Sears suppliers getting concerned

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Lynn Townsend

also known as hatchet man Tex. He trimmed the fat alright, and lost all the best to Ford and GM. Chrysler was having it's own depression in the mid and late 50's when 1957 was a mild recession.
Chrysler had no one left to address the quality problems they were having.
Thanks to Virgil Exner, and unibody design consolidation and the new Plymouth Valiant and Dodge Lancer compacts, things improved through the late 70's. By 1964, Chrysler was building darn good cars again.
The best thing Henry Ford II did for Chrysler was fire Lee Iacoca.
Lee is/was also a bean counter. Business degreed, but he also knew the car business.
I read his books, and adapted some of his concepts to my career. Like satisfy the customer, the money keeps the lines moving, and the lines keep the money moving too. I though Lee was the last of a breed, until Sergio Marccioni came along.
 
The accountants in conjunction with the COO work to reduce costs and increase profit.  These cost reductions effect quality of goods and store operations.  Lack of staff or ridiculous company policies are rarely to blame of the store management.

 

A company I used to work for almost never thought of specific location issues when rolling out policies.  For example, one policy was to lock all lobby doors when the box office closed.  The specific theater didn't have panic bars on the inside of the doors.  Therefore, it would have been a violation of fire code to follow company policy.

 

There were also numerous difficulties with our point of sale software.  My boss resorted to making a video of a him acting as a customer and going through various types of transactions.  This video was then sent to the various persons responsible for our disaster software.

 

 
 
Just gets better and better

Link below but can anyone interpret the harvard biz school babble from Jason Hollar, the CFO?

"Our focus on generating positive EBITDA continues," the CFO said. "We do not intend to borrow money to fund continued operating losses, but rather to provide us with flexibility as we transition to an asset-light member-centric integrated retailer leveraging our Shop Your Way program."

asset-light?

member-centric?

Buehler?

http://www.msn.com/en-us/money/insi...nd-sales/ar-AAlmmeR?li=BBnbfcN&ocid=thanksDHP
 
I bought our he washer from Sears as a demo at their outlet store in 2013 when I got my first decent refund from buying this house. Full warranty, delivered and setup, under 600 bucks, plus a Whirlpool design that should be cheap and easy to fix down the road. Did the same the next year with a dryer. They were on sale, gave a better discount for using their card and don't care if they fold as parts should be easily available and cheap for years from Whirlpool.
I liked their craftsman tools and all of mine are us made. I hope somebody gets smart and takes them back to what they used to be and I never buy anything just becuase of a warranty, it has to be good bang per buck and reliable once the money gets up there.
I haven't been in the regular sears store for a while but the outlet stores always are busy and have deals and plenty of actually helpful staff.
 
While store management can't

Change asinine company policies, a local manager sure can and does make the difference between clean and pleasant and dirty and mean-spirited.

An on the ball manager (as is ours here at K-Mart) can also leverage what little discretion they do have to improve sales.

 

I was just finishing a bid on a largish project yesterday when a good client called. Could I help her break into one of their properties? Tenants had changed the locks then left and she had to check for frozen pipes (we've warmed up, only -15 F the night before).

 

Now, my normal procedure is:

1) I let the client know (got a written form for it and they sign in advance) about liability, damage, etc.

2) Call the cops in advance so I don't get shot when some nosy-parker turns me in (and there's always one, even on the prairie).

3) Charge solidly for it - local lockshops charge $300, plus new locks. I don't go that high, but you're gonna pay for me to fall in through your window or whatever.

 

So, I get out to her and she's half-froze, 11 months pregnant with twin cows and her car won't start. I put her in my car, walk around the house, find a window unlocked and bob's your auntie.

 

No frozen pipes.

 

And, no bill. It's called customer service. Generating that intangible (and, to CFO's, unthinkable) thing called: Goodwill.

 

She ends the year with me happy and I end the year with a good, paying customer knowing I'll be there in a pinch.

 

This is what I meant about local discretion. It can't cover for a rotten company, Sears is beyond hope, but it can enhance customer loyalty - another word for profit.

 
 
Good friends opened one of those Sears Hometown stores in the next city. Everything was going fine until that jerk came into power. No more commissions on anything but the top of the line items and being called on the carpet for not forcing people to buy what they did not want. Flat $25 delivery payment, even if it was 100 miles away. Constant idiotic revisions of floorplans and store layouts. Last straw was that they MUST spend $2500 for a new sign for the front of the store, all in lower case as sears felt capital letters were shouting. They pulled out and have yet to settle with Sears on the money rightfully owed them. Since they were treated so horribly, I have never set foot in a Sears store sincce.
 
Both the Kmart and Sears stores here are clean and well organized. I haven't noticed any changes there over the years. I do notice both are not as heavily staffed as they once were but that has been going on for a long time in those two stores. The stores are also well stocked.

My parents recently bought a new Kenmore refrigerator to replace their old one. The employees in the store were helpful and they received an email and phone call to what time to expect the delivery the next day. The call and email came rather late in the evening but the delivery was right on time. They also got free delivery, but I don't recall if they connected the water line or not.
 
Sears here is like a ghost town. In going there tomorrow tovpick up a Frigidaire front loading washer and dryer. The Kenmores here died a horrible death from exposure to the elements and the washer no longer spins. It's frozen. The new setvwas marked down to $699. I chewed them down to $400 and free delivery.
 
I'm trying to remember the last time I went shopping at Sears. It's been more than 10 years since I think I bought anything there (and I bought a screwdriver I couldn't find easily elsewhere). I think I've browsed the store a few times, but I end up feeling that I can do as well or better elsewhere.

 

This is not new. It's interesting, but my parents must have shopped at Sears at least a few times, since a washer and dryer came from there. But later on, Sears was just not part of the routine shopping experience. I think I recall my mother going there a couple of times ca. 1990. It was funny, but I remember my mother telling the clerk how great the old Kenmore washer was. And then, later, privately admitting to me she really had no interest in ever buying a new washer from Sears.
 
Looked at a "tour" of a Richmond,Va Sears store on the "Bing" homepage.The place was a ghost town.Displays in disarray.A lone bed just "chilling" in another department.It wasn't in the bedding or furniture dept.Is this for the lone store employee naps?The picture of the appliance dept was clean and nice--but NO ONE there!Pictures also showed dirty and cracked walls,another covered with wrinkled paper-isn't this a fire code violation?Pretty sad.Sears-just close and end your misery!Haven't been to the one near me-last time I was there-it was also a ghost town.Only thing good was the tool dept-but Craftsman tools are now Chinese!
 
I go to sears because they have a great footwear department. Well stocked and easy to find what you want. The mens clothing is well stocked and they have the odd 29 leg that I am. Funny, when I was a kid we didn't venture into sears very much except for sales and a couple of times for a washer and then a dryer. It's too bad they switched to the cold lighting some time back. I remember when the lighting was warmer, more friendly like you find in a macy's.

I did go there looking for a dishwasher recently. The guy scared me out of buying one because of the changes in code require a switched outlet. The unit cannot be hardwired to a junction box either. So I'm holding on to my 21 year old Kenmore
(a.k.a. power clean module whirlpool).
 
holding on to my 21 year old Kenmore

You'll probably be happier with that Kenmore, anyway, unless you had the budget for really high end European...

 

I lived somewhere about 10 years ago with a WP DW made probably about 1990. Older than your unit. But even though it was BOL, it was was pretty decent. It didn't have the solid build you get from older dishwashers, but it was far less flimsy feeling than what's at Home Depot now. And it washed well. No washing dishes in the sink before washing them in the DW. And I got these results with a "Light" wash setting. (This merely skipped one wash period with detergent at the start.) People cringed at this...but the light wash did the job as far as I could tell.
 
It likley has not

mattered who was the ceo of Sears holdings for the past 8 years. Those running it are just biding their time, and will take what is left and retire.
I knew one of the top K Mart accountants. He told me it would go this way.
 
What I wonder is what impact these closing stores will have on malls? The mall here has both a Sears and Kmart. I believe both of these locations are strong performers, so I don't expect to hear of a closure here. But if they do eventually close, that's two large anchors in one mall that will be empty.

The trick is malls need to get another large retailer to move into the space, which isn't likely to happen in this era of traditional brick and mortar stores closing, not expanding. They could also divide the vacant space into smaller units and try to rent that which may or may not work. Another less desirable alternative is to use the space for an alternate use, such as a call center or government offices, or maybe a college facility.

It seems more likely to me that the spaces will remain shuttered for many years if they ever find a tenant. This leaves the interior entrances blocked off, and the exterior with an empty parking lot and likely unkempt and trash-strewn landscaping and label scars. All of these things contribute to a mall decline in public perception and possibly being an invitation for crime as homeless try to enter the abandoned spaces, and an empty parking lot being places for crime or drug activity to occur.

With the case here, having multiple anchors affected by closures, does it really bode well that the mall can survive without the rents from two large tenants leaving? Surely it would be even more difficult, likely impossible to get any new stores to move into not one but two large spaces, in a mall that already has some vacancies?
 

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