, the big stores came in about 15 years ago ( Home depot, lowes, walmart) The results were the mall pretty much closed down, the few small stores that were nearby closed up and customer service fell apart

When you take a town, and have only one selection for most of your stuff, the service mentality is "Where else are you going to go? Drive an extra 20 miles?" So they treat you like crap.

Yes. Both. Heard of it mostly. Shopped there once at their clothes department to buy myself a Hello Kitty onsie. Footed.

At 12/11/16 09:31 PM, RightTime wrote: Craftsman used to make quality products, but their quality has plummeted along with the quality of the Sears shopping experience. They killed their own business by not concentrating on the things that made people want to shop there in the first place. If Sears can fix what's wrong with their stores, fix their reliability issues, and play to their strengths I'd be happy to try shopping there again. Otherwise good riddance to a bad store.

I agree about sticking with the quality products. Trying to do everything is hard for almost every company, except Walmart. They figured out how to do it all well.

At 12/13/16 07:02 AM, Mrccbirdguy wrote: But it's really bad that they are. They start off by having lower prices and the convenience of having everything at one store and then when most of the competition has died off, their prices go really high.

When you take a town, and have only one selection for most of your stuff, the service mentality is "Where else are you going to go? Drive an extra 20 miles?" So they treat you like crap.

They should not be able to bait and switch the public, Prices should stay around the same amount. Nobody wants to drive an extra twenty miles for weekly products. That is just crazy.

Walmart is slowly dominating each place like meijer or kroger, sears is doomed.

Is it just me, or do millennials simply not like being confronted by commission sales people?

I guess the whole point of walking into a store these days is to check out the goods before deciding whether to purchase them or not.

And it was only a year or two ago before Best Buy finally decided to close down, or rebrand, all of their Future Shop stores: Which were commission-based.

What next? Car dealerships will be changing their ways too?

At 12/12/16 09:47 PM, DoctorStrongbad wrote: Walmart has blown many other stores out of the water. Especially, many Mom and Pop stores.

Walmart has tried their best to bust every competitor in my town, dropping prices below net profit margin on stuff like groceries and keeping them as low as possible. Then, once business is at an all time high and competitors die off, they jack the prices double. Good business model, but not necessarily an honorable one. It's kinda funny since their service isn't much better than Sears. At the very least, Sears hasn't sold me a used laptop, complete with a profile chock full of viruses already onboard. Walmart did, refused to give me a refund, said they'd swap it out, then gave me the same one back. When my dad called the tech department up there, they just laughed. Ruined that Christmas. I don't often go to Sears though, so I can't say much. The prices are ridiculous.

Kmart ruined them. Not that they were doing that well before Kmart bought them, but still.

The internet is what really killed Sears. It's hard to remember, but at one point Sears did catalogs where people could buy things through the mail. They were like Amazon, but in the 1890's (actually, they started a bit prior to that, but still). Maybe in another dimension they became the big online retailer and not Amazon.

At 12/14/16 06:39 PM, SolidPantsSnake wrote: Never bought anything other than clothes on sale from them. Jeans and shirts mostly ages ago. I think my mother brought her car in to get serviced by sears a couple years back and ended up getting pissed off and driving away. She ended up going someplace else instead.

Another example of their bad customer service.

It's always just been a name on the map of my mall, or a place I would peak into. Never cared much for it, never really liked or hated it.

It may not be a name in the mall much longer.

At 12/14/16 06:59 PM, UngodlyBrit wrote: Walmart is slowly dominating each place like meijer or kroger, sears is doomed.

Will Sears be able to out survive Meijer and Kroger?

The only thing I get from Sears are oil changes.

Sears buys cheap inferior crap and sells it at a higher than market price. Bought a freezer, an appliance that should have never had a problem, well 3 weeks after filling it with $1500 worth of beef I open the lid to find the the F'n thing had crapped out ruining 90% of the meat. Spoiled so bad even the dog wouldn't eat it.
The F'r who soldered the refrigeration tubing did a shitty job all the refrigeration gas leaked out. They would not pay for the loss and gave me another shitty freezer that crapped out as well. Never bought anything from them again, never will.

Sears used to stand for American made quality products, now its just shit over seas cheap f'n crap that you can get anywhere.

I think a big problem for Sears is a big problem for box retail in general: Online is hurting them badly. Sears and Kmart have had problems and rot for awhile, bad management at all levels....treating employees as replaceable cogs which creates intense job dissatisfaction which is transmitted to the customer as well.

But look at the explosion of something like Amazon, and Wal-mart has also smartly expanded the hell out of their .com operation and have incorporated that on two fronts into the retail stores (The Ship From Store program, and the Site To Store program). Wal-Mart is getting itself ready to deal with the shift to a more digital experience where the store front may merely exist as a way to pick up merchandise already ordered. This seems to be the future to me unless these retailers can get back to focusing on positive customer experience as well as merchandise and it's availability. If you don't give the customer and experience that's overwhelmingly positive and builds loyalty, you're in opening yourself up to being beat by a competitor.

Sears looks to be the latest casualty of a bad trend that these stores have been doing for the last 20 years or so.

I bought a new car battery from there auto dept. a few years ago, and my grandma bought a stove from there a while back. Other than that they have pretty much overpriced items esp. on electronics and furniture so its no wonder they are having financial difficulties when I can buy the same shit for a little less elsewhere

At 12/14/16 07:01 PM, Painbringer wrote: Is it just me, or do millennials simply not like being confronted by commission sales people?

I guess the whole point of walking into a store these days is to check out the goods before deciding whether to purchase them or not.

Millennials are more comfortable with on-line sales, than shopping in person. Companies will have to move towards on-line sales becoming a priority.

At 12/14/16 07:55 PM, EDM364 wrote: Walmart has tried their best to bust every competitor in my town, dropping prices below net profit margin on stuff like groceries and keeping them as low as possible. Then, once business is at an all time high and competitors die off, they jack the prices double. Walmart did, refused to give me a refund, said they'd swap it out, then gave me the same one back. When my dad called the tech department up there, they just laughed. Ruined that Christmas. I don't often go to Sears though, so I can't say much. The prices are ridiculous.

Walmart is here to stay, and gets bigger every year. Sears used to be the best place in town, but they have really fallen from grace. They need to figure that out , and start changing things for the better.

At 12/11/16 07:09 PM, War-Bear wrote: If they close down, I'm sure I'll buy some ridiculously discounted shit during their closing sale.

Smart af

At 12/17/16 01:13 PM, Duckkid wrote: My Grandparents went to Sears. They hated it.

What did they hate about it?