Sounds like Sears should just fold...

-- Dave

There was maybe five customers in the entire store.  Odd for a K-Mart, there were quite a few employees running around stocking and rearranging.

One thing of notice, the pharmacy is gone, and the electronics section is gone save for a few display TVs that had not sold.  Lots and lots of stuff in the isles to where you could hardly get the cart through. 

I could hear the dinosaur's death rattle.

Prediction to Watch:

 My brother was telling me from inside information that Wal-Mart will be closing quite a few stores after the new year.  With online so dominate any more there is just not the volume of foot traffic to justify the brick and mortar stores that are so expensive to keep inventory, stock, and staff. Not to mention maintenance, and utility costs. 

They began treating their employees like dirt and, surprise, surprise, they're going down the same road as Circuit City.

Our local K-Mart has a young (cute, too) manager who treats his staff well. They have discretionary powers absolutely unheard of at other K-Marts. Great sales, clean store, well-stocked and friendly.

Our local Sears is a hell-hole from Calcutta in which I refuse to set a foot. Went there with friend to buy tires a few years back. They told her they don't carry parts for 'them thar' foreign cars'. Literally.

Lousy management, lousy employees, dirty store - no way in Hell I'll ever buy anything from them when the K-Mart right around the corner can get me the same products in 24 hour turn-around. Oh, yeah - they go to the local distribution warehouse for their Sears' products because the local Sears store intentionally sends them damaged goods or lies and says the don't have products in inventory which they have.

Once upon a time, Sears had great products at good prices. Today, they're a mess.

Change asinine company policies, a local manager sure can and does make the difference between clean and pleasant and dirty and mean-spirited.

An on the ball manager (as is ours here at K-Mart) can also leverage what little discretion they do have to improve sales.

I was just finishing a bid on a largish project yesterday when a good client called. Could I help her break into one of their properties? Tenants had changed the locks then left and she had to check for frozen pipes (we've warmed up, only -15 F the night before).

Now, my normal procedure is:

1) I let the client know (got a written form for it and they sign in advance) about liability, damage, etc.

2) Call the cops in advance so I don't get shot when some nosy-parker turns me in (and there's always one, even on the prairie).

3) Charge solidly for it - local lockshops charge $300, plus new locks. I don't go that high, but you're gonna pay for me to fall in through your window or whatever.

So, I get out to her and she's half-froze, 11 months pregnant with twin cows and her car won't start. I put her in my car, walk around the house, find a window unlocked and bob's your auntie.

No frozen pipes.

And, no bill. It's called customer service. Generating that intangible (and, to CFO's, unthinkable) thing called: Goodwill.

She ends the year with me happy and I end the year with a good, paying customer knowing I'll be there in a pinch.

This is what I meant about local discretion. It can't cover for a rotten company, Sears is beyond hope, but it can enhance customer loyalty - another word for profit.

I'm trying to remember the last time I went shopping at Sears. It's been more than 10 years since I think I bought anything there (and I bought a screwdriver I couldn't find easily elsewhere). I think I've browsed the store a few times, but I end up feeling that I can do as well or better elsewhere.

This is not new. It's interesting, but my parents must have shopped at Sears at least a few times, since a washer and dryer came from there. But later on, Sears was just not part of the routine shopping experience. I think I recall my mother going there a couple of times ca. 1990. It was funny, but I remember my mother telling the clerk how great the old Kenmore washer was. And then, later, privately admitting to me she really had no interest in ever buying a new washer from Sears.

You'll probably be happier with that Kenmore, anyway, unless you had the budget for really high end European...

I lived somewhere about 10 years ago with a WP DW made probably about 1990. Older than your unit. But even though it was BOL, it was was pretty decent. It didn't have the solid build you get from older dishwashers, but it was far less flimsy feeling than what's at Home Depot now. And it washed well. No washing dishes in the sink before washing them in the DW. And I got these results with a "Light" wash setting. (This merely skipped one wash period with detergent at the start.) People cringed at this...but the light wash did the job as far as I could tell.