Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire The decline of Sears

Any thoughts?

Like all chain stores, they abandoned sporting goods (real sporting goods - outdoor stuff). None of them are bright enough to see how that cost them a whole demographic of customers.

we have a Sears store here, and truthfully they have NO competition for their department store other than the Fred Meyers grocery/super stores

based on their parking lot I don't know how they pay heat and property tax.

all I can figure is that the appliance and car center must keep them alive via our military installations here.

I bought a few tools I needed the other day

but if our store is indicative of what's going on with them around our nation, I'd say they in a heap o trouble

Kind of surprising that in the latest round, they're shutting down stores before Christmas. Obviously it's only a matter of time 'til they are no more... and probably sooner rather than later. Hopefully someone will resurrect Craftsman tools.

Dead to me 20 years ago when I dropped off an old Porsche for tires only Sears carried. I went back 7 hours later to pick up the car but they had refused to do the work because I had not paid cash and according to their records was not a Sears credit card holder. At that time the only cards they took were Sears and Discovery. BUT if I opened up a Sears charge account they would complete the work ASAP and send me on my way within 2 hours and with a wonderful Sears charge account to boot.

I left immediately with my old tires and never went back. Never will in fact.

As a kid, I grew up about half an hour from Chillicothe, OH. When we got to go to the big city, while mom was shopping for clothes, I'd walk to one end of the strip mall and look at guns in JC Penny, then walk to the other end and look at them in Sears. Used to look at them in their catalogs too. Obviously, that ended decades ago.

Craftsman's went to crap for sure.

Round 1 of failure was dropping sporting goods. Round 2 was cheapening craftsman so much they are now mostly a tool of last resort. Round 3 is letting the stores go to seed and ripping customers off on their auto services. Sears was a once proud brand and are now in the toilet. I miss Woolworth as well.

I try to buy from them during the Christmas season as much as I can. The other day I needed a sport coat and decided that I would give them the business. It appeared that there were only a few employees in the entire store, and they were in the women's section. I goofed around in the tools section for a while in hopes that someone would show up in men's wear. Finally this guy comes over and he wanted me to sign up for a credit card. Bummer! I left and bought a sport coat from a consignment store.

I miss Shakeys Pizza and Schlitz draft dark beer!!

Sears was bailed out by K-Mart years ago. Wal-Mart has done a job on the both of them..

If they can't compete, then they NEED to go bye-bye. They let a once great brand go to seed. I still remember when they had a real sporting goods dept, as well as another long gone favorite; Western Auto.

I still own some toys marked JC Higgins

Sear has completely forgotten the people who pay the bills, the customer.

Recently I picked something up at one, and paid cash. But the cashier couldn't give me my change until I used the credit card terminal to indicate if I did nor did not want to make a donation to some charity.

Really? You can't just give me my change and let me go.

Unless they regain a focus on their core business and customers their decline will continue.

I miss Quaaludes and Peote,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, uhhhhh,,,,,,,wait....
Sorry, I was channeling Bristoe.

What I really miss is my hair.

I gave up on Sears and K Mart when they dropped firearms.

I had 3 knee replacements before the knees in my Toughskins wore out as a lad.

I worked for Sears in the 1980's installing tires at the auto center. They were starting their decline then, you could see it coming. They didn't adapt with the times, wal-mart and the internet is finishing them off. It's a shame, for a long time sears catalog was a necessity for all the rural farm families like my folks. Without sears rural folks would have lived a pretty spartan existence. Nothing would have been available to them except what they could grow and buy from the meager local general store. Sears catalog made it possible for rural folks to get luxuries like TV's, radios, small appliances, etc., things you couldn't find locally. They were the internet of their day. Plus, you could use the old catalogs for toilet paper in the outhouse when you were done with them.

Because we lived in a rural area, Mom always ordered our jeans for school from the Sears catalog. We each got 5 pair and they had to last the year. They were bought a size larger in the waist and a couple of inches longer than needed. On the first day of school they were bright, shiny, and baggy. As the year progressed, you could see the faded ring around the bottom of the legs were we turned up the cuff until our legs got longer.

During the next summer they were cut off to make shorts and the process began again in the fall. Mom worked as a seamstress in a shirt factory, so our shirts came from the commissary.

I miss my front sight, haven't seen it for about 10 years now.