Sears Looking To Cash Out Kenmore As Losses Widen

[mattl]

Looks like Sears is trying to stay alive buy selling itself off....

 

 

Sears Looking To Cash Out Kenmore As Losses Widen

Sears Holdings will “explore alternatives” for its home services unit and private-label Kenmore, Craftsman and DieHard brands amid steepening first-quarter losses and the departure of its chief financial officer. The retailer, which has divested its Land’s End, Hometown and Outlet Stores and...

www.twice.com

 

[ilovewindex]

Kenmore is soon to go bye bye.... Along with Sears.. There reduced selection keeps getting thinner...

What would be awesome is if JC Penny's bought the name

 

[tomturbomatic]

I sure hope no innocent employee was talked into putting money into Sears' Profit Sharing. A former neighbor's daughter told me now just before her father was eligible to start collecting his retirement in the 70s, some time, they tried to fire him. He got a class action law suit of similarly screwed employees and when they took Sears to court, they won. Sears has been leaning toward the skeevy side for a long time. I just hope that the dirty rotten pig fuckers around the Chairman of the Board's Table table all meet with a miese meshina before they divvy up any of what remains after their butchery of the company. The demise of Sears marks the end of the great American Department Store tradition. Now it is the Age of Amazon, like it or not. All of the curses mail carriers heaped on Sears when each catalog came out and then again when the heavy parcels of merchandise had to be delivered are coming true.

Can anyone tell me what has become of the huge Atlanta store and catalog center on Ponce de Leon?

 

[vacerator]

Also

Craftsman tools. I never knew if Snap On, or who made them for Sears.
A shame. End of an era.
I have a thirty plus year old set and have never had one ratchet, socket, or wrench fail. They've seen plenty of brake jobs, etc. over the years.

 

[whirlykenmore78]

Craftsman hand tools

Were traditionally made in the USA by Danaher tool works. Now a lot of it is made in China junk. Just as Kenmore laundry was made by Whirlpool in the USA and now a lot of it is foreign junk.
Both of these companies made excellent products for Sears and got kicked in the nuts as the morons running Sears cut costs to try and fail to retain market relevance.

WK78

 

[lordkenmore]

Yes, end of an era...

Although I'll probably mourn the passing of the Kenmore name itself than the appliances currently carrying the name. (Which, of course, are probably more or less available under other name or names...) The strong character BD has been gone for 30 years or so... Its replacement, the DD, is also gone--no more "Shredmore", to be sure, but the DD did have some good points, such as durability and ease of repair.

 

[tomturbomatic]

I remember going to Sears with John to exchange worn out Craftsman Tools and there were problems finding someone to help us and often there were not the tools in stock that we needed.

 

[cornutt]

I have some Craftsman tools that my dad bought for my birthday in 1976. Most of them are still good as new.

 

[mikael3]

Tom, the old Sears center on Ponce has undergone quite a shocking transformation.  It’s right at the heart of a very revitalized area, and the building has the great fortune of sitting right on top of the Beltline.  It is now an easy walk from there to Inman Park and the new Krog Market area.  I sometimes wonder where I am these days.  Nothing looks the same around Atlanta.

 

http://www.poncecitymarket.com/

 

 

[mikael3]

Off topic, but the Ponce Market transformation reminds me of one my most memorable moments on good ole Ponce de Leon Avenue.  Some years ago, in the late ’90s, I actually saw a hooker ambling down the Ponce sidewalk on her invalid-care, gliding WALKER!!!  And apparently, she was about to turn a trick!!!  This lovely transaction took place right in front of The Phoenix, a gay bar once voted one of the top 10 most disgusting bars in America—all of this just one block from that Sears building.  Good times!!

[this post was last edited: 5/26/2016-21:29]

 

[panthera]

Good riddance to a horrid holding company

As Tom said, the monsters have sucked the employees and customers dry and now are unfurling their golden parachutes.

Forget 'em.

[this post was last edited: 5/26/2016-22:38]

 

[jp10558]

As to the age of Amazon, I'm still amazed that Sears couldn't see a way to take their catalogue business they had had forever and compete online. Even after Amazon "paved the way" Sears just never made any use of the catalogue business knowledge. Was all the institutional knowledge just lost before the 90s?

 

[lordkenmore]

Part of me thinks it's amazing that Sears LEFT the catalog business in the 1st place, let alone not doing a a better job competing in the on-line world... Maybe there were solid reasons for the decision. But I now recall that that era (early 1990s) mail order was a solid business elsewhere. If it wasn't at Sears, well, there might have been some issues that could have been addressed.

 

[nanook]

Kinda Crazy

Yes, the mind truly boggles at the many missed opportunities Sears let slip through its fingers when it came to moving into retailing in the 21st century. They easily could have been Amazon, what with all their infrastructure and vast knowledge of the mail order business. It's what happens to huge companies that have become so entrenched in doing things "as usual", when they realize the 'parade has passed them by', it's way too late to change. Had it not been for their vast (and extremely valuable) real estate holdings, Sears would have been gone a long time ago. Pity.

 

[lordkenmore]

I think the Sears relevance started declining a very long time ago... As I think of it, I remember reading commentary in the 80s about how some departments in Sears just didn't have appeal for the modern buyer. Clothing was one example.

That aside...

I know my family almost never shopped Sears in my memory. My parents must have been willing to shop Sears once, however, because both our 60s washer and dryer were Kenmore. It was a bit of a shock when my father got a Sears card after leaving my mother...and I'm not sure he ever really used it much. (Well, the Kenmore washer/dryer he had later on during marriage #2 might have been charged to it.)

 

[askolover]

My daddy ONLY bought Craftsman tools for many years as did my grandfather.  Mother used a KM canister vac for many years and when it died she bought another one.  When her KA 17A Superba died they got a KM three level wash (non-WP made) that did a great job.  But, that's pretty much it.  Now when I was little, my Winnie the Pooh clothes came from there!

 

[joeypete]

Not much you can do about how a company handles themselves, but I sincerely hope they find a way to turn things around. Sears is very special to me since we did most all of our household shopping there as a kid. My parents had a Sears charge so we bought EVERYTHING there.

I will continue to shop there until the end, which hopefully won't happen.

 

[panthera]

Sears

Suffered from the same malaise which brought so many once great US firms to their knees in the last few decades:"MBA" syndrome.
It's proved more fatal than the earlier form, Merger and Acquisition Fever.
Nothing to be done about it, it just has to run its course.

Pity, as so many have pointed out, Sears should have been Amazon. All the parts were there.

Oh, well. Does anyone remember the vitriol over Maytag here at their demise? We were all screaming at each other (just for the record, those of us saying the rah-rah 'muhricans were wrong and Whirlpool would fire everyone were, sadly, right).

We were screaming over what was already a dead corpse. Maytag had already become plastic-fantastic junk.

Same with Sears - there's no there, there. I went to the local Sears automotive with a friend a bit back. They actually told here they didn't know whether they could get tires for her 'furin' car.
A Honday CR V.
Seriously.
When you reach that point, it's time to shovel the dirt over you.

 

[combo52]

Kenmore Appliance Name

Will survive I predict, It will probably be bough by someone like Lowes, it might even become a partnership between Lowes and Whirlpool, Lowes is already the biggest seller of WP built appliances in the US.

 

You can already buy Craftsman tools and Die-hard batteries from companies other than Sears.