This DieHard Needs Charging
My father always did his Christmas shopping on December 24th. But he shopped at only one store: Sears. Just the thought of it struck fear and loathing in the heart of my mother who prepared herself for kitchen gadgets and shall we say “questionable” gold jewelry. But as a kid I loved Sears, so it saddens me to see this great American brand closing its flagship store in downtown Chicago, one of hundreds of Sears’ stores that have been shuttered in only the past few years. I feel a death coming on.
Maybe it’s the death of retail stores altogether. The whole experience of walking into a store, touching things, trying on clothes, asking for help. All that in-person engagement is so 20th Century.
Now we can conveniently order things online 24/7 and immediately send them back (at considerable expense and inconvenience) when they don’t meet our expectations.
Gee, what fun.
The Internet, social networking and mobile devices have “fundamentally and permanently changed” the way people shop, according to Edward S. Lampert, the hedge fund manager (uh-oh) who is Sears’ majority owner and chief executive.
Quite a lot has changed since Richard Warren Sears and Alvah Curtis Roebuck incorporated the mail order catalog business in 1893.
By 2005, with Lampert at the helm, the Kmart discount chain (another lackluster, depressing brand) had purchased Sears for $12 billion and renamed the entity Sears Holdings. Lampert claims that Sears and Kmart were the first retailers to pioneer an Integrated Retail strategy that included their Shop Your Way loyalty program and buy online/pick-up in the store programs.
But it may be too little too late. Sears’ core retail business is in a deep dive.
And last week, on the heels of the store closing announcement, Sears had to defend itself against the devastating in-store photos posted by Brian Sozzi, chief equities strategist at Belus Capital Advisors, depicting the company’s New York and New Jersey Sears locations (reminder: your customers, employees and critics are now carrying cell phone cameras).
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/18-depressing-photos-show-why-213650870.html
He described shopping in the Sears stores as “a flea market experience.”
“It’s just badness throughout, “he said of the walk-thru. “Every store has something fundamentally wrong with it.”
Sears cried foul, with its Vice President of Communications arguing (via Twitter) that select photos aren’t representative of the company’s nearly 2,000 stores.
But as we know, people read less today and rely more on images to shape their opinions and knowledge base. The damage was done.
In hindsight, Sears spread itself a bit too thin over the years. The catalog company that became the powerhouse retailer started aligning itself with other brand capabilities as far back as the 1930s. You know all the names: Allstate Insurance Company, Dean Witter, Coldwell Banker, Prodigy, the Discover Credit Card.
These non-retail businesses bled the bottom line and led to a string of divestitures in the 1990s. How many times has this same story/different brands been the death knell for once proud companies?
Whatever the outcome, I will always have fond memories of Sears.
Our family revered (and bought) Kenmore appliances, DieHard batteries, and Craftsman tools.
And when the Sears Catalog arrived at our house, my sister and I would go through its hundreds of wafer thin pages, carefully selecting and cutting out furniture, rugs and models that we would paste on the inside of the box lids we used to create an open split level neighborhood.
Frustrated Designing Divas, we’d spend hours on end trying to out-do each other, “furnishing” our homes and creating the glamorous families that lived there. Not surprisingly my sister grew up to become an interior designer (but with much-improved taste).
If you want to "Come see the softer side of Sears," you’d better hurry.
