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And so it begins, the end of Sears

JstasJstas Posts: 13,724
in The Clubhouse
Saw this a few minutes ago. Not good.

But, Sears has enough profitable assets still in place that they might be able to leverage the unprofitable assets into a favorable package to settle debt and get out of it with some capital infusion.

https://www.apnews.com/1cbf64586e114ac38bab82a42b8be12e

They have made efforts in the past few years to expand their retail presence online and I think the only reason for the poor customer service has been the lack of manpower, not because they are jerks.

Anyway, I hope it sticks around. I'd hate to see Sears go.
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Comments

  • pitdogg2pitdogg2 Posts: 12,850
    edited October 2018
    I don't know John. Sears sits on some very desirable land and the people running it seem bound and determined to cash it in and take the money and run. They've already sold off their items that pulled folks into their stores. If you can buy craftsman stuff everywhere else why the need to order it from them online?
    Sad our store is closing and the clothing side looks like they raided the 1976 time capsule vault.
  • mhardy6647mhardy6647 Posts: 21,234
    edited October 2018
    I think the retail business (businesses -- K-Mart, too) are finished.
    The parade passed them by, two decades ago (at least).

    meanwhile, a reminder of happier times.

    http://www.wishbookweb.com/the-catalogs/


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  • mhardy6647mhardy6647 Posts: 21,234
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  • halohalo Posts: 4,948
    I was wondering about how the lifetime warranty on Craftsman tools was going to play out now. I used to buy Die Hard batteries for my cars. I just put a set of Die Hard wiper blades on the car yesterday but I see on the back that they are a subsidiary of Trico
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  • SIHABSIHAB Posts: 735
    Sears life, not yours.
  • mhardy6647mhardy6647 Posts: 21,234
    edited October 2018
    halo wrote: »
    I was wondering about how the lifetime warranty on Craftsman tools was going to play out now. I used to buy Die Hard batteries for my cars. I just put a set of Die Hard wiper blades on the car yesterday but I see on the back that they are a subsidiary of Trico

    How much are bonds issued by defunct governments worth? ;)

    Actually, depending on how (and if, of course) the brand is liquidated, there could be some remedy provided for owners of lifetime warranted products.

    What is the status of Radio Shack's lifetime guarantee vacuum tubes? Anyone try to take back, say, a 2A3 with low emission lately?


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  • mantismantis Posts: 15,270
    Man I wish it would end. It's like life as I knew it is forever fading away. It started way back in the day when NOBODY BEATS THE WIZ went under. I loved that store. I mean there has been many other stores that went under but didn't sting like the Wiz did. Then when Tweeter and Circuit City went under I felt like part of me died.
    Soundex was another company when they fell apart it hurt.

    Sears is a place my family has been shopping at for decades. Back to my Grand Father and father before me. I buy most of my clothes there as I really like the Outdoor Life series.
    Man I hope they survive as I'm not a big of fan of Boscov's.
    Dan
    My personal quest is to save to world of bad audio, one thread at a time.
  • mhardy6647mhardy6647 Posts: 21,234
    edited October 2018
    heck, I miss Luskin's in Baltimore.
    Where Jack-you-know will save you dough!

    Perhaps because I went to high school almost literally in the shadow of the Big Luskin's up on the hill by Exit 29 on 695 :) I only remember buying two things from Luskin's... one of which I still have :p (a Zenith Circle of Sound clock radio).

    (we need a wistful smiley emoji)

    jwnww74816db.png
  • mrbigbluelightmrbigbluelight Posts: 7,688
    Sears is done.
    Wave goodbye.
    What they shoulda, they didn't.
    What they coulda, they didn't.
    This ship is going down by the bow.
    MrBigBlueLight
    Here to pick your brain & steal your cookies
    Shifting to Plan B+
  • F1nutF1nut Posts: 41,412
    mhardy6647 wrote: »
    heck, I miss Luskin's in Baltimore.
    Where Jack-you-know will save you dough!

    Perhaps because I went to high school almost literally in the shadow of the Big Luskin's up on the hill by Exit 29 on 695 :) I only remember buying two things from Luskin's... one of which I still have :p (a Zenith Circle of Sound clock radio).

    (we need a wistful smiley emoji)

    jwnww74816db.png

    Had to be Loch Raven.
    Political Correctness'.........defined

    "A doctrine fostered by a delusional, illogical minority and rabidly promoted by an unscrupulous mainstream media, which holds forth the proposition that it is entirely possible to pick up a t-u-r-d by the clean end."

  • mhardy6647mhardy6647 Posts: 21,234
    edited October 2018
    F1nut wrote: »
    mhardy6647 wrote: »
    heck, I miss Luskin's in Baltimore.
    Where Jack-you-know will save you dough!

    Perhaps because I went to high school almost literally in the shadow of the Big Luskin's up on the hill by Exit 29 on 695 :) I only remember buying two things from Luskin's... one of which I still have :p (a Zenith Circle of Sound clock radio).

    (we need a wistful smiley emoji)

    jwnww74816db.png

    Had to be Loch Raven.

    Nope :) There's another little private high school up there on Concordia Drive... right across from Spiro Agnew's old house (when he was Baltimore Co. County Executive). I was the first alum to serve on its board of directors :)

    ahem. The place rebranded itself a coupla years ago*
    http://concordiaprepschool.org/

    :/

    _____________
    * Not unlike our son's UG alma mater, which was Western Maryland when I was a lad, but which became "McDaniel College" somewhere along the line. :|

  • EmlynEmlyn Posts: 2,240
    edited October 2018
    I think the last time I was in a Sears store was more than ten years ago. I had to use the bathroom and find a torque wrench. Never did find the wrench.
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  • rooftop59rooftop59 Posts: 5,242
    I honestly have a hard time giving a rip. I mean, It’s another capitalist machine that couldn’t keep up with the times. Hasta la vista. They will be replaced (or rather already have been) by other capitalist machines. And on it goes...
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  • la2vegasla2vegas Posts: 3,306
    Emlyn wrote: »
    I think the last time I was in a Sears store was more than ten years ago. I had to use the bathroom and find a torque wrench. Never did find the wrench.

    Hopefully you found the bathroom otherwise there would've been a wet spill in the men's section.
    2.3TL, 3.1TL, SRS 2, SDA 2B, SDA II,SDA 1C, 7B, 7C, 7 series 2, 10B, 5JR+, 5JR, 5A, 4.5, 4, RTA 11TL, RTA 8TL, RTA 8T, LSI9 Ebony, LSI7 EBONY, LSI7 CHERRY, LSIC, RTI A7, RTI A3, CSI A4, CSI A6, F/XI A4, RTI4. That's all for now.
  • F1nutF1nut Posts: 41,412
    mhardy6647 wrote: »
    F1nut wrote: »
    mhardy6647 wrote: »
    heck, I miss Luskin's in Baltimore.
    Where Jack-you-know will save you dough!

    Perhaps because I went to high school almost literally in the shadow of the Big Luskin's up on the hill by Exit 29 on 695 :) I only remember buying two things from Luskin's... one of which I still have :p (a Zenith Circle of Sound clock radio).

    (we need a wistful smiley emoji)

    jwnww74816db.png

    Had to be Loch Raven.

    Nope :) There's another little private high school up there on Concordia Drive... right across from Spiro Agnew's old house (when he was Baltimore Co. County Executive). I was the first alum to serve on its board of directors :)

    ahem. The place rebranded itself a coupla years ago*
    http://concordiaprepschool.org/

    :/

    _____________
    * Not unlike our son's UG alma mater, which was Western Maryland when I was a lad, but which became "McDaniel College" somewhere along the line. :|

    Perhaps amazingly, perhaps not....I've never heard of that one.
    Political Correctness'.........defined

    "A doctrine fostered by a delusional, illogical minority and rabidly promoted by an unscrupulous mainstream media, which holds forth the proposition that it is entirely possible to pick up a t-u-r-d by the clean end."

  • F1nutF1nut Posts: 41,412
    rooftop59 wrote: »
    I honestly have a hard time giving a rip. I mean, It’s another capitalist machine that couldn’t keep up with the times. Hasta la vista. They will be replaced (or rather already have been) by other capitalist machines. And on it goes...

    In a way, I feel sorry for you.
    Political Correctness'.........defined

    "A doctrine fostered by a delusional, illogical minority and rabidly promoted by an unscrupulous mainstream media, which holds forth the proposition that it is entirely possible to pick up a t-u-r-d by the clean end."

  • tonybtonyb Posts: 30,867
    rooftop59 wrote: »
    I honestly have a hard time giving a rip. I mean, It’s another capitalist machine that couldn’t keep up with the times. Hasta la vista. They will be replaced (or rather already have been) by other capitalist machines. And on it goes...

    Sounds like you have your panties all twisted about capitalists.

    Sears has been circling the drain for a very long time now, this is no surprise to anyone. Their leadership failed on so many levels. Plenty of other retail joints for those people to work at.
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  • rooftop59rooftop59 Posts: 5,242
    Tony, I haven't tried on the panties you sent me yet, so by definition they cannot be twisted...

    I am not completely against capitalism; I can't be, I own too much crap ;) But lets just call a spade a spade: the essence of capitalism is accumulation of wealth for its own sake. In the heyday of American capitalism, big companies (I'm not talking about mom and pop shops) thought that the best way to make money was to earn people's trust and make products that last. Once they made as much as they could with that model, they had to shift because they needed to accumulate more wealth. So globalization began in earnest (it had been going on since Adam Smith's day) and planned obsolescence (which had been going on since the 1950's) ratcheted into high gear. Then of course came the internet. Companies like Sears couldn't compete, so they die sooner or later. Simple as that. And the march goes on...
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    ;
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  • mhardy6647mhardy6647 Posts: 21,234
    edited October 2018
    F1nut wrote: »
    mhardy6647 wrote: »
    F1nut wrote: »
    mhardy6647 wrote: »
    heck, I miss Luskin's in Baltimore.
    Where Jack-you-know will save you dough!

    Perhaps because I went to high school almost literally in the shadow of the Big Luskin's up on the hill by Exit 29 on 695 :) I only remember buying two things from Luskin's... one of which I still have :p (a Zenith Circle of Sound clock radio).

    (we need a wistful smiley emoji)

    jwnww74816db.png

    Had to be Loch Raven.

    Nope :) There's another little private high school up there on Concordia Drive... right across from Spiro Agnew's old house (when he was Baltimore Co. County Executive). I was the first alum to serve on its board of directors :)

    ahem. The place rebranded itself a coupla years ago*
    http://concordiaprepschool.org/

    :/

    _____________
    * Not unlike our son's UG alma mater, which was Western Maryland when I was a lad, but which became "McDaniel College" somewhere along the line. :|

    Perhaps amazingly, perhaps not....I've never heard of that one.

    It was, and still is, pretty small. Been there since 1965, tho'. Prime bit of real estate, just on the north side of 695. Good school -- didn't teach about Moses and the dinosaurs or nothin' (at least when I was there) :)

    EDIT: unless you meant WMC/McDaniel :) That, too, is a pretty good little school. My son did well by them; his experience there helped him get a PhD in mathematics from UVA.
  • VR3VR3 Posts: 22,914
    Sears has stripped of its profit producing assets over the last ten years. The site were mere write offs while anything worth two cents was sold to the highest bidder....

    - Not Tom

    Vr3Mods.com ///// Version3Audio.com

    "No, that's silly talk. Dude, you can't possibly be this audio dumb so quit the act." - Doro
  • nooshinjohnnooshinjohn Posts: 19,917
    rooftop59 wrote: »
    Tony, I haven't tried on the panties you sent me yet, so by definition they cannot be twisted...

    I am not completely against capitalism; I can't be, I own too much crap ;) But lets just call a spade a spade: the essence of capitalism is accumulation of wealth for its own sake. In the heyday of American capitalism, big companies (I'm not talking about mom and pop shops) thought that the best way to make money was to earn people's trust and make products that last. Once they made as much as they could with that model, they had to shift because they needed to accumulate more wealth. So globalization began in earnest (it had been going on since Adam Smith's day) and planned obsolescence (which had been going on since the 1950's) ratcheted into high gear. Then of course came the internet. Companies like Sears couldn't compete, so they die sooner or later. Simple as that. And the march goes on...

    You know nothing about Capitalism...
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  • la2vegasla2vegas Posts: 3,306
    nooshinjohn wrote: »
    rooftop59 wrote: »
    Tony, I haven't tried on the panties you sent me yet, so by definition they cannot be twisted...

    I am not completely against capitalism; I can't be, I own too much crap ;) But lets just call a spade a spade: the essence of capitalism is accumulation of wealth for its own sake. In the heyday of American capitalism, big companies (I'm not talking about mom and pop shops) thought that the best way to make money was to earn people's trust and make products that last. Once they made as much as they could with that model, they had to shift because they needed to accumulate more wealth. So globalization began in earnest (it had been going on since Adam Smith's day) and planned obsolescence (which had been going on since the 1950's) ratcheted into high gear. Then of course came the internet. Companies like Sears couldn't compete, so they die sooner or later. Simple as that. And the march goes on...

    You know nothing about Capitalism...

    Apparently neither did Sears...
    2.3TL, 3.1TL, SRS 2, SDA 2B, SDA II,SDA 1C, 7B, 7C, 7 series 2, 10B, 5JR+, 5JR, 5A, 4.5, 4, RTA 11TL, RTA 8TL, RTA 8T, LSI9 Ebony, LSI7 EBONY, LSI7 CHERRY, LSIC, RTI A7, RTI A3, CSI A4, CSI A6, F/XI A4, RTI4. That's all for now.
  • nooshinjohnnooshinjohn Posts: 19,917
    edited October 2018
    But their leadership knew an awful lot about greed. There is a huge difference between Capitalism and Greed. Their CEO strip-mined the company and plundered it's assets with impunity, and never really tried to turn things around. The SEC should be looking into that, but they won't, because Edward Scott "Eddie" Lampert did just enough to skirt the law...

    Here is a picture of the clown for your Sears dart boards...

    akwiy56x5439.jpg


    The Gear... Carver "Statement" Mono-blocks, TriangleArt Reference SE with Pass Labs Xono Phono Preamp, Walker Precision Motor Drive, ClearAudio Goldfinger Diamond v2 cartridge and Origin Conquerer Mk3c tonearm, Polk Audio "Signature" Reference Series 1.2TL with complete mods, Pass Labs X0.2 three chassis preamp, PS Audio PerfectWave DAC MkII, Pioneer Elite SC-65, Oppo UDP-205 4K Blu-ray player, Sony XBR70x850B 4k, Polk audio AB700/800 "in-wall" surrounds.

    Saying that it's "too hard" to pursue your dreams is no different than admitting to yourself that you are too lazy to achieve them.

    “If it moves, tax it. If it keeps moving, regulate it. And if it stops moving, subsidize it.”
  • rooftop59rooftop59 Posts: 5,242
    nooshinjohn wrote: »
    rooftop59 wrote: »
    Tony, I haven't tried on the panties you sent me yet, so by definition they cannot be twisted...

    I am not completely against capitalism; I can't be, I own too much crap ;) But lets just call a spade a spade: the essence of capitalism is accumulation of wealth for its own sake. In the heyday of American capitalism, big companies (I'm not talking about mom and pop shops) thought that the best way to make money was to earn people's trust and make products that last. Once they made as much as they could with that model, they had to shift because they needed to accumulate more wealth. So globalization began in earnest (it had been going on since Adam Smith's day) and planned obsolescence (which had been going on since the 1950's) ratcheted into high gear. Then of course came the internet. Companies like Sears couldn't compete, so they die sooner or later. Simple as that. And the march goes on...

    You know nothing about Capitalism...

    Please illuminate me dear sir.
    HT Rig:
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    ;
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  • la2vegasla2vegas Posts: 3,306
    rooftop59 wrote: »
    nooshinjohn wrote: »
    rooftop59 wrote: »
    Tony, I haven't tried on the panties you sent me yet, so by definition they cannot be twisted...

    I am not completely against capitalism; I can't be, I own too much crap ;) But lets just call a spade a spade: the essence of capitalism is accumulation of wealth for its own sake. In the heyday of American capitalism, big companies (I'm not talking about mom and pop shops) thought that the best way to make money was to earn people's trust and make products that last. Once they made as much as they could with that model, they had to shift because they needed to accumulate more wealth. So globalization began in earnest (it had been going on since Adam Smith's day) and planned obsolescence (which had been going on since the 1950's) ratcheted into high gear. Then of course came the internet. Companies like Sears couldn't compete, so they die sooner or later. Simple as that. And the march goes on...

    You know nothing about Capitalism...

    Please illuminate me dear sir.

    Duh...prices go up.
    Duh...prices go down.
    Duh...duh...du....

    Is that enough or do you duh....need more? :D
    2.3TL, 3.1TL, SRS 2, SDA 2B, SDA II,SDA 1C, 7B, 7C, 7 series 2, 10B, 5JR+, 5JR, 5A, 4.5, 4, RTA 11TL, RTA 8TL, RTA 8T, LSI9 Ebony, LSI7 EBONY, LSI7 CHERRY, LSIC, RTI A7, RTI A3, CSI A4, CSI A6, F/XI A4, RTI4. That's all for now.
  • MilitoMilito Posts: 399
    edited October 2018
    Sad to see them go, but that can be blamed on management like the person (Eddie) shown above.
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  • mhardy6647mhardy6647 Posts: 21,234
    z5tmdo9t4ist.png
    5896816632_ef4d44a977_b.jpg1961 Sears: Tower 18A by Jussi, on Flickr
    5904731098_7254d2e8ba_b.jpg1961 Sears: Nikon SP, S3, Yashica YF by Jussi, on Flickr
    5904171317_78c028aa55_b.jpg1961 Sears: Tower 37, Nikkorex by Jussi, on Flickr
  • afterburntafterburnt Posts: 5,256
    I think the last time I was in a Sears store was more than ten years ago. I had to use the bathroom and find a torque wrench. Never did find the bathroom but I did find a lovely crock pot. They made me buy it or they were gonna prosecute.
  • afterburntafterburnt Posts: 5,256
    Seriously, I thought Sears and K-mart were fronts for something. They were always empty except for me, I was in there.
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