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Garin
01-18-2014, 09:55 AM
What Recovery? Sears And J.C. Penney Are DYING
By Michael Snyder, on January 16th, 2014


Two of the largest retailers in America are steamrolling toward bankruptcy. Sears and J.C. Penney are both losing hundreds of millions of dollars each quarter, and both of them appear to be caught in the grip of a death spiral from which it will be impossible to escape. Once upon a time, Sears was actually the largest retailer in the United States, and even today Sears and J.C. Penney are "anchor stores" in malls all over the country. When I was growing up, my mother would take me to the mall when it was time to go clothes shopping, and there were usually just two options: Sears or J.C. Penney. When I got older, I actually worked for Sears for a little while. At the time, nobody would have ever imagined that Sears or J.C. Penney could go out of business someday. But that is precisely what is happening. They are both shutting down unprofitable stores and laying off employees in a desperate attempt to avoid bankruptcy, but everyone knows that they are just delaying the inevitable. These two great retail giants are dying, and they certainly won't be the last to fall. This is just the beginning.

The Death Of Sears

Sales have declined at Sears for 27 quarters in a row, and the legendary retailer has been closing hundreds of stores and selling off property in a frantic attempt to turn things around.

Unfortunately for Sears, it is not working. In fact, Sears has announced that it expects to lose "between $250 million to $360 million" for the quarter that will end on February 1st.

Things have gotten so bad that Sears is even making commercials that openly acknowledge how badly it is struggling. For example, consider the following bit of dialogue from a recent Sears television commercial featuring two young women...

"Wait, the movie theater is on the other side," the passenger says.

"But Sears always has parking!" the driver responds.

Sears always has parking???

Of course the unspoken admission is that Sears always has parking because nobody shops there anymore.

I have posted video of the commercial below...



A couple of months ago I walked into a Sears store in the middle of the week and it was like a ghost town. A few associates were milling around here and there having private discussions among themselves, but other than that it was eerily quiet.

You can find 18 incredibly depressing photographs which do a great job of illustrating why Sears is steadily dying right here. This was once one of America's greatest companies, but soon it will be dead.

The Death Of J.C. Penney

J.C. Penny has been a dead man walking for a long time. In some ways, it is in even worse shape than Sears.

If you can believe it, J.C. Penney actually lost 586 million dollars during the second quarter of 2013 alone.

How in the world do you lose 586 million dollars in three months?

Are they paying employees to flush giant piles of cash down the toilets?

This week J.C. Penney announced that it is eliminating 2,000 jobs and closing 33 stores. The following is a list of the store closings that was released to the public...

The CEO of J.C. Penney says that these closures were necessary for the future of the company...

"As we continue to progress toward long-term profitable growth, it is necessary to reexamine the financial performance of our store portfolio and adjust our national footprint accordingly," CEO Myron Ullman said in a news release.

Actually, his statement would be a lot more accurate if he replaced "continue to progress toward long-term profitable growth" with " prepare for bankruptcy".

It would be hard to overstate how much of a disaster 2013 was for J.C. Penney. The following is an excerpt from a recent CNN article...

It's been a brutal year for J.C. Penney, its stock falling over 60% in the past 12 months. The company has been losing hundreds of millions of dollars per quarter, and is in the midst of another turnaround effort after ousting former Apple executive Ron Johnson last year.

Overall, shares of J.C. Penney have fallen by an astounding 84 percent since February 2012. And keep in mind that this decline has happened during one of the greatest stock market rallies of all-time.

For now, J.C. Penney will continue to try to desperately raise more cash from investors that are foolish enough to give it to them, but all that is really accomplishing is just delaying the inevitable.

If you would like to see some photos that graphically illustrate why J.C. Penney is falling apart, you can find some right here.

And of course Sears and J.C. Penney are not the only large retailers that have fallen on hard times. This week the CEO of Best Buy admitted that sales declined at his chain during the holiday season...

Best Buy shares skid on Thursday after the retailer said total revenue and sales at its established U.S stores fell in the all-important holiday season due to intense discounting by rivals, supply constraints for key products and weak traffic in December.

In the immediate aftermath of that announcement, Best Buy stock was down more than 30 percent in pre-market trading.

And Macy's just announced that it is laying off 2,500 employees in an attempt to move in a more profitable direction.

So why is all of this happening?

Aren't we supposed to be in the midst of an "economic recovery"?

That is what the Obama administration and the mainstream media keep telling us, but it is simply not true.

In fact, a new Gallup survey has found that the number of Americans that are "financially worse off" than a year ago is significantly higher than the number of Americans that say that they are "financially better off" than a year ago...

More Americans, 42%, say they are financially worse off now than they were a year ago, reversing the lower levels found over the past two years. Just more than a third of Americans say their financial situation has improved from a year ago.

That is why these stores are dying.

Things continue to get even worse for the middle class.

But a lot of people out there will continue to deny what is happening right in front of their eyes. They are kind of like that woman over in California who was conned out of half a million dollars by a Nigerian online dating scam. They will never admit the truth until it is far too late to do anything about it.

Easy180
01-18-2014, 11:46 AM
I would say Sears will die first since I see actual living human beings walking into Penney's

bluedogok
01-18-2014, 12:10 PM
My wife shops at Penney's again after the Apple person was fired, while he was there she started going to Kohl's more.

Snowman
01-18-2014, 12:13 PM
Which goes first is hard to say but I from articles I have read Penney's seems more sure to die, Sears though did so much damage to their brand it will be impressive if they can ever make a comeback.

blangtang
01-18-2014, 12:17 PM
About a year ago I stopped in the JCP at Penn Square, and most of the floor space was just open areas with carpeting. I think people stop in their to use the toilet since there's not much of a line.

How about Radio Shack? I wonder who buys from them these days.

Pete
01-18-2014, 12:37 PM
Almost all the old department stores are already dead; Dillard's and Macy's are about the only ones still standing and they have bought out a bunch of other failing chains themselves. Some of the higher end versions are doing okay, like Nordstrom, but of course many in that niche are long gone as well.

Like large malls, it's merely a concept which time has mostly past. In their place are scores of big-box discount stores and on-line options.

In the case of Sears, the only thing that has kept them going this long was the sell off of other big assets, like Allstate Insurance, Dean Witter and Coldwell Banker Real Estate. They even sold Sears Tower! People probably don't even remember when Sears had a big financial empire that stretched well beyond it's retail arm.


If and when Sears and Penney's die, I doubt too many people will miss them.

Jim Kyle
01-18-2014, 01:26 PM
Is Federated still using the Dillard's brand name out west? Here in OKC the name changed first to Foley's, then to Macy's. All, of course, are simply parts of the Federated empire so far as I can determine...

And is the May company still the biggest department store group in the L.A. area?

SoonerDave
01-18-2014, 01:48 PM
I have thought for years that I could drive by the old, nasty Sears on SW 44th and Western on any given day, and there was no worse than a coin flip's chance the thing would, out of the blue, be shuttered and gone from the earth. It hasn't happened yet, but I still would never bet against it. That's a nasty, nasty store that holds for me only hollow, fleeting memories of the vibrant retail atmosphere that, believe it or not, once reigned there. Sears was almost as big and routine a part of my family's shopping efforts as TG&Y. A week without a trip to the Sears catalog desk to pick up an order was an exception. Sears used have a candy counter with hot, roasted peanuts and popcorn, the aroma of which would flow through the store. On the south end was a big coffee shop, and to the west were the hardware and sporting goods where they always had the current incarnation of Pong on display and for sale - and I never lost a game :). They sold furniture, console TV's, VCR's, you name it, and Sears had it.

Then things, well, changed. Their namesake brands started being built by no-name mass manufacturers overseas, and the quality that had made Kenmore and Craftsman household names went down the toilet with it. The stores fell in to disrepair. They had no marketing direction, floating on the momentum of "well, we're Sears, we'll always be relevant," until they weren't. The 44th street store is a smelly, slipshot place that belies the industrious retailer Sears once was, and resembles it these days in name only. Marketing, business plan, advertising, whatever it was, Sears has failed in nearly every respect. And it's sad.

JCPenny wasn't nearly as critical a retailer for us as Sears, but its clearly a rudderless company that is grasping for direction and air. THe Apple misstep was a gargantuan failure, right down to the logo change. And I think Pete is more or less right in the general notion that both stores are examples of a bygone era in US retail - the big box, multidepartment store that serves everyone. And its precisely the reason I loathe the JCPenney store in Moore - its so freaking huge you have to pack a stinking lunch to get from the front door back to whatever department you want. And the perpetual reinvention of the company has been, well, exhausting. I can't see them continuing to hemorrhage cash before someone sees the writing on the wall and calls it a day - the recent closure of 33 stores and layoff of 2,000+ employees is probably only the beginning in much the same way the early shutdowns were harbingers of bad things to come for Blockbuster over the last few years as their market disappeared from beneath them.

Who will fail first? I guess with KMart to prop them up, Sears might endure longer merely through the sheer force of will of its owner. But JCPenney has hardly much better future, seems to me. There's hardly much future for either. As for who will last? Who knows. As likely to end up a photo-finish to the bankruptcy line as either one hitting it first.

Pete
01-18-2014, 02:04 PM
Is Federated still using the Dillard's brand name out west? Here in OKC the name changed first to Foley's, then to Macy's. All, of course, are simply parts of the Federated empire so far as I can determine...

And is the May company still the biggest department store group in the L.A. area?

Federated is now Macy's Inc., which operates Macy's and Bloomingdales.

May Co. merged with Macy's some time ago.


We don't have Dillard's in California, just Macy's, Bloomies, Nordstrom and a few Nieman's and Saks. And of course, the remain Sears and Penney locations.

More and more, Target is going into malls out here.

Pete
01-18-2014, 02:06 PM
Sears was almost as big and routine a part of my family's shopping efforts as TG&Y. A week without a trip to the Sears catalog desk to pick up an order was an exception. Sears used have a candy counter with hot, roasted peanuts and popcorn, the aroma of which would flow through the store. On the south end was a big coffee shop, and to the west were the hardware and sporting goods where they always had the current incarnation of Pong on display and for sale - and I never lost a game :). They sold furniture, console TV's, VCR's, you name it, and Sears had it.

When I was very young, it was the same for my family with the Sears at 23rd & Penn.

I think we bought all our appliances and hardware there in the 60's.

poe
01-18-2014, 02:24 PM
I've had pretty good luck with JCP; bought quite a bit of decent items there since last summer, and they had good sales during Christmas. I got a Cuisinart coffee maker for $20 cheaper than at Kohl's. Sears, on the other hand, I wouldn't miss. For awhile, I got my car serviced at Sears, but the staff always seemed to hate their jobs and usually argued with each other in the presence of customers, so I decided to go somewhere else. The Sears store in Amarillo seems to always have activity in the tool section, but that's about it.

Soonerman
01-18-2014, 06:05 PM
Well folks, Sears in Shawnee is going out of business.

Sears store in Shawnee closing - News - The Shawnee News-Star - Shawnee, OK (http://www.news-star.com/article/20140109/NEWS/140109743/1001/NEWS)

bchris02
01-18-2014, 09:12 PM
Sears, definitely. It's a relic of the past along the lines of Montgomery Ward. I disagree about department stores going the way of the dodo though. High-end ones like Nordstrom, Saks, and Neiman Marcus are doing well and I am pretty sure Macy's and Dillard's are doing well also. Another one that is doing pretty well is Belk, which doesn't have a presence in OKC but is every bit as high-profile as Macy's and Dillard's in malls in the Southeastern US.

mugofbeer
01-18-2014, 10:09 PM
I think if Sears would just drop clothing and concentrate on hardware and appliances and the contract their store size, they might make it. Turn into an Ace-like store

zookeeper
01-18-2014, 10:16 PM
Sears, definitely. It's a relic of the past along the lines of Montgomery Ward. I disagree about department stores going the way of the dodo though. High-end ones like Nordstrom, Saks, and Neiman Marcus are doing well and I am pretty sure Macy's and Dillard's are doing well also. Another one that is doing pretty well is Belk, which doesn't have a presence in OKC but is every bit as high-profile as Macy's and Dillard's in malls in the Southeastern US.

It's not just high-end stores that are thriving. You left out the largest department store chain in the country. Kohl's is sitting mighty pretty.

gjl
01-18-2014, 11:25 PM
I always wondered how the Sears on 44th and Western stayed in business. With the closing of the Sears at Quail, that is where I have to go to replace broken tools now. Seems there is never more than about 20 cars in the parking lot. I asked one of the associates in the tool department how they keep the doors open with so few customers and he said just the volume of tools and tool boxes they sell to Tinker was enough to keep that store open.

And about Radio Shack. It's been so long since I've been in one of those stores, do you still have to give them your phone number just to buy a battery? I remember when you used to get a free battery every month there.

stick47
01-19-2014, 07:00 AM
Never saw a Craftsman tool chest or one of their tools at TAFB when I worked there. When the shops went to ISO 9000 specs a number of years ago KP Supply had the tool kitting contract for the East side of the base (3001 Bldg & the South 40 area) I doubt the Sears guy knew what he was talking about.

Oh GAWD the Smell!
01-19-2014, 07:03 AM
I love Sears. I go there quite a bit. Nobody, and I mean NOBODY can touch their tool supply. Harbor Freight, Steve's Wholesale, etc. are great...But they're 90% Chinese junk. If Sears' tools are made in China, they're at least not cheap junk :D

They also have a great appliance selection that doesn't have many rivals either.


I buy stuff from them all the time. Love it. It's sad to see them in such decline.

Bill Robertson
01-19-2014, 07:09 AM
I think if Sears would just drop clothing and concentrate on hardware and appliances and the contract their store size, they might make it. Turn into an Ace-like store
I think they might be doing just that. There is an almost completed building just north of the old theater building on the west side of Quail with a sign "Sears Coming Soon". It's just about the size of an Ace.

Garin
01-19-2014, 07:55 AM
If they were to both fall, we would be looking at another 425k unemployed people looking and competing in the job market. I like Sears for their tools and appliances and also think if they would reinvent themselves they would have a chance to make it, JCP on the other hand is getting their clocks cleaned by the Kohl's stores. IMO JCP will leave the market first.

bchris02
01-19-2014, 11:09 AM
I think they might be doing just that. There is an almost completed building just north of the old theater building on the west side of Quail with a sign "Sears Coming Soon". It's just about the size of an Ace.

I agree. Their new "Hometown" concept - which pretty much focuses on hardware, tools, and appliances, is the future for that company. The days of buying clothing and electronics from Sears are long gone. The reduced store size will be a massive cost reduction for the company and they can focus on what actually makes them money.

gjl
01-19-2014, 01:36 PM
Sears is partnered with Kmart and they are multinational so I doubt they will just go away completely.

bchris02
01-19-2014, 01:41 PM
Sears is partnered with Kmart and they are multinational so I doubt they will just go away completely.

K-Marts are all but gone in this region of the country, but that's probably because they can't compete with Wal-Mart. Even in other regions without as much Wal-Mart dominance, K-Mart is usually such a ghost town I wonder how they are still in business.

gjl
01-19-2014, 01:50 PM
Wiki says Sears Holdings is still the 10th largest retailer by annual revenues in the US and that Kmart is the third largest discount retailer in the world behind Walmart and Target.

SoonerDave
01-20-2014, 09:50 AM
I love Sears. I go there quite a bit. Nobody, and I mean NOBODY can touch their tool supply. Harbor Freight, Steve's Wholesale, etc. are great...But they're 90% Chinese junk. If Sears' tools are made in China, they're at least not cheap junk :D

They also have a great appliance selection that doesn't have many rivals either.

I buy stuff from them all the time. Love it. It's sad to see them in such decline.

Steve's Wholesale has better quality stuff than Harbor Frieght, but I'll agree some of it isn't exactly first-line quality. However, SW has a much broader variety of tools than the others, certainly moreso than Sears.

Sad thing is Sears let its Crastsman power tool line go down the drain years ago. Now, older Craftsman tools from much any time from the mid 70's and earlier that show up at garage sales or estate sales are worth a small mint, while the later ones aren't worth much of anything. Read in the last few years about some cabinet/woodworking guys who bought a higher-end Craftsman table (or was it a cabinet?) saw, and in their review they were having trouble making repeatable, accurate cuts with it, and when they dove into finding out why it was due to a maze of malleable, cheap plastic bushings and fasteners within the adjustment mechanisms that kept the saw cheap, but unreliable. You can buy Craftsman-labeled hand tools at Ace Hardware now, for Heaven's sake, so you can tell what Sears think of the brand. Its purely a name riding on the inertia of its erstwhile reputation as they wring the last penny of earned value from it. I took my broken Crafstman ratchet in for my "lifetime warranty" replacement and it had a wonderful (not) plastic ratcheting mechanism and reverser switch that feels like it would break into pieces if any real force were used with it.

Their appliance selection is nothing compared to what I can see at Lowe's, Home Depot, or heck, even Hahn's Appliances here in OKC. Kenmore use to be the Craftsman of home appliances, but they either went in the toilet or just became yet another OEM for the remaining handful of actual appliance manufacturers. Whirlpool has made most of Sears fridges and, I think, washers for some years now. When I was shopping for an upright freezer unit many years ago, I went to Sears (just out habit), saw a particular brand and found out it was the Kenmore private label for a particular Whirlpool model; I went to Lowe's, found the exact model number, identical in all respects for something like $100 cheaper (or thereabouts, may actually have been more...its been a while) and the Lowe's guy bent over backwards to get it delivered to my house the next day. That was the last time I set foot in Sears with any notion of buying appliances. I contrast that with the Lady Kenmore refrigerator my mom bought from Sears in, I think, 1963, and still has running to this very day, or her Kenmore sewing machine bought in very much the same time frame.

Sears is Sears in name only. Sadly, they're not the only one to have met the same fate....lots of former great US sales and manufacturing names are now merely shell, licensed uses of the name wrapping second-tier quality merchandise. Kinda pitiful.

SoonerDave
01-20-2014, 09:57 AM
Wiki says Sears Holdings is still the 10th largest retailer by annual revenues in the US and that Kmart is the third largest discount retailer in the world behind Walmart and Target.

That's why I suspect Sears will endure merely by virtue of the strength of its owner. Kmart could let Sears languish for a long time, so long as they perceive the name has some sort of value and brings bodies through the door. JCPenney doesn't have that kind of luxury. The key will be how much longer things go before you start hearing them run low on cash, or start having trouble paying suppliers, or start soliciting new or restructured financing...but can't get it...and that's when they'll really be on the precipice and the bankruptcy hawks will really start circling.

I wonder how much JCPenney has tied up in all this rebuilding and remodeling that the Apple guy started up that has since been heralded a disaster in the midst of their pitiful sales numbers over Christmas?

Just the facts
01-20-2014, 12:12 PM
For those following the trends I have been pointing out it shouldn't come as no surprise that these stores are having problems. More of them are going to go by the ways side in the future as well. If you rely on a large parking lot to deliver customers to your store you better start coming up with plan B. Stores that move to urban concepts or on-line are going to be the new retail leaders. Ironically, it was Sears and JC Penney that first deliver goods to their non-urban customers with their catalogues (the precursor to the internet).

gjl
01-20-2014, 12:43 PM
I can remember when JC Penney sold tools. I have a 6 drawer open top with lid Penncraft toolbox I bought there in 1970 that I still use today. I can also remember a time when if you needed a refrigerator or washer and dryer, you just went to Sears to get them.

SoonerDave
01-20-2014, 12:55 PM
I can remember when JC Penney sold tools. I have a 6 drawer open top with lid Penncraft toolbox I bought there in 1970 that I still use today. I can also remember a time when if you needed a refrigerator or washer and dryer, you just went to Sears to get them.

Yup. That's how I grew up. When Sears stopped worrying about selling crappy merchandise, which started loooong before the Internet "revolution," that's when customers started leaving. Generational customers, too, like me, that grew up buying Sears because you just did.

And, if you think about it, had the timing been better (on both sides), Sears could easily have morphed into an Amazon before Amazon as a "first generation" online retailer.

Alas...what might have been :)

Garin
01-20-2014, 01:51 PM
For those following the trends I have been pointing out it shouldn't come as no surprise that these stores are having problems. More of them are going to go by the ways side in the future as well. If you rely on a large parking lot to deliver customers to your store you better start coming up with plan B. Stores that move to urban concepts or on-line are going to be the new retail leaders. Ironically, it was Sears and JC Penney that first deliver goods to their non-urban customers with their catalogues (the precursor to the internet).

Where will all of this people work...Fast food? Technology might just be the final nail in the coffin.

SoonerDave
01-20-2014, 03:01 PM
Where will all of this people work...Fast food? Technology might just be the final nail in the coffin.

Surely doesn't speak very well of the perceived prospective skill levels of these people. That is, if not JCPenney or Sears...then fastfood is their only employment destiny? Happen to know a decent portion of their employment population includes college-age students working to supplement income, some as a transitional position while learning other vocations....just have a hard time lumping the entire pile into an "abandon hope" bucket.

bchris02
01-20-2014, 03:30 PM
I don't think its online shopping that is hurting Sears and JC Penney. For Sears, it is Wal-Mart and the fact they let their quality fall so low they are no longer distinguishable from the competition. JC Penney it is a poor marketing strategy that backfired. They have taken steps to correct it, but time will tell if its too little, too late.

kevinpate
01-20-2014, 03:37 PM
Where will all of this people work...Fast food? Technology might just be the final nail in the coffin.

As pickers, shippers and rippers in order fulfillment centers. And when they're past their prime, well, no one ever really promised Soylent Green would forever come in only one flavor or color.

stick47
01-20-2014, 03:53 PM
After I left Otasco in the 70s (asst mgr job) I went to Wards for a short while as a Lawn & Garden salesman then took on the Fence Estimators job. Otasco wasn't keeping up with the times and IMO Wards closed primarily b/c they were so top heavy. Our store had as many people upstairs in the offices as there were on the floor. Highly paid do nothings mostly. It was all about do good and get an upstairs job and those jobs were killing the company. I retired from Tinker as a wage grade machinist.

Just the facts
01-20-2014, 04:19 PM
Where will all of this people work...Fast food? Technology might just be the final nail in the coffin.

After the global economy kills off the regional economy the local economy will rise from the ashes. I can't wait.

soonerliberal
01-20-2014, 05:58 PM
I see the fall of JCP and Sears (on the apparel side at least) being partially due to the rise of discount stores like Marshalls, TJ Maxx, and Nordstrom Rack along with the outlet malls. If someone is looking for an item at a certain price point, many would prefer to spend the money on a designer brand that is "last year's style" versus St. John's Bay.

zookeeper
01-20-2014, 07:02 PM
I see the fall of JCP and Sears (on the apparel side at least) being partially due to the rise of discount stores like Marshalls, TJ Maxx, and Nordstrom Rack along with the outlet malls. If someone is looking for an item at a certain price point, many would prefer to spend the money on a designer brand that is "last year's style" versus St. John's Bay.

And, again, the largest department store in the United States is the very successful Kohl's. It has really hurt JCP.

Bill Robertson
01-20-2014, 07:45 PM
And, again, the largest department store in the United States is the very successful Kohl's. It has really hurt JCP.
At least from my personal experience this is very true. My wife drags me to Kohls, JCP and others on a regular basis searching for office clothes. So many of her purchases end up being from Kohls I wonder why she bothers shopping the others.

Snowman
01-20-2014, 07:57 PM
I don't think its online shopping that is hurting Sears and JC Penney. For Sears, it is Wal-Mart and the fact they let their quality fall so low they are no longer distinguishable from the competition. JC Penney it is a poor marketing strategy that backfired. They have taken steps to correct it, but time will tell if its too little, too late.

While I agree with most of your points, at least for a time Sears quality was so low it was distinguishable in a negative way.

Garin
01-20-2014, 08:21 PM
Surely doesn't speak very well of the perceived prospective skill levels of these people. That is, if not JCPenney or Sears...then fastfood is their only employment destiny? Happen to know a decent portion of their employment population includes college-age students working to supplement income, some as a transitional position while learning other vocations....just have a hard time lumping the entire pile into an "abandon hope" bucket.

Retail in general if it doesn't exist where will all these people work

Chadanth
01-20-2014, 08:25 PM
Retail in general if it doesn't exist where will all these people work

He'll collect food stamps and TANF and we'll bash them in the Politics sub.

MWCGuy
01-20-2014, 11:59 PM
I agree. Their new "Hometown" concept - which pretty much focuses on hardware, tools, and appliances, is the future for that company. The days of buying clothing and electronics from Sears are long gone. The reduced store size will be a massive cost reduction for the company and they can focus on what actually makes them money.

A nice thing about the Hometown concept is that they are franchised out and not a part of the main Sears operations.


Never saw a Craftsman tool chest or one of their tools at TAFB when I worked there. When the shops went to ISO 9000 specs a number of years ago KP Supply had the tool kitting contract for the East side of the base (3001 Bldg & the South 40 area) I doubt the Sears guy knew what he was talking about.

My wife used to work at the Midwest City store in hardware/seasonal she made most of her sales to contractors and airmen in uniform. They would come in with GSA credit cards and purchase orders to buy hand and power tools. She also made a killing during the summer season. The lawn and garden sales alone would carry the store through the summer months.

I think Sears in the process of leaving the malls. They are closing stores mall stores all over the country. I think the Sears Hometown is going to be there future. The only Sears stores that will likely remain are the freestanding stores like South Western. I am wondering how long the Sooner and Midwest City stores will keep there doors open. Midwest City could be moved to Town Center and Sooner Mall could be moved to University North Park as Sears Hometown stores.

JCP could easily be saved if they would just stick with one strategy and go with it. They are getting as bad as Circuit City was in there final years. They changed strategies so many times they ended up on the road to disaster.

Snowman
01-21-2014, 12:25 AM
... JCP could easily be saved if they would just stick with one strategy and go with it. They are getting as bad as Circuit City was in there final years. They changed strategies so many times they ended up on the road to disaster.

Not sure how it is now but about a year or two ago it was reported that they were having a problem in they where half way between a transitional strategy that for the most part was not working out, losing tons of money because of it, to top it off they likely could not afford to either revert back or do any other sort of major change to pull out all that was not working.

SoonerDave
01-21-2014, 06:48 AM
Retail in general if it doesn't exist where will all these people work

So, again, the only employment skill these people have is retail....sorry, I just can't agree with that.

BBatesokc
01-21-2014, 06:54 AM
The Sears at SW 44 and Western is truly a ghost town. I stop in some, but only to take a look at their sale or clearance items. You can get some decent tools and yard stuff when they mark it down and put it in the overflow/seasonal storage space off the main retail floor. Their electronics are a joke, never seen a price I couldn't crush elsewhere and the selection is usually not very good. My parents still like to buy appliances at Sears because they've had great luck with warranty work.

Really hate that the Craftsman brand is nothing like it used to be. Had a Craftsman riding mower for a bit and was thrilled when I sold it.

As for JCP - I sometimes walk through when I got to Penn Square Mall. Store looks pretty full to me. I look at their sale clothing, but otherwise I find their prices a bit too high for me.

I'd guess JCP falls before Sears.

SoonerDave
01-21-2014, 07:35 AM
The Sears at SW 44 and Western is truly a ghost town.

Had heard many times over the years that the Integris nee South Community Hospital had made more than one effort to buy the Sears property to expand their medical campus, especially after the strip shopping center went down, but never came to terms. Also heard that when Montgomery Wards went under decades ago, Sears was primed to abandon the Reding property and move to Crossroads, but the lease was tied up in the bankruptcy courts and could never be legally unwound (and, obviously, this is back when Crossroads was vibrant and relevant). Sure think that might have helped out that Sears location, but given their current future, likely would only have forestalled the inevitable.

After reading that the SEC is looking into some of JCPenney's recent financial statements and representations about debt, and how they're starting to close stores and lay off workers, makes it hard to see how they can avoid the "retail death spiral" that leads to closure in the next six months to year. Maybe we can revisit this in November and see if the company still exists going into this Christmas.

bchris02
01-21-2014, 07:45 AM
JCP simply alienated their core customer by trying to rebrand themselves as hip and trendy. Hopefully they can right the ship before its too late.

Garin
01-21-2014, 09:01 AM
So, again, the only employment skill these people have is retail....sorry, I just can't agree with that.

Most of the people working in retail aren't doing it by choice, A alot of them are women that are trying to provide a second income for the family or its part time. If retail goes away where does this work go? What takes its place?

SoonerDave
01-21-2014, 09:30 AM
Most of the people working in retail aren't doing it by choice, A alot of them are women that are trying to provide a second income for the family or its part time. If retail goes away where does this work go? What takes its place?

Can't understand how, in a free market economy, the notion of "retail" can ever truly go away. It may take different forms, be implemented in different ways, but as long as there are manufacturers, wholesalers, and consumers, there will always be retailers in some form.

Beyond that, as a matter of history, classes of jobs have come and gone, grown and shrunk, and as in those times, the result will largely be a matter of folks adapting to what the job market provides.

OKCbyTRANSFER
01-21-2014, 09:45 AM
I shopped in JCP yesterday, got some really good deals. The items I purchased were less on line then the "mall store" prices, so they matched them and I was very pleased.

ljbab728
01-21-2014, 10:48 PM
Most of the people working in retail aren't doing it by choice

I'm sure that's true for many but I doubt it is true for "most". Do you have evidence to support that?

You could probably say that about a large number of professions.

MWCGuy
01-22-2014, 01:28 AM
Most of the people working in retail aren't doing it by choice, A alot of them are women that are trying to provide a second income for the family or its part time. If retail goes away where does this work go? What takes its place?


I spent 8 years in the retail world. I have been out of it for almost six years now. The employees are about the same as what they were back then. The majority of the people working there want to be there. Retail is one of a few jobs that offers flexible scheduling. You can take off pretty much anytime you want outside of the holiday shopping season. Working the holidays are not to bad if you can stomach the crowds and the long hours. It's about the only time of year you can actually get overtime. The rest of the year they send you home the minute you start creeping past the 40th hour of the work week.

During my time the company I worked for employed mainly students with a mix of retirees, parents who wanted to be home by the time school let out and people bringing a secondary income. The majority of retail jobs only offer full time to supervisors, managers, laborers (installers, delivery, stock crew). You can also make a pretty good income in store support (IT, Building Maintenance, HR, Distrubution) The only people who had the worst jobs in my opinons was the managers. If the store had a bad year, they were usually let go regardless of rather or not their performance had anything to do with the sales numbers or the quality of the stores operations. We were lucky if we had the same management team from one year to the next. The good thing for retail managers is that once you get enough experience it's easy move on to another company even if your not so great at your job. For the workers they can move from one company to another just like the managers do provided they don't do something stupid like steal from the company or get caught doing something on the job you know you shouldn't do.

Retail is like every other job it can be a dead end if you let be a dead end. We all work around people that have been with the company for years. Yet they don't move up. That's usually because of job performance, attitude, a lack of motivation to want something more or they really like what they are doing (rare). Dead end jobs exist because an employee is not challenging themselves to climb the company ladder or find work elsewhere. If you work the same postion for more than a few years you have to ask yourself "Is this what I want to do, am I happy?" If the answer is "NO". It's time to go to school, freshen up the resume and start looking for something else.

zookeeper
01-22-2014, 02:13 PM
Interesting read. A 'tsunami' of store closings expected to hit retail (http://www.cnbc.com/id/101353168)

bchris02
01-22-2014, 05:40 PM
I think the article is exaggerating a bit just like all the articles predicting the death of the PC. There were similar articles back in 2009 during the last wave of retail closings. Most of the mentioned closings can be traced back to bad business decisions or changing trends. Teen fashion is a big one. How are stores like American Eagle and Abercrombie & Fitch going to stay relevant when the generation that made them is now in their late 20s and their brand isn't cool to today's teens? Most business being pushed out by ecommerce already have been ie borders, circuit city, etc.

rezman
01-23-2014, 08:27 AM
There is a Hometown Sears in Edmond at the corner of 33rd & Broadway. The store is privately owned and focuses mainly on tools, lawn and garden and appliances. No clothing. What's funny is that the "hometown" concept is nothing new as there used to be hundreds of Sears catalog stores in small towns that stocked only the items metoned above, but also automotive products and some had tire centers attached as well.

For a long time I had a shop full of Craftsman tools at home and also many at work.I still have a lot, but I stopped buying Craftsman a long time ago. What is sold now is made in China junk and Craftsman in name only. From my perspective, their tool line really started going downhill after Kmart took over.

Just the facts
01-23-2014, 11:02 AM
A 'tsunami' of store closings expected to hit retail

A 'tsunami' of store closings expected to hit retail (http://www.cnbc.com/id/101353168)

zookeeper
01-23-2014, 11:06 AM
A 'tsunami' of store closings expected to hit retail (http://www.cnbc.com/id/101353168)

Was my link broken?

Snowman
01-24-2014, 03:11 AM
Was my link broken?

Yours still worked for me, maybe it was a like since those do not seem to be on this thread :)

Just the facts
01-24-2014, 06:30 AM
Was my link broken?

Ooops, sorry. Anyhow, it was good enough for people to read twice. :)

ThomPaine
01-24-2014, 07:04 AM
Anecdotal and very frustrating (and long) story...


Need a microwave, and would like to replace my Kenmore with another Kenmore (trying to find the same but newer model since it's a built-in).


Go online and see that my nearest Edmond Sears has"3 in stock."


Awesome. This whole endeavor can be fixed in under an hour!


Go to the store. I tell the man what I need to pick up. He checks his computer then disappears to the back for a few minutes, but returns empty handed. None in stock. Evidently, their online inventory is "not always accurate." I ask if he can check the two other metro stores to see if they have them in stock.


"No, we cant, we're independently owned and have no access to the other stores' inventories."


He can order one for me and have it in a couple days, but I have to use a Sears credit card for special orders. No thanks (I haven't had a Sears credit card in 20 years).


Back home online. Sears on the south side and MWC both show the microwaves in stock (two and three respectively). No fool, I'm calling ahead to see if they have one before I trudge across town. I choose the south side location because going to Heritage Park Mall just makes me sad. Call the Sears and get a typical menu based system, choose "appliances" and then "microwaves and other smaller appliances" and the phone begins to ring, and ring, and ring...


"Menswear, can I help you?"


"Um, yeah, I'd like to speak to someone about a microwave."


"Hold on a sec..."


Ring, ring, ring, ring...


Different voice "Menswear, may I help you?"


"Um, yeah, I'd like to speak to someone about a microwave, but evidently there's nobody over there picking up the phone."


"Sorry, hold on, I'll get somebody for you."


On hold. After five minutes, I hang up.


Back online to get the MWC store number. Same menu, same choices, ring ring ring...


"Sears, can I help you?"


"Yes, I need to see if you have a microwave in stock. I have the model number and your online..."


"Hold on, I'll send you to appliances."


Hold, hold, hold, hold, hold. Hang up, dial back and ask for "manager" at the prompt. Ring, ring, ring...


"Sears, may I help you?"


"Yes, I was just on hold for about ten minutes with no answer. I just need to see if you have a microwave in stock. I have the model number and your online system says you have three of them."


"Sorry about that, what's the model number, and I'll check for you."


"Great, thanks. The model number is..."


"Please hold, I'll check to make sure we have it."


At this point, I'm invested, and morbid curiosity keeps me on hold for 10 minutes before somebody picks up the phone.


"Hello? Can I help you?"


Exasperation, explain, explain, explain...


"Sorry, let me check."


"Thanks."


Less than a minute later...


"Yes, we have them in stock."


"Great. I'll be right over."


Jump in the truck and head to what used to be a decent little mall where I spent hundreds of dollars in quarters at the Aladdin's Castle arcade, but is now a sad ghost town. Park right up front and charge into the store and head to appliances. I find a young man hiding in the aisles and look at him until he speaks.


"Can I help you?"


"Yes! I'm here to pick up a microwave."


"Did you pre order it?"


"No, but I called ahead, and you said you had it in stock. Here's the model number."


I hand him a printout showing all the data, his store, and '3 in stock' highlighted. He turns to his computer and enters an impossibly long string of commands.


"Yeah, we're supposed to have them in stock, but these computers aren't always accurate. Lemme call the back."


Ring, ring, ring... "I need you to see if we have a microwave. The model is ... Thanks."


Hangs up the phone.


"He's going to check and call me back."


Wait, wait, wait. Watch another couple stand two feet from my salesman with a hopeful look on their faces. No love, he's helping me, and evidently cannot address them without breaking his concentration on the un ringing phone. Eventually the couple breaks in and asks for assistance.


"Yeah, like I said, we don't have that model in stock (referring to an item in that day's sale paper), but I can order one for you..."


Ring, ring, ring...


"Yeah? Okay, thanks."


Hang up.


"Yes, we have one in stock. Would you like it?"


"Um, yes."


Transaction completed after turning down, three, two, and one year service contracts.


"Do you know where customer pick up is?"


"Yes, I'm parked there."


Skip over to customer pick up and after finding somebody to help me, I pick up my microwave.


Personally, I don't see how Sears has stayed in business this long.