I was in Management 599 at UGA in 1990 and our professor (Curtis E. ‘Case a Day’ Tate) brought Sears up the first day of class. He said ‘Sears just announced they’re laying off thousands of people nationwide to save money. Mostly salespeople. What does that tell you about Sears?’ A few students tried ‘they’re trying to reduce their overhead and can’t change fixed costs’ and similar answers. I said ‘they don’t know what in the Hell they’re doing in retail!’ and he agreed. ‘They’re firing the people who put the money into the registers!’. It was tge beginning of their slide. It’s a shame, but when you invented ‘shop at home’ with the catalog, you have little excuse when you went bankrupt by not realizing Amazon (and the www in general) is ‘shop at home 2.0’. Their products were always commodities, the brand’s success was how they provided them-first mail order, then big stores with everything. They never asked ‘where’d the customers go? They didn’t die, they didn’t quit buying socks and blue jeans, so where are they?’. Edward Lampert will be a great business class study in the future of hubris, arrogance, and good money after bad. Also proof that believing isn’t always enough. Patrick
I agree with this. Kodak (and Polaroid) both should have realized at the instant that the digital camera was invented, film was basically done. Neither could bring themselves to adapt to the new technology. Both are shells of their former selves.
In about 1980 we got a Kodak digital camera for work; at about 30K's it made polaroids look crisp and clear. Was instantly interfaced with a monochrome computer that was in its infancy as far as power plants were concerned. Same with Scotch Tape in clear; then it became the reel to reel (VHF and 8 tracks included) format in FeOx coated tape, then the world turned digital. I doubt Scotch makes CD's or DVD's either... With the advent of SIM's cards, all bets are off. I think the one in my camera is 45 megs and thats a ton of pics AND movies. Ive never used on up. ws
Where we going to return a Craftsman tools when they break? I remember when I lived in LA the Sears on Soto Street, I know how old it is, but it might be the oldest one
...Sears, where to start...they had it all...brand loyalty, home shopping, insurance, banking, credit cards, in-home services, etc. Current internet blab blames it on latest CEO, but those of us alive long enough started seeing it decades ago. Selling off established names, turning stores into yet another "brand name" store chain, all to satisfy stockholder expectations, until there no longer was a reason to buy there. Sears wasn't first and won't be the last icon to fall to current stockholder-centric business model...
Around here, Lowes and ACE Hardware have Craftsman now. The lone K-mart a few towns away has it, too.
Dont ever get rid of the boxes and bags that your craftsman tool set comes in. When one part breaks your going to need every piece in that set to get the one swapped out at a store.
Exactly. Kodak invented and had the patent for digital photography. Yet they gave it away (for free!) together with a Gentleman (forgot his name) who went to a small fruits Company (read Apple) which turned it into big success, effectively killing Kodak.
I bought a Kodak Digital camera; it was awful, after about the forth time I returned it for repairs and they said that they could find nothing wrong with it, I told them to just throw the damn thing away.
I still have Sears Kenmore appliances, they were good and they lasted. My first set of tools (they're all still around too) was Craftsman. They were also instrumental in starting my credit rating by being the first to issue me a credit card when I was first starting out. Sad to see they're gone.
At the time Kodak couldn't see a future in digital cameras, the computer industry was still too much in its infancy to make a good digital picture work. They would have had to build their own entire platform from scratch, which would have cost billions and there was no guarantee that it would even work. John's experience with a Kodak digital was the norm, not the exception, so they'd lost their shorts on the design. So in that regard their decision to shelve it wasn't wrong; they could have done what the Japanese did and wait until computer speed and technology caught up to their design and then run with it, but didn't. I cited in another post how the American watch industry did exactly the same thing; waited out it's own demise by selling off their competitive edge to the competition. This is what happens when the company becomes too much of an institution and fails to groom decent successors, - people with vision and drive. Instead they recruit and promote technocrats and bureaucrats, then with sheer inertia and incompetence they drive away anyone with a vision and the drive to succeed. Every large company, or bank and even government tends to go this way, it's how institutions go and die.
Ford was a major exception to the above post. After Henry's death his grandson was named to head the company. Henry Ford II was wise enough to know that he didn't know how to run a company of Ford's size. He went to MIT and several other schools as well as several major corporations to find people who did. This group was known as "the whiz kids." Ford went from losing big money during WW2 to profitability quite rapidly after Henry II took over from his grandfather who was in failing physical and mental health.
Since Sears didn't build their own appliances a person could maybe be satisfied by buying from Sears suppliers, Whirlpool etc. Bob H.
I heard that many appliance manufacturers would come up with a new design, style, whatever and release as Kenmoore to test the market. As time went on, people found out the the GE, HotPoint, Kenmoore etc were all made in the same factory.
A VERY CLOSE friend of mine who passed away on 8/17/2006 was almost made vice pres. of Ford back in the 40's, but got screwed out of it by II. He WAS a hell-of-a-guy. Worked with & knew the likes of Henry Ford, Louis Chevrolet & Walter P. Chrysler. The story's he used to tell!!!! When he was let go, he was also an electrical engineer, he went on to develop Lite-O-Lere. At the Pinnacle of his career he owned over a hundred companies. Do a search of the Keene Corp. I sure do miss him!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Tom T.
My dad always bought SK & Husky tools since the nearest Sears store was a hour and a half drive on a good day. OH sure there was a catolog store in town it kept closeing and reopening under a new owner till mid 1980 when they reopened it as a dollar store. We bought our clothes from JC Pennys, I wore their plain pocket Jeans for years. JC Pennys also had specilized catalogs, farm one for farm stuff, electronic one for TV's and CB radios and such Applinces catalogs also. We had a Out house on the Farm as a kid, the Sears catalog was handy in there also. My first encounter with crapsman tools came in the early 1980's when the company I worked for opened. Had a big meeting with all us grease monkeys and held a Vote on what tools to buy. The Winners was Sears Crapsman hand tools. Dewalt cord less tools, tried snap on air tools but were soon barred from coming in the shop because their power tools just didn't last and ther hoops to get them replaced they wanted us to jump thru. Kennedy tool boxes to hold it all. When I retired I was able to bring my tool box and work bench home. Not many Crapsman tools left in it, mostly have dads old Husky stuff and Kobalt stuff in it I've bought. I think Spegals were the first to go belly up, then Monkey wards Today sears and tomorrow JC pennys unless they change their ways as they are in deep caca now. I still carry a Kodak camera in my truck for the times I see some thing on the road and want a picture of. Bought it at Sams club as a display model in 2000 when my first grand child was born. Got a new one in 2001 with telaphoto lens for taking pictures of our bees and I could take hunting with me. Wife took it over. third one took over the job of the second one till the second one started having problems. I think the problems is it just needs a real good cleaning of the electronics. Today I use a Rebal T6. Al
There is actually a house down the road here that was purchase from Sears Roebuck as a kits and erected many many decades ago. It is still standing. A friggin house. Sears had its own tire and auto business. The Sears catalog you could use to ward off intruders, if you could lift it. Yeah no doubt they missed the boat on the technology era. Shame because that "Sears Tower" in Chicago, what the hell will they call it when Sears ultimately stops coming up for air? If you do not stay relevant in the market, how do you recover? There's already a generation they missed. Hold onto your old Sears stuff I have a feeling it might be worth something someday. I.E. glue guns, engine analyses equipment, drill presses (the old ones).
