Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire self destruction through poor management

It's no longer a loss for Sears to close, just like K-Mart closing here is no loss - if they were serving a purpose they would be crowded with shoppers spending money - but they ain't, other stores are. Your business can always be replaced by another willing to do it better.

A local K-Mart store seems to still be holding it's own fairly well and has been for several years even with a much larger and generally cheaper Super Walmart in the same town.

The Dollar General and Family Dollar stores all appear to be not only thriving but opening up new stores everywhere in spite of Walmart competition.

Times change. I'm sure Sears was great back in the day, but competition got a little fierce.

I know this thread has been dead for a while, but I am going to add a post, because I worked for Sears when they made the changes that sent them downhill. I was in the 'eye of the storm', so to speak. I started in Jan. 1969, and worked there until New years 1980.

The full-time sales people were almost all on a commission basis, but in about 1974 or 1975, Sears decided to replace us with register punchers on little more than minimum wage. They had installed a "computerized" register that was supposed to track sales and automatically re-order merchandise to replenish stocks. Well, that never worked as planned, because the computer system back then was so primitive that it didn't do the job, and a lot of the time we had to use a generic entry number of some kind to even get a transaction into the system. the people who were supposed to review the reports never caught the slip-ups, so the re-order system was useless.

Those of us who had been in those sales jobs were re-assigned to the few other jobs that were still on a commission basis. I got re-imagined as a "Kitchen Planner".
Yeah, right - like that is really gonna work !

After a couple of years of starving and bitching, I got re-assigned to be an automotive "service writer" in what was a rockin auto service center. I had always done my own wrenching, so that was great, and I made the best money I ever made at Sears.

Well, maybe too good, because when I went back from the New Year holiday 1979/1980, I was summoned to a managers office and fired. It couldn't have come at a worse time, because the general economy was on the skids, and I had to cash out my profit sharing account for pennies on the dollar to pay the bills. Sears stock came back over several years, but the damage had long been done.

No, the Chinee didn't kill Sears, Sears killed Sears.

Myron

My uncle, my dad's brother, worked for Sears from right after WWII until the late '60's or early '70's when he went to work for Montgomery Ward. He probably got an employee discount or something because almost everything his family or ours had was JC Higgins or Ted Williams, everything from my first bicycle to my uncle's .270 (yeah, even in the best of families.)

I still have the Craftsman tools I bought with my income tax refund in 1975....good, USA made stuff. My first ex-wife's father was a mechanic, had his own shop, preferred Craftsman tools over Snap-on. Of course, vehicles have changed so much I can't even remember what some of those tools are for, anymore.

Growing up over the years as a kid we bought everything from Sears and I held on to that loyalty as a young adult - at least with Tools, yard equipment and appliances.

I don't necessarily think their stuff is junk

I've just opted for different brands over the years.

With Kenmore and Craftsman, you just didn't know if you were getting the cheap version or the higher end - they outsourced those brands to so many different companies.

I actually like the Dollar General model. Open a 2000 square foot store in an intersection of a rural area - kinda like a general store in a old western town

I know I drop in a dollar general that down the road more often than not when I need a couple of items - I'll do that every time over having to go to a Wal-Mart

DG is becoming pretty common in rural MS.

pretty handy, especially the stores that carry a few groceries

Family Dollars are opening all over the place around here. I've never been in one, though.