After being refreshingly candid in its annual report, admitting that there is a lot of “doubt” about its ability to remain afloat in the long run, Sears Holdings is now doing an about-face, with its chief financial officer assigned to handle damage control. Get your “Sears Holdings Corporate Announcement Bingo card” ready. [More]
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Sears Holdings Admits: Yep, We’re Probably Doomed
By 3.22.17 — Updated: 5.9.17
Like a chess player who realizes their only chance of not losing is a tornado that whisks the table away, Sears Holdings is now making it clear to investors that there’s a good chance the company won’t be around much longer. [More]
Sears CEO Tells Employees Things Look Great After Losing $2.2 Billion In 2016
By 3.9.17 — Updated: 5.10.17
Years ago, Sears Holdings chairman Eddie Lampert came to our attention by publishing a 15-page manifesto about pretty much everything. Since then, Lampert has taken on the job of CEO, despite not having any experience in the retail business and having what at times seems like an active dislike of the retail business. He periodically issues mini-manifestos for employees and for the public about how everything is fine, and published another this morning. [More]
Sears Tries Combining DieHard Brand With Auto Centers
By 2.21.17
Last year, Sears Holdings announced that it would begin looking for new ways to extract money from its best-known store brands: Kenmore, Craftsman, and DieHard. So far, its efforts have included Kenmore televisions, DieHard tires, and selling the entire Craftsman brand. Now it’s lending the DieHard name to a new version of its Auto Center. [More]
Sears Holdings Outlines New Plan To Escape Death Spiral
By 2.10.17
Everyone except chairman and CEO Eddie Lampert thinks that Sears Holdings is in an inescapable death spiral, as the company sells its brands and real estate and lays off employees. Today, the company outlined plans for the near future that are more of the same: selling more real estate, selling off more key Sears brands, and depending on the Shop Your Way rewards program and e-commerce when the customers it still has aren’t especially interested in either. [More]
7 Things We Learned About Sears Holdings’ Apparent Death Spiral
By 1.9.17
According to Eddie Lampert, CEO and Chairman of Sears Holdings, the company is in the middle of a “transformation” into a profitable enterprise that integrates online and offline retail. Yet everyone from former high-ranking executives to anyone who has ever set foot in a Kmart says the retailer is in an inescapable death spiral. [More]
Sears And Kmart Announce 150 Store Closures, Including The First Kmart
By 1.5.17
Last week, we shared a list of Kmart and Sears stores that we were able to confirm would be closing this spring. The list just grew, reaching a total of 108 Kmart locations and 42 Sears locations that will begin their store-closing sales this week. [More]
Sears Borrows Another $500 Million From Its CEO Until It Can Sell More Stores
By 1.4.17
Sears Holdings, the parent company of Sears and Kmart, has lost billions of dollars in the last few years. The last time that it did turn a profit, it was because the company had just sold a few billion dollars’ worth of store buildings to its affiliated real estate investment trust. Now the company is borrowing some cash from its CEO in anticipation of raising more money the same way. [More]
Sears And Kmart Pretend To Run A Retail Business For Another Quarter
By 12.8.16
Sears Holdings, the company that owns Sears and Kmart, is focused on “restoring profitability,” but so far the only method that the massive department store chain has found to do that since 2012 is by selling its stores to an affiliated real estate investment trust. Sears has a lot more real estate to sell, and could keep this charade up for a while yet. Will it? [More]
Report: Suppliers Starting To Cut Sales To Sears And Kmart
By 11.9.16 — Updated: 5.25.17
Retailers’ shelves and warehouses are stocked up for the holiday season, but suppliers are reportedly holding back from the stores belonging to one company. Sears Holdings, the parent company of Sears and Kmart, reportedly is having shipments to its stores cut by suppliers, who don’t want to be stuck with the bill if the company files abruptly for bankruptcy protection. [More]
Sears Tries Giving Away Rewards Points With Branded Credit Card
By 10.26.16
Sears Holdings, parent company of Kmart and Sears, is depending on the company’s Shop Your Way rewards program to save the company. It is a very nice rewards program, but is it enough to get customers to spend? Don’t most store cards come with special rewards or discounts? [More]
Other Tool Companies Interested In Buying Craftsman
By 10.4.16
The legend says that 89 years ago, the head of hardware at Sears Roebuck really liked the name Craftsman, and bought the trademark from an existing tool company for $500 ($6,921 in 2016 dollars). Today, parent company Sears Holdings is troubled and in need of a cash infusion, and has quietly solicited bids for Craftsman. It’s reportedly worth around $2 billion. [More]
Sears Holdings CEO Blogs: Kmart Is Doing Just Fine, Thanks
By 10.3.16 — Updated: 11.10.16
Sears Holdings chairman, CEO, and chief manifesto-writer Eddie Lampert wants shoppers like you and writers like us to know something very important: Kmart is doing just fine. It has some stores that are profitable, and the retailer is continuing its turnaround plan and the “transformation” of its business into something with fewer stores and more online sales. [More]
Moody’s Is Kind Of Worried About Sears Holdings, Especially Kmart
By 9.14.16
While Sears Holdings keeps trudging along its alleged “path to profitability,” Moody’s Investors Service has some doubts about the retailer’s prospects, and has downgraded its liquidity rating. That means that its analysts are concerned about the ability of Sears Holdings to keep its doors open and merchandise on the shelves. [More]
Kmart Holds ‘Grand Re-Opening’ For Millennial-Focused Illinois Store
By 8.31.16
What do millennials––a generation loosely defined as “anyone younger than Consumerist’s senior staff”––want from the physical stores that they still visit? Discount chain Kmart hopes to solve that mystery, re-opening an existing store near its headquarters as a “revitalized and refreshed” concept store intended to attract younger shoppers. [More]
Kmart Realizes Maybe It Should Try Communicating With Its Own Employees
By 7.29.16
Last weekend, a story hit the Internet about the current fears of Kmart employees that they’re being asked to move all stock to the sales floor because the company is in slow-motion liquidation. The communications staff at Kmart’s parent company, Sears Holdings, realized that they had to do something when news outlets began sending them questons about the employees’ accounts. Maybe they also needed to communicate a little better with store employees. [More]
Kmart: Stockroom Purges Are About Efficiency, Making Employees’ Jobs Easier
By 7.26.16
Kmart is not pleased with recent news reports about the chain’s imminent doom, and today posted a blog post of its own in response. The prediction of fearful employees that the chain is about to shut down is inaccurate, the chain’s leaders say, and the stockroom purges aren’t a first step toward liquidation. [More]
Sears Holdings Cares More About Wall Street Than About Customers, And That’s Why It’s Doomed
By 6.16.16
Eddie Lampert, the manifesto-writing hedge fund manager who runs Sears Holdings, the company that owns Sears and Kmart, doesn’t understand retail. That’s isn’t always a bad thing in a manager: sometimes leaders with fresh perspective bring in fresh ideas. For Sears and Kmart, it’s meant over a decade of no investment in the company and the slowest liquidation and dismantling in retail history. [More]
