Last week, department store chain Macy’s announced its holiday season results and its plans to close 40 stores in the coming months. Shoe retailer Finish Line announced plans to close 150 stores by the year 2020. Yet what you never hear about in the national news anymore is how many stores Sears Holdings, corporate parent of Sears and Kmart, is planning to close, even as they continue to shut down underperforming stores. [More]
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Fewer Middle-Class Consumers Means Fewer Midrange Mall Anchors
By 1.4.16
Just in time for the holiday shopping season, there was a deeply symbolic changeover at the King of Prussia mall in the suburbs of Philadelphia. What used to be a large Sears department store has assumed its final form: it’s part Dick’s Sporting Goods store and part Primark, a fast fashion retailer out of Ireland. That’s just one mall that demonstrates a trend: the institution of the anchor store is dying out in malls. [More]
24 Stories We Covered In 2015 That We Never Saw Coming
By 12.31.15
The following is a true story: One day, two Consumerist staffers were chatting about the work day. One said, “I can’t believe I’m writing about the legal ramifications of butt-dialing.” The other replied, “We should probably remember this conversation for a year-end story about things we didn’t expect to ever write in 2015.” A calendar alert was made, and our future selves were duly reminded. [More]
Sears Holds Members-Only Holiday Season Sale, Welcomes Anyone
By 11.13.15
For a while now, we’ve found something kind of confusing about communications that come from the parent company of Sears and Kmart, Sears Holdings. They refer to their customers as “members,” even though they are not a warehouse club and anyone can shop there. This holiday season, though, they’ve arranged a special members-only event: an exclusive sale the Sunday before Thanksgiving. [More]
‘Jimmy Kimmel Live’ Produces A Fake Commercial For Sears That Could Work
By 11.11.15
This may come as a surprise to some of you, but Sears still exists. For a while, we wondered whether it was an advanced anti-capitalist prank that only pretends to sell goods in exchange for money, and that may still be the case for corporate sibling Kmart. The writers of Jimmy Kimmel Live noticed this, and decided to help Sears out by making them a commercial. [More]
No, Sears Does Not Owe You A $700 Play House For $12
By 10.8.15
Shoppers noticed something amazing on Sears.com yesterday: kids’ accessories, toys, and play sets that cost hundreds of dollars were available for only $11.95 for no obvious reason. Parents, deal-hunters, and people who are both flocked to the website to fill up their carts with deeply discounted goodies. What happened next should be familiar to Consumerist readers: the amazing deal was a website glitch, and the orders were canceled. [More]
Man Takes $900 Worth Of Drills From Sears, Leaves Making Chicken Noises
By 9.25.15
One way to commit a crime is to create a distraction, and maybe that’s what a man at a Sears store in New Hampshire was trying to do when he allegedly filled a cart with power drills and made chicken noises when employees tried to stop him. He left the cart full of tools behind, but police would like to know his whereabouts. [More]
Sears Hires Experienced Consumer Appliance Executive To Run Hardlines, Maybe Sell Stuff
By 8.25.15
In a department or discount store, “hardlines” refers to tools, appliances, and furniture: the items that your parents still shop at Sears for, but that you don’t. Sears has hired a new executive in charge of their hardlines departments, which include the company’s three most important house brands: Kenmore appliances, Diehard automobile batteries, and Craftsman tools. [More]
Sears Holdings Reports First Profit Since 2012, Not From Actual Retailing
By 8.20.15
We’ve had a longtime joke here at Consumerist that Sears Holdings isn’t actually a retail company, but an advanced anti-capitalist prank pretending to run a retail company. We expected the company to either turn things around or go out of business. What’s happening instead is something that some retail observers had predicted: the company is profitable for the first time in years, but only because it sold a few hundred million dollars’ worth of stores. [More]
Sears Is Hiring For Its Call Centers, Holds Job Fair In Alabama
By 8.11.15
It may surprise you to learn that Sears Holdings, a company that has been shedding jobs as it slims down its retail presence, is giving hope to people who are unemployed, but it’s true. The company is hiring for 100 new positions at its call center in Alabama, explaining that the closure of physical stores means that some of those sales shift online. [More]
Walmart, Sears, Amazon & Other Retailers Agree Not To Sell Realistic-Looking Toy Guns In NY
By 8.3.15
Almost eight months after New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman sent cease-and-desist letters to several retailers including Amazon, Walmart, Sears and Kmart, those companies have agreed not to sell realistic-looking guns in the state. [More]
Lands’ End Still Making Its Way After Divorce From Sears
By 7.28.15
The new CEO of Lands’ End, who came to the company from high fashion brand Dolce & Gabbana, wasn’t a customer of the company before she went to work there because she wanted their classic basics for her own wardrobe. No, she shopped there to get her kid’s school uniforms. Now she’s leading the company into its future after the divorce from Sears Holdings. [More]
Sears Hometown Wants To Remind You That They’re Still Here
By 7.22.15
Hello, person on Sears mailing lists! Did you know that, even though your local Sears store may have closed, there’s still a Sears nearby? It’s true, in the form of a Sears Hometown store. Please come visit. [More]
Sears-Affiliated Real Estate Investment Trust Raises $1.6 Billion
By 7.7.15
If you’ve always secretly wanted to be the partial landlord of a Sears or Kmart store, you have some unusual and specific life goals. You can also achieve your goal as of this week. The real estate investment trust spun off from Sears Holdings, Seritage Growth Properties, is now selling shares to the public, and the offering has been successful so far, raising more than $1.6 billion. [More]
Amazon, eBay And Etsy Join List Of Retailers That Have Removed Confederate Battle Flag Items From Their Stores
By 6.23.15
Amazon, eBay and Etsy have joined fellow retailers Walmart and Sears in announcing that they’ve removed all merchandise featuring the Confederate battle flag from their stores. [More]
Sears Leadership Still Convinced That Rewards Program Will Save The Company
By 6.8.15
Shop Your Way Rewards is not a difficult program to join. The process consists of giving your e-mail address to a cashier at Sears or Kmart, and…that’s pretty much it. It doesn’t cost anything. Yet the leadership of Sears Holdings Corporation remains fixed on the program and the idea of having “members” rather than customers, and we still can’t figure out why. [More]
Sears Shareholders Sue, Claim CEO Is Stripping Company For Parts
By 6.1.15
For many years here at Consumerist, we developed a theory that the venerable department store Sears was secretly a vast anti-capitalist prank, which actively avoided selling merchandise. Its goal was something else: perhaps waiting for the retail real estate market to turn around and cash in the land and buildings that it owns. A group of Sears Holdings shareholders are starting to think the same thing, and they’ve filed a lawsuit against the company and its manifesto-writing CEO, Eddie Lampert. [More]
Sears Says Clothing Brand Breakup With Kardashians Was Mutual
By 5.6.15
Earlier this week, we sort of paid attention to celebrity news when we heard that the famous Kardashian sisters were ending their clothing line partnership with Sears because they didn’t want to be associated with the brand. That’s not so, Sears representatives said today: their split with the reality television stars was mutual. [More]
