honestly, they need to get their act together, when you walk into any sears/kmart store, it's as if your back in the 80's. Their stores are dated and need a serious refresh. If only the company listened to it's consumer base and pumped money into the stores instead of their executives pockets

Or maybe, just maybe...

Am I the only one who thinks old-school department stores should wither away? Going in to Sears isn't fun, their prices aren't very good, and they don't have many products that I want.

The only thing I've bought from a Sears in the last 15 years is a vacuum cleaner, and they sold me the wrong accessories for it.

Bye, bye.

Edward S. Lampert made $1.02 billion, while his firm, ESL Investments, raked in a 69 percent return on investment, largely due to Lampert's deal-making in the merger of Kmart and Sears [www.wsws.org]

In ancient Japanese culture, a business man would plunge a dagger into himself and commit suicide rather than face public shame.

Oh yeah, it's the new millenium - the wealthy have no shame.

Here's what Sears plan should be:
Step 1: Good Customer Service
Step 2: Repeat Customers
Ster 3: Profit!

/the preceding comment was written by underwear gnomes

Fundamentally, I don't understand how Kmart is positioned to lose so much money. Unless their management is terribly shoddy, aren't they exactly the type of "Discount Retail Store" that should successfully compete against Walmart and big-box stores?

Sears seems more poised to suffer, if we're talking about the demographics if we're discussing "disposable income."

Kmart and Sears should just give it up and die. I haven't been satisfied with a shopping experience at either of them for at least a decade.

Die. They're in a death spiral.
1] Losing company A
2] Losing company B
3] Losing company A buys B
4] Synergy???

@SkokieGuy: You plunge a dagger into yourself next time you screw something up

I cringed every time I watched mad money and listed to Jim Cramer pump Sears Holdings.

Kmart should have been put to pasture they went bankrupt.

You need more players in the market place. I think kmart is more or less done. I think there is still room for sears. They just need to grab a really good executive or two from walmart and or target. To really get into peoples heads

@cubejockey: Yeah I thought Jim Cramer was nuts on this one too

@voteccow: Don't forget the patented K-Mart smell: one part mold to two parts dead rat.

I recently had a good experience at the Sears scratch-n-dent store, buying a HE washer and dryer. I know it sounds like the exception, but it was a good price, the installation went well, on the day it was supposed to. This was a few months ago and no problems so far.

I hope that Lands' End is not affected. That is one of my favorite stores.

growing up around Kmart in the 70s i loved the smell of popcorn when you walked in the door and the toy section.

@BloggyMcBlogBlog: shhhhhh.... stop telling our secrets!

It's kind of sad. Kmart looks trashy, but they have a lot of pretty good items, including surprisingly good furniture.

1. Stores look like they haven't had maintenance since the late 60s (many haven't).
2. Scarce employees either arrogant, timid, or in hiding (in stock rooms?).
3. Nothing in stock worth buying. Stuff that IS in stock is open/damaged and/or overpriced/priced wrong.

But then I have NO business degree to qualify these observations as possible problems.

@cubejockey:

I cringe when Jim Cramer says anything.

Isn't Sears Holdings still trying to be a pseudo hedge fund?

The mall in my town is anchored by a Sears and a K-Mart, if they go out of business, it'll kill that mall. Not that there's much worth saving among the other stores there.

I think what needs to go is Eddie Lampert.

He hasn't had a single idea that has worked, most have made things worse.

Does anyone remember when Sears bought Kmart? They were going to totally revamp a bunch of stores to make them relevant to today? They put new grey & black register counters, carts and bathroom stalls in our old 1960's era Kmart. But it still had the yellowed broken linoleum, light fixtures and everything else from when it opened. The place was falling apart and a filthy dump. The people that worked there were utterly apathetic. About a year later they closed that store in their consolidation. Now we have two smaller ones in the bad part of town and they both look like they barely survived a natural disaster.

I like Sears. I walk through the store ever time I go to the Mall. They ALWAYS have good parking at their end of the lot.

I used to like Sears. I used to shop at the Panama City Sears all the time.

Then my Craftsman ratcheting socket wrench stopped ratcheting and the idiot behind the counter wouldn't replace it because it "wasn't broken". I asked to speak to a manager and he said that it could still be used as a wrench, so therefore it wasn't broken and they wouldn't replace it.

Because they wouldn't replace a twelve-dollar wrench, I've taken my business to places like Lowes or Home Depot.

I haven't been in a K-Mart that wasn't a dump in the last 20 years. I haven't been in a Sears that wasn't painfully out of date and overpriced in the last 30 years. They deserve to go broke.

I think a lot of K-Mart's problem is that they picked shitty locations. A lot of the stores that I know of are in bad areas or derelict strip malls that were once thriving in the late 70s--mid 80s. Lipstick and Mascara aren't going to help these stores.

Case in point: There's a mall I grew up near called the MacDade mall. At one end is an Acme, at the other a KMart. When I was little, the place had a RadioShack, a Fashion Bug, a tobacco store, a leather store, a bank, a Payless Shoes, an Italian restaurant, a movie theatre, an arcade etc. All in a mall about 150 yards long. We used to go there because they had a hot dog stand that was fantastic. I went in there about 6 months ago for a hot dog. All of the stores were boarded up, except for an independent clothing shop, the Fashion Bug/Fashion Bug Plus/Fashion Bug Petite/Fashion Bug Girls "thing" and the bank at the other end. K-Mart is now the destination for that whole piece of real estate. There's a Ruby's, a Commerce Bank, and a Burger King in the front lot, but aside from the Acme, there's no other reason to go there.

Meanwhile, Walmart is putting stores up in affluent developments, next to Home Depots and Lowes, where shoppers have an abundance of reasons to be in that area. It's way easier to be out at Best Buy and make a stop at Walmart and Lowes than it is to trudge all the way out to Crackton to shop in the dimly lit, yellowed shelving-ed, dated K-Mart.

@jadenton: Touche'. I always park outside them too, where there are no other people.

Kmart has killed themselves. Half-assed remodels are not appealing to anyone. My local Kmart was okay, but they scaled back in hardware, sporting goods, and automotive for a large Sears appliance section! Whenever I am there I have never seen one person in that department besides a few commissioned employees milling about. I needed something simple for my car and of course they did not have it, so off to Wal-Mart I went.

While Wal-Mart isn't my favorite place to shop, at least they'll have more than one cashier on and the store is somewhat modern.

@bohemian:
You hit it on the nose!
Lampert, for some insane reason thinks he's a merchandising genius.
Why?
Who the hell knows. He apparently thinks that because he made a shitload of money in hedge funds, he's now qualified to run a giant retailer.
Kmart is just a disaster & Sears has suffered through one crazy CEO after another.

Based on their operation of their Chicago stores, Sears seems to have at least two warring camps in the executive offices.
For the last 25 years, they've been fighting over how to replace the aged, hopelessly out of date store on Lawrence Ave. The parking lot is a block away.
One plan after another has been announced & not one of them has been carried out.
That's the sign of a completely dysfunctional management team.

I also saw a blind item today about a large retailer deciding to close all its stores & go completely online.
That sure sounds like Sears & Kmart.
And it shows that Lampert is an idiot!

I agree with earlier posters. K-Mart needs to revamp their image. I think they can compete, but the store does take you back a few years when you walk in: Crowded isles, in your face displays, inefficient check out lines, overhead paging, muzak from 40 years ago. Come on - time to brighten up and fresh up. I usually go there when I don't want to deal with a lot of people - because there aren't that many customers compared to Wally World, Target or the others!

It seems like the place knows it needs to do something to survive, but just doesn't have a clue what they need to do.

Sam Walton cleaned Kreske's clock DECADES ago. It's a two store game today, Wal-Mart vs. Target. There are no other viable competitors; K-Mart is a twitching corpse IMHO.

Sears could be brought back from oblivion if only they brought back quality merchandise AND customer service. Without that combination, they are dust.

What really killed part of Sears was putting Craftsman tools in K-Mart. That brand has long been trusted and now it is a joke (to me at least). The real kicker is that they sell it at K-Mart but still charge Sears prices for it!

Here are some of my thoughts...
1) Both Sears and K-Mart have outdated stores
2) Both have more employees who could care less about helping you
3) K-Mart is NEVER clean. It always looks like a bomb went off in every aisle and they never stop to clean it up.
4) Location, location, location...always an issue. (DeeJay Queue is right on this one)
5) Both fail to offer value added services like free delivery, free shipping if you have your product delivered to a store via online purchase, etc...
6) No loyalty. Sears cut through their ranks years ago and shafted the majority of their long term labor force without remorse and in doing so they lost the respect of so many loyal shoppers (like myself) who had family or friends involved in this. With this latest issue it looks like K-Mart is going to take the same road.
7) They need a real shake up from the top down. Cut away the fat in management who are overpaid for nothing, cut prices and update your stores.
8) Poorly trained employees. Would it kill you to learn about the products your area covers???

Ugh...I could go on and on but it looks like we all share the same thoughts on this.

I haven't shopped in a K-Mart in years. My perception of them is that they are dirty and their merchandise is basically cheap stuff.

As to Sears - I go there a few times a year. BUT - only to get Land's End stuff on sale. I have no use for anything else there. Even that;s a hassle. There's usually only two people on a floor that's the size of half a football field to ring up your purchases.

The last time I went into SEARs the P.A. announcements were all in Spanish, not even with an English repeat. I felt like a foreigner in my own country. The place was dumpy and needed paint.

All I have to say is FUCKING DUH! They should have never bought K-Mart in the first place.

gee, good for them.....i'll really miss them both when they are gone.....

@B: Do you by any chance live in Galesburg, IL? The mall there is anchored by Sears, KMart, Penny's and Bergners (I think) - talk about a budding metropolis of retail bliss.

@WhoMee:

Yeah, I really enjoy buying my pants in the "Caballeros" section. The funny thing, in Santa Barbara, the Sears is the closest store to posh Hope Ranch, but the only people shopping/working there are spanish speakers.

Let's face it. Department store merchandise items are now commodities. I can get a nice $5 t-shirt or a decent $10 polo shirt at Old Navy, Target, Walmart, K-mart, or any of a half-dozen other stores. With similar prices and quality, the only differentiator is my shopping experience. Give me a clean store with convenient parking and a polite, helpful staff, and that's where I'll spend my time and money.
Years ago, I would have ranked K-mart as comparable to Target. But Target invested in an image; higher quality than Walmart and less expensive than JC Penneys. The only reason I've found to seek out a K-mart in the last 5 years was a battery promotion that yielded a gift card worth more than the batteries. Went through the line 5 times for that one. :-)

@mbz32190: Wow, what Walmart do you shop at? The few times I decide to slum and go into a Walmart, they have 473 lanes with exactly one cashier working. And 20 people in that line all with 600 items in their cart.

I haven't been inside of a K-Mart in.....12, 13 years? Something like that.

It's pretty sad when you have people, like myself, who only look through your weekly ad to see what you have on sale so you can price-match it elsewhere.

K-Mart bought Sears, not the other way around. Eddie Lampert was the Chairman of K-Mart Holding and now he is the chairman of Sears Holding. Both chains are sick, their new found synergy will just accelerate their end.

I could have sworn they already went bankrupt 6 years ago. Whatever happened to that?

I can bet costco is waiting till they go belly up and buy them at a cheap price and then we will all have a bunch of mini-costcos' lying around.

Good plan I say.

@SkokieGuy:

Maybe the dagger option is a bit much, but I agree that they have absolutely no shame and no sense of responsibility.

Zero accountability.

Sears buys KMart, both brands suffer, the stock suffers (here is the stock history - click on the one year tab: [quote.morningstar.com]

But management doesn't care.

Top management in so many companies make bonuses so out of proportion with any sort of performance and do so even when sales are close to non-existent.

It's like a sick joke.

Kudos to Target, they saw the tides changing and they decided they didn't want to be a just another crappy store.

I don't know what the deal is with Kmart or Sears. Or Blockbuster and Circuit City for that matter. By merging and maintaining the same crappy business practices things will magically get better?

Sears sucks, the only reason I would ever go there is if I couldn't find the item I was looking for anywhere else. And when I do go there I don't even bother to ask someone questions about my purchase, you have to be your own sales person in the store, since no one knows anything about the products they sell.

Someone needs to pull the plug on these vegetable companies if they don't want to try and compete.

P.S. Competition doesn't mean firing all of your experienced employees to save $2.50 an hour per employee in wages. Sure the accountants think it's a good idea, but the customers kind of need customer service at the end of the day. I'm look at you Circuit City.

@david_consumerist: I'll take a dozen of whatever you're selling.

@bohemian:
Kmart bought Sears.......not the other way. It was shortly after they came out of bk. Must be nice to be able to shed all that debt and then buy a then major retailer. If I was one of the companies who's debt was fogiven by the courts, I would have sued to stop the deal.

Anyway.....rumours are rampant that Walmart is in talks with Sears to carry Craftsmen soon. Very hush hush. If Sears could sell off Craftsmen but continue to sell them, they would survive for a little longer. But both Kmart and Sears are surviving in life support at this time.

Target is the only real competition to Walmart....both together killed off Kmart

It should be noted that it was Kmart that bought Sears, not Sears that bought Kmart. After the bankruptcy Eddie picked up Kmart on the cheap then he sold a lot of Kmart real estate to raise the cash to buy Sears. Why, I'll never know since he is destroying both banners. I worked in Hoffman and have lived the nightmare. The Sears Essential/Grand thing was a mess from the beginning. The Kmart remodels were an amazingly half-assed process that defied logic. The company lacks any senior leadership with retail experience and Eddie micromanages the whole thing - I've seen it firsthand. Now they have embarked on the most bizarre reorganization plan imaginable that will result in increased chaos by the end of the year. Thus, I sadly left a lot of coworkers I really liked because there was no leadership, direction or vision.

I do go to K-Mart from time to time because it's the closest to my house. If they do go belly up, I pray that Target swoops in and grabs the location - I would love to have a Target on my side of town.