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.

Poor management and lack of capital doomed Sears. They've been on a downhill road for 30 years.

The rise of more nimble specialty and Big Box stores, coupled with a slow changing management has all but put an end to their business; same for J.C. Penny.

Amen Brother!

I grew up with a "pre-mall" downtown with a stand alone Sears and J.C. Penney, shoe stores, a Ben Franklin, a Woolworths with a dining counter and a few other specialty stores and a movie theater. I actually bought a 10 speed bike and a Winchester 22 from Penney's. The Sears had a big candy counter where you bought chocolate by the pound.

Only one place in town to buy Levi's and they also sold Red Wing shoes

Once the mall was built, Sears and Penney's moved and shuttered the old buildings. It killed downtown.

I still bought a couple of appliances from them over the years but I never really thought of them the same.

My neighbor lives in a Sears kit house.

Ain't that the truth!

My mom has a Sears upright freezer in her garage that has been running continuously since 1960.

The decline began with the invention of toilet paper. After that, you didn't need their catalog anymore.

Toughskins; stiffest damn jeans I ever wore. Never put a hole 'em, though.

As others have mentioned, I recall looking at their (and JCPennys) catalog, especially the guns. I remember buying fishing gear from the Sears store when I was maybe 12. The next year the sporting goods department was gone and Sears moved to a smaller building.

My folks can one up that one. They saved a late 70's catalog with a male model's junk hanging out of his Sears boxers, Sears held a voluntary recall but they or course said no way. Think they had it placed in some sort of plastic preservative. Wonder if it's worth anything??

http://www.snopes.com/business/hidden/sears.asp

Sears is slow here also.

This spring i needed a suit we went to the mall, and walked through J C Penny's. I told da wife lets check here. It was all but vacant. I too remeber when those stores where the go to's.

Our local Sears was an anchor store in a decent sized mall. They announced about a month ago, it is closing. They are liquidating all merchandise. I'm 61 and I remember in history or civics class, in high school, Sears & Roebuck was responsible for a lot of innovative (for the time) merchandising practices. I think they were the first to offer, buying "on time" (making payments). Another American Icon, down the tubes. Sad to see, really. Seems like they just didn't keep up with current trends. Honestly, I think they gave up the ship quite a few years ago. It just seemed like they didn't give a chit about quality or service. Too bad.

Sears made a couple of crucial screw-ups. They moved to the mall, instead of neighborhoods. You gonna go to the mall, or down the street to WalMart or Home Depot???

The BIG screw-up, in my opinion, was getting rid of the catalog. Sure, catalog sales may have been lagging, but it would have been an easy transition from the paper catalog to internet sales, when the internet started becoming popular in the mid/late 90's.

Instead, they tossed the catalog, and then spent years trying to establish an online presence. Who knows, we might all be buying from Sears.com instead of Amazon, if they hadn't done this.

My grandfather worked for Sears for 45 years (1941-1986). He managed to have a nice, middle-class life. Good insurance, stock options, good pay. Really sad to see what Sears has become. Missed opportunities, changing tastes, and a flood of Chinese crap, have all contributed.

Simple really. Other companies did it better.

Sears used to sell the Henry J car (built by Kaiser-Frazier). You know anybody that ever bought one?

I just bought a set of ratcheting box wrenches and they are very well made.

[b]


My brother and I sat on Sears catalogs [along with JC Penny's catalog] at the dining table so we could sit with the adults...about a zillion years ago.

I actually have used the catalogs in a out house, and they ain't too good. Paper is too slick, too many skid marks.
I do have four or five boxes of 7x57 ammo with the montgomery wards label.

The Kmart merger did nothing long term for either entity/. Sears had a good store in down town St. Paul, which has closed, and we're going through a whole bunch of Kmarts closing up here right now. As others have said, their competition found ways to do it better. I think going in the malls was a mistake. You sure don't see too many Wal-Marts in malls anywhere, and they're doing pretty good. Many guys here have spoken of the demise of the once popular Craftsman line. I still have an older starter set of Craftsman tools. I'm no professional mechanic, but even I can tell the new stuff just isn't the same quality. Do they even still offer the lifetime guarantee?

Interesting. I bought same probably 2-3 years back. They work, then they don't etc.... bought a cheap set at the napa and they work better actually.

Though I don't run my tools all that hard, so when the tools are half price I will still buy a set if a vehicle needs one. Hard to beat it for 100 bucks or so.

About time to find screwdriver sets on sale too... I swear you can go through so many screwdrivers, where do the SOBs run off to all the time...

I think the nail in their coffin was the automotive dept scandal in the 90's. Even in Phx you could see cars stacked up on Sat for service. When it broke that Sears was paying incentives to auto techs to charge for repairs not needed that destroyed the bond of trust between lifelong consumers and an American institution. They became a battery store after that.
A new generation of women buyers were turned off to a clothing line that was mid-50's to early 60's with a whiff of 70's sewn in. Their clothing buyers were still entrenched in WW II designs that made the company flourish.
And don't forget all the speciality booths in many Sears stores.....Allstate Ins.....Caldwell Banker.....Dean Winter (sp?) Investments.....all gone....a marketing idea that collapsed.
When i came home from the service in '72 the local Sears had already removed the entire line of sporting goods.
But i believe it was the automotive scandal that drove people away for good.

We only have one of the small Sears stores. About the size of a restaurant. They have the best selling appliances and only smaller stuff that sells good locally.

And if course they service stuff and can order anything.

I like it. And they seem to do great business. It's easy to find stuff and I don't have to wade through a bunch of crap to do it. It's basically just the appliance and tool section of a larger Sears.

I miss the glory days . . .

I grew up in one...beautiful home. Few years back my family did some research and found the ad for the home in an internet archive catalog. Marketing pre-fab catalog homes was an innovative concept and proved to be profitable.

I think you hit the proverbial nail on the head here. That was the turning point for me. Before, Sears was the go-to store, after, just tools and some appliances.

Pity, really.

I need a sports coat, too. The Sears store here doesn't carry them at all. They don't have any men's clothing that's dressy.

The Sears of forty years ago wouldn't appeal to yuppies and that's the demographic they tried to reach. Too bad they never realized there were customers other than mall crawlers.

I miss the khaki work pants. Used to wear them all the time when I worked in an office with a dress code and nobody figured out I was set to leave work, rip off the coat, tie and shirt, add a sweatshirt, change shoes and be ready to fish.

they sell good garage openers...who ever builds 'em...

free shipping after $59...getting ready order another one

Just step into one and you can see why nobody shops there.

The stores are run down, the products out dated, and everything over priced. Everything looks poorly made.

They feel like a rent to own rip off center in there.

Who would want to shop there?

Same thing happened to me when I drove miles to buy Sears mower parts and did not have enough cash in my wallet.

That was my last Sears product.

They sell internet. However, their prices are absurd. Everything I've looked at online can be found elsewhere much cheaper. No one is going to pay $100 for something at Sears when they can get it for $75 elsewhere.

When I was around 13, Dad bought a wrecked Henry J from the local Pepsi bottler. Took the OHV 4 cylinder out to replace the worn out flathead in a Jeep we owned.
The little car was cute, in my eyes.

This area was settled in the decades following 1905. At that time, Sears was selling very high quality kit houses. They'd come in on a rail car to be assembled on site. There is a BUNCH of them around here that are still in excellent condition.

My maternal granddad sold Kaiser- Frasier cars at his Allis-Chalmers dealership in Leroy, Illinois.
I remember all the people stopping to look at the little Henry J parked out front of the store.
I don't think he sold very many of them, but being about 10-11 years old I thought they were great; just the right size.

Outvoted, my dad traded in his 39 Buick for a 49 Kaiser and then a 52 Kaiser Manhattan.
The 52 was my high school wheels. Did you know you did not have to get in the back seat of those cars to stretch out full length? The front seat worked just fine. I was real glad it was not a HJ.

Sears target market in their hay day was rural America. People would do all their shopping from the catalog.. as they had no choice. Rural was really rural.
My Browning Light 12 was ordered and purchased from the Sears catalog store in the late 60's, $232.50 It's still a good un!

A few weeks ago I found a handful of Sears brand #8 12 gauge shells. A couple skunks and a possum can vouch for their potency.

Chicago Lake Liquors...across from Sears in Minneapolis.

my beef with Sears was 20 years ago...My wife opened a Sears Charge Account to buy a Washing Machine... she had worked for Sears in High School, as a dispatcher in their appliance repair center, so she had a loyalty to them...

She got behind in her payments and was getting a nasty letter from collection agencies over it...so I ended up finding out what the balance was on it... told the collection agencies they could eat Schitt, as I wasn't going to pay them a darn nickle as I hate those sleaze balls....Told Sears to pull the account in house and I'd pay it off in full...

they did so, and I did what I said...and then told them to close the account....

Then here is where it goes haywire, and this is why my wife "got behind" on her payments....

After supposedly paying it off in full and closing the account, we still keep getting monthly bills.. I returned them monthly in an envelope with the bill unopened, with account closed written on it...

Finally I get calls from collection agencies telling me I owe Sears over $500....and I tell them that the account was paid in full and closed 2 years ago...

They tell me the account was never closed...so I tell them then they are dealing with a fraud case because we haven't used it to buy anything in 2 years...and demand a copy of the activity to where they got this $500 figure from...

and here is what the people at Sears did....

When I paid the amount due in full, they let the payment sit in Que until after the monthly due date.. and then charged the account a $25 late payment...this is what they had been doing to my wife the entire time...

so each month when I was returning their bill unopened with account closed, they just charged the account another $25 late fee... over and over and over...

Contacted them, about the account being paid in full and it was sent in way before the due date. They tell me then that it is NOT from the date received at the payment center, it is by the date they process the payment.. and it can take TWO TO THREE WEEKS TO PROCESS After it has been received.....

I told them to take me to court over it.....

With those sleazy tactics, I won't do business with them... even if it is buying a pair of socks and paying cash...

My wife ended up paying for her damned washing machine 3 times over...

Funyny, I really ran across 5 or 6 pieces of 243 brass than I picked up at the rifle range...with a Sears head stamp on them...

My grand dad had one... he thought it was the coolest car ever built...he drove that and a 48 Chevy pickup until he died in 1968..my cousin drove the Henry J to college until the engine finally died in 1972...

Your life is a constant struggle.

and your life is a constant contest to see if you can be the biggest useless douche bag on the planet...

you are progressing quite nicely....I think you'll reach your goals...

oh and I see in the thread on the Blue Angels, that you have roots in San Fran, or "The City" as you called it...

you having ties to Frisco... well that certainly filled in the blanks...thanks for that brief glimpse into your life...

I can see it's the estrogen that grew your tits.

So you are from Frisco....

its Sunday morning and you are dwelling on thoughts on estrogen and guys 'tits'....

as I said, that fact you being from Frisco, filled in the blanks..

at least you're proud of your girls, and not hiding the fact.

i'll give you credit for that.

Never mentioned my daughters Brucey....

you going pervert on us on top of it all?

I'd tell ya to get psychological help.. but that would end the floor show...

Those Ted Williams shotguns and shells were way cool to gaulk at as a young lad....I actually have a box of some TW's 410 paper shells.

I quit Sears 30 years or so ago when I had some work done on a Kenmore refrigerator. Called the service dept. gave them the model and serial #, told them exactly what was wrong and scheduled a service call. The guy shows up, checks out the fridge, and tells me he's got to go back to the shop to get that part, doesn't carry it on the truck. I said I'd given them all the information and what he would need so he should have had it with him. Didn't miss a beat, just said we don't carry that one on the truck and made the 15 mile trip back to the store for the part. Got charged two 30 mile round trips when they knew beforehand what they needed. I found out several people in our small town had had the same treatment.

Funny stuff, right there!

Around here Sears heavily caters to the illegals. Last time I was in there the sales clerk asked an obviously illegal couple if they wanted a credit card - 4 different times while I was waiting in line. While I was paying I asked how they expected to collect on credit card debt if they extend credit to illegals. She said she understood what I was talking about, but was pressured by management to do so.

I have not been back.

they tried to provided quality products at high prices and were competing with stores selling inferior products at low prices. they then switched to inferior products and didn't match the walmart prices. people figured it out and left them in droves. i'm one of them. i will never buy anything from sears again after being burned quite a few times. they just need to go out of business.

They stopped carrying sporting goods and outdoor equipment. They farmed out their formerly fantastic brand (Craftsman, formerly made in the US) to China to have it made like crap, cheaply. When those two things happened, the writing was on the wall and it was only a matter of time.

Add in other retailers in the market for their remaining wares (Target, Wal-Mart) are considerably less expensive and have a wider variety of goods. When you have less variety, higher prices, and don't have a remaining name brand reputation to hold out against your competitors, you're dead in the free market.

Sears was never my "go to" as I grew up in a city.
Twenty years ago I bought a house and moved to the suburbs. I liked Craftsman tools and Kenmore appliances.
Years ago I needed a battery and asked one of the slick foreigner sales guys for one. He said, "I'll get one" and ran off somewhere. Only problem was I didn't show him the battery I had brought in. I still don't know where he was going.
Craftsman isn't Craftsmen any longer.
I don't shop at Sears anymore.

My old man started at Sears in 1960, the year I was born. He worked for them for 38 years and had the record for ever as the longest time as an employee in N.TX
He retired in 1998, when they cut his vacation from 10 weeks to 4 weeks, because he always used his Vacation time for planting & harvesting cotton.

IMO, they have gone steadily down hill for the last 25 years. They got rid of all the Guns, ammo, Camping, Fishing, and their appliance were downgraded to cheap crap. Now their Craftsman Tools are even made in China. They aligned themselves with K-Mart and couldn't keep up with Wally World. It won't bother me in the least to see them go under. Good Riddance, I say!

For me the day Sears sold off their credit card business to a
separate entity is the day I walked away, that has to be forty years or longer ago. That to me is when the real slide started.
Many financial experts were saying when Sears & K-Mart joined forces was when they both were going, going, gone Cheers NC

i will say one thing good about sears though. at one time they made a hell of a garden tractor. for $25 my boys bought a mid-80's craftsman II 18hp, 2 speed rearend, 6 speed tractor for souping up for tractor drags. we replaced the plugs and belt and hoses and when i started looking at how this thing was built, i told them there was no way they were going to ruin it racing it. i use it at my camp for hauling and drunk driving on the trails between camps. its a friggen beast. 2 cylinder v twin engine, sounds like a harley. we call it Mowzilla. it is legendary at our camp now.

I have new and old and the new is every bit as fine as the old. Just bought this set.

http://www.amazon.com/Craftsman-009...ftsman+professional+tools#productDetails

Jeez.....i forgot how gorgeous their bait casters were.
My dad bought a Pflueger bait caster from Sears but never could master it. He then bought a simply beautiful auto-retrieve fly reel and a Ted Williams bamboo fly rod. That urge faded soon.
I wonder who made their fly reels and casting reels.

I have a 26hp Craftsman garden tractor with the Kohler engine. You're right...its a horse. I have the hydrostat transmission which I might regret someday when it breaks down but it's been 8 years so far without a hitch. I sure makes mowing a lot easier than shifting gears. I have a front blade on it for plowing snow but we haven't had enough snow since I bought it to really test it. It handles 4" great but that's not much of a test.

I don't know if the current models are as good as this one, though.

A couple years ago, I needed new blades and made the mistake of using mulching blades. The dang things kept the deck clogged up constantly. They're ok in 3" grass but not in anything deeper.

I thought you said you weren't addicted to old reels. . Admitting you have a problem is the first step to recovery.

Just remembered the "Lands End" episode. They sure managed to FUBAR that company in a great big hurry, too.

Many folks around here swore by Kenmore appliances. Sears screwed over customers with a money saving way of business that cost customers time. When it takes 5 weeks to get something repaired because the service techs because the techs were over booked on calls every day pissed many folks off to the point they won't buy anything from Sears.

Evidently you have me mixed up with some other old plugger.

J.C. Higgins: 1908-1964




Many people ask if there was a real "J.C. Higgins" who worked for Sears. There certainly was. John Higgins began working for Sears in 1898 as the manager of the headquarters' office bookkeepers and retired as company comptroller in 1930.

"John Higgins" the employee became "J.C. Higgins" the brand name during a discussion in 1908 among Sears' executives of possible names for a new line of sporting goods. At this point, the story gets a bit murky, but Higgins' name was suggested and John Higgins consented to Sears use his name. Since he did not have a middle initial, Sears added the "C."

In 1908, the Western Sporting Goods Company in Chicago began putting J.C. Higgins on baseballs and baseball gloves sold in Sears catalogs. By 1910, the J.C. Higgins trademark was extended to cover footballs and basketballs. Later, the popularity of the Higgins brand�combined with the wider participation of American youth in sports�led Sears to place tennis equipment, soccer balls, volleyballs, boxing equipment and baseball uniforms in the J.C. Higgins line.


Caption: Catalog advertisement, J.C. Higgins golf clubs, 1961.

By the 1940s, J.C. Higgins represented all Sears fishing, boating and camping equipment. After the Second World War, Sears consolidated all sporting goods under the J.C. Higgins brand name and added it to a line of luggage.

The J.C. Higgins brand disappeared shortly after Sears introduced the Ted Williams brand of sporting and recreation goods in 1961.


Caption: Paul Hornung of the Green Bay Packers (right) signs a J.C. Higgins football for a
young Sears customer in Green Bay, Wis., store, 1957.

I was working for Dean Witter at the time, and was forced a couple of times a week into a Sears store in the ghetto. A perfect place to look for high end net worth clients. Good thing there was a chicken place right across the mall, and a 1000page book killed the day for me. I hated it when sears bought Dean Witter, that socks and stocks attitude never worked.

one of the better things to have is a gun parts inc. catelogue which cross references the rifles/shotguns sears sold, against who actually made them.
They sold some very good rifles under their brand name such as belgian FN mausers.
I have a number of sears labeled firearms.

My dad had a used Henry J for his work car. He worked for Sears for 25 yrs. My dogs were named Coldspot and Silvertone!

and here I thought J.C Higgins was the guy from Magnum P.I.

We have a Sears Home Town Store, that sells, lawn equipment, appliances and tools. And they have been great, very competitive, with great customer service. In Missoula is a big sears store that is a corporate store and the hate and contempt I feel when I go there keeps me away. If our little Sears doesn't have it in stock they get it in a week.

I will say I like the Sears Parts online

I've ordered multiple things from them for various appliances and small engine whatever's.

I bought a J.C. Higgins bolt action shotgun, 20 gauge, for $29.95 in 1958. It had a 5-shot tubular magazine under the barrel but you could put one in the chamber and one on the loading ramp and make it into a seven-shooter. That gun worked great. I hunted ducks, pheasants, and crows with it. I wish I still had it. I still have some 20 gauge rifled slugs in a J.C. Higgins box.

I buy a major appliance from Sears every so often, when an old one dies. I think they work much better than GE.

i would have to go look, but i have a bolt action 12 guage that i think was sold under the sears label. And it is unsafe, in that there was a recall that they would give you X amount of dollars in exchange for the bolt, trigger mechanism. I thought that was interesting enough the gun sits as it was made, although i would never use it.

I got caught up in the same billing issue. When I paid off the bill I never used my Sears card again and it was several years before I walked in the store. I was going to buy a tool box from them but the shipping costs were 25% of the cost of the tool box to have it shipped to their store. Since a truck came in several times a week I didn't think the shipping cost was close to fair. Needless to say I did not buy the box.

If you buy from the Walmart store it's free to ship it to the store but Sears wanted 25% of the cost of the box. They killed themselves with greed and ignorance. kwg

We just bought a Kenmore refrigator that cost 989.00 and was on sale for 589.00. They screwed up the delivery for three staight Saturdays and my wife took off half a day and they screwed that up too. Everytime I called them I asked for a gift card and they sent me a 100.00 dollar gift card. I ended up with 500.00 dollars in gift cards. So they frig only cost 89.00 and we love the refrigator. It did cost me 3 Saturdays of my life and wife ready to kill Sears. With the gift cards we have got a vacuum, and a Shop Vac free and we still have 200.00 left. They screwed everything up but they sure did throw money at me. LOL.

I quit buying from them in the 1980's when they would only sell me a Craftsman tool chest if I paid with either a Sears card or Discover card.

Bought my tool chest somewhere else and never went back.

I quit them for good when they started playing games to get late charges. My bills would show up two days before the deadline.
When they stuck me for a $25 late fee on a balance of less than $100, I went to the store, paid them off and told them to shove their credit card