Sears might be selling off brands, taking loans from its CEO, and ending relationships with long-standing partners, but that doesn’t mean it’s giving up just yet. In an apparent effort to strike a nostalgic chord with customers who remember flipping through the Sears catalog and flagging the things they wanted as gifts, the struggling department store chain is resurrecting its once-popular holiday Wish Book. [More]
Search results for: sears
Sears Stops Selling Whirlpool Appliances, Ending 100-Year Relationship
Sears, once the place to purchase home appliances, will soon have a smaller inventory to offer the few customers it has left: After a nearly century-long relationship, Sears and Whirlpool have cut ties. [More]
Waitress Accused Of Stealing Almost $500K From Regular Customer
Being a regular at a dining establishment can come with some perks; the servers knows what you like and you might even receive a free dessert here or there. But for one New York woman it also came with a rather big drawback: The waitress she befriended allegedly bilked her out of $500,000. [More]
Sears’ Former Second-Largest Shareholder Resigns From Board
When you own more than 25% of Sears, it gets you a seat on the retailers’ board of directors and gives you the opportunity to help steer the company in the right direction. So what does it say about Sears Holdings that its former second-largest investor has decided to liquidate the mutual fund that includes Sears, and vacate its seat at the table? [More]
Consumerist Friday Flickr Finds
Here are twelve of the best photos that readers added to the Consumerist Flickr Pool in the last three weeks, picked for usability in a Consumerist post or for just plain neatness. [More]
Owner Of Dozens Of Malls Says They Won’t Be Open On Thanksgiving This Year
Though many of the big box stores now open for Black Friday at some point on Thanksgiving, some retailers and mall owners have fought back against this trend. For the second year in a row, one of the nation’s largest mall operators has declared that its properties’ doors will remain shut this Thanksgiving. [More]
Bankrupt Sears Canada Asks Court For Permission To Liquidate, Shut Down
Like its American cousin, Sears Canada is in financial trouble. Unlike Sears Holdings, it doesn’t have a vast real estate portfolio that it can sell to raise cash. To that end, the company announced today that there is no way to keep the business going, and it will close all stores and liquidate. [More]
Sears Borrows Yet Another $100M (And Possibly $200M) From Its Own CEO
It hasn’t even been a year since Sears, the mall anchor store where there’s always plenty of parking, borrowed half a billion dollars from its own Chairman and CEO Eddie Lampert. Now the once-great retailer that’s living in a converted storage space above its parents’ garage while it sorts things out is borrowing another $100 million from Lampert, with a second $100 million loan possibly coming in just a matter of weeks. [More]
Get Ready For More Sketchy Seasonal Stores As Retail Vacancies Rise
If you’re a fan of those stores that come out of nowhere to sell a lot of Halloween costumes and Christmas ornaments only to be gone without a trace once a holiday passes, we’ve got great news for you! A decade-high level of retail bankruptcies and store closures means there’s still plenty of spaces at your local shopping centers for all manner of seasonal pop-up stores. [More]
New Clothing Line From Taco Bell and Forever21 Is Reason To Just Give Up
Imagine a world where humans are not only vessels for advertising multibillion-dollar global fast food chains, but where we’re expected to pay for that privilege. If that sounds good to you, then Taco Bell and Forever21 have some clothes they want you to buy. [More]
Maker Of Banana Costume Claims Kmart Is Ripping Off Its Design
I have never received as many high fives for a Halloween costume than the year a friend and I dressed as giant bananas with huge cartoon hands. But despite the ubiquity of these fruity outfits — as a simple Internet search will show you — the maker of one banana costume is accusing Kmart of dropping it as a vendor in order to sell its own alleged knockoff version. [More]
5 Things Amazon Should Remember As It Becomes Sears Circa 1926
As much as Amazon’s “Everything Store” approach might seem disruptive, particularly as the retailer branches out into supermarkets and physical stores, it’s not that different from what Sears did nearly a century ago as its wildly successful mail-order business transformed into a bricks-and-mortar mega-chain. The question is: Can Amazon keep from making the same mistakes that led to Sears’ fall from grace? [More]
While Traditional Retailers Falter, Why Are Off-Price Stores Still Doing Okay?
Store closings and retail bankruptcies aren’t bad news for the entire retail industry. While the current turmoil in the business of department stores, toy stores, and clothing stores is bad for those is bad for those chains, it’s great for off-price retailers like TJX, Ross Stores, and Burlington. [More]
Anthropologie Cancels Orders After Accidentally Listing $8,000 Couches For Free
A couch is a big investment — a really nice piece of furniture can cost thousands of dollars. So you can imagine how excited some shoppers were to find Anthropologie selling an $8,000 couch online for… nothing. Alas, that excitement was short-lived, after the company explained that it had all been a mistake. [More]
Mall Giant Sues Starbucks To Stop Planned Shutdown Of All Teavana Stores
Starbucks recently announced it would shut down all 379 locations of its boutique Teavana tea shops. Tea drinkers weren’t the only ones annoyed by the news. A huge shopping mall landlord whose properties currently house 1-in-5 Teavana stores is suing mad, taking Starbucks to court to halt the shutdown. [More]
Here Are The 28 Kmart Stores Closing Later This Year
Sears Holdings, the parent company of Kmart and Sears, shared in its most recent quarterly earnings report that it plans to close 28 more Kmart stores. The company saved the closures list for later in the day, and now we have it for you. [More]