Sears borrows $300 million from CEO

[storewanderer]

Went to Reno Sears. The store is now open just 11 AM to 8 PM. The mall is open 10 AM to 9 PM.

This store also did not participate in some kind of customer appreciation promotion a couple weeks ago where "members" were able to earn extra points (that will not be awarded until January) on purchases during the promotion. There was an odd list of 20-30 non-participating stores that did not make any geographic sense.

The store was featuring a promotion of all clearance clothing with green tag $1.99. Tons of plus size women's clothing is available and it is scatted all over the entire first floor. There is no rhyme or reason to how the clothing is merchandised on the first floor. Not much left at the $1.99 in men's and I did not look at kids. I found a t-shirt in men's which was pretty good and went to pay. The teenage male employee was stationed at the register and two teenage female employees were sitting on the opposite side of the cashwrap interacting with him. He stopped to help me. The employee asked me to enter my phone number on the pinpad, or select an option for e-mail look up or an option for enrollment (I declined all of these options). I hit cancel and the thing for the phone number would not go away on the pinpad. Meanwhile the employee scanned my shirt and the total came up. I told the employee I do not have a phone number to enter. He said the shirt is on sale $1.99 and that is the member price so I need to enter my phone number. I said to him you already scanned it, I did not enter my phone number, and it came up at the $1.99 without me entering anything. He let go of the phone number topic and then asked if I want to apply for a Sears card. He said I would get $20 back if I applied. I again declined. He tried again and I declined a second time. Finally he activated the pinpad and I was able to insert my credit card and the transaction processed quickly via Chip. One of the more difficult purchase experiences in recent memory.

I was still browsing the store at 7:58 PM when 90% of the lights in the store were shut off and an announcement was made "attention Sears Members the time is now 8 PM and our store is now closed."

[Alpha8472]

Sears employees hours are based on how many membership cards are scanned or used at the register. This makes employees desperate to get customers to type in a phone number or scan their membership cards. Opening a credit card is also something that corporate pushes on employees or else there will be consequences for employees. There is this air of fear, uncertainty, and doubt that just pervades the entire work experience. That is probably why so many people quit Sears. Sears likes this since they can hire part time people working for the lowest wage possible. More senior employees would have to be paid higher wages, so Sears wants them to quit to make room for entry level low wage new recruits. You can see 17 year old management employees, since there is no one else to do the job.

The company is just limping along. They are planning on shutting down piece by piece. Real estate will be sold off little by little to make a quick buck, and then the brands will be sold off, etc.

There are many stores that are not going to be around past January. Those are stores that are here just to get some Christmas sales, and then quietly close down. There is no need for points to be given out after January.

[storewanderer]

I suspect the Reno Sears is going to be closing and expect the store to be in liquidation in January. We will see. I am a little shocked; Sears has a long historical presence here (I guess many cities could say that) and as recently as a decade ago this was still a strong performing Sears Store with heavy traffic in appliances/hardware (seems to have slowed to a trickle) as well as a fairly brisk clothing business skewing toward a lot of hispanic customers purchasing children's clothing (not sure where they went but they sure aren't at Sears anymore).

[dcpeachy]

The massive clearance sale is consistent with what happened Spring 2016 at the Albuquerque, Coronado Center Sears. For a couple of months, they had an ongoing clearance sale throughout the clothing area. The discounts kept increasing, with an additional 60-70% off the lowest price at one point. At least 75% of the clothing area was clearance.

The next step, early Summer 2016, was the announcement of a downsizing of the store and construction had started. They tore down the freestanding auto center and paved over it as new parking. Sears is now down to about half of its original size, electronics has been eliminated, and one side of the store is being completely redeveloped into new mall space. The interior of the store is being totally remodeled and they're trying to make it look hip with cash registers hidden behind big white plaques and positioned in clusters to make them look less like cash registers.

This Sears store was the original mall and the reason for the whole place being built. However, it's also in a mall where the real estate is much more valuable as something else than it is as Sears.

[SamSpade]

Sears sold its Lloyd Center store to the mall developer. The corporation has held the property since 2000, as it was previously a JCPenney for several decades prior which closed in 1998.
The new owners say they will "repurpose" the space, just like they claimed they would do that after buying Nordstrom's anchor after its closure.
The Oregonian: Lloyd Center Sears sold, ice rink to reopen

[Super S]

Sears sold its Lloyd Center store to the mall developer. The corporation has held the property since 2000, as it was previously a JCPenney for several decades prior which closed in 1998.
The new owners say they will "repurpose" the space, just like they claimed they would do that after buying Nordstrom's anchor after its closure.
The Oregonian: Lloyd Center Sears sold, ice rink to reopen

It wouldn't surprise me to see this Sears close altogether. Something really just seemed "off" about the whole store the last several times I visited that one, among them large sections of shelves being empty in the tool area. It seems to be considerably smaller than the other Portland area stores.

This mall will really take a hit though if Macy's also leaves. Lloyd Center is one location where Macy's is not commenting on its future either way.

[storewanderer]

I think given the other closures in Oregon the Lloyd Center Macys should be safe. At least, safe for the time being. Who knows if Macys will keep closing rounds of stores every year after this or if this is the last big bunch. They may also be hedging their bets to see what comes of the center after the renovations.

Sears/Kmart is hopeless. I was in the Sparks, NV Kmart the other night. Not many customers but the impressive part is this store always manages to have customers at checkout regardless of how dead it may be (they are so slow...). I have not seen this many out of stocks ever, or shelves stocked in such a shallow manner ever, at Kmart, even before and during the bankruptcy filing and I was quite close to that situation back then. The food/cleaning/pet areas had literally hundreds of out of stocks and many more items with less than 4-5 pieces on the shelves. The motor oil department had less than two dozen containers of product total across all brands. Numerous out of stocks in the drug department as well.

The store manager and a few employees were busy setting up Christmas. Nice looking set; far better looking than Wal Mart or Target. It was 8 PM. The store manager was in jeans and not at all identifiable as a store employee (perhaps could pass for loss prevention had Sears/Kmart not eliminated that department) let alone the store manager. But I suppose, why care?

[Alpha8472]

I am not surprised that Kmart eliminated loss prevention. However, I was at a very busy and well kept Kmart when I heard "Code Shadow," being paged overhead. Is that the code where employees are supposed to follow suspected shoplifters? The Kmart was fully stocked and actually had quite a bit of merchandise that could be stolen.

[storewanderer]

No idea what Code Shadow is. I sometimes think these stores make up their own weird Codes. I was in a Walgreens this past week when the cashier (who looked about 16) ran a page that said "Code 21" when a customer came up to buy liquor. The assistant manager went over to complete that transaction.

[storewanderer]

I was in the Sparks Kmart today and the conditions continue to deteriorate. Conditions are bad, very bad. By far the worst I have ever seen in Kmart. Inventory levels are lower than back before the old publicly traded KM Corporation went bankrupt in the 00's. I also noticed they had installed wet floor signs and caution tapes and some locks around the emergency exit doors in the back corner of the store (by automotive) and in the front corner (drug/garden) presumably to stop people from running out the emergency exits with merchandise. Looks like a fire hazard to me. Another spot where a bucket was on the floor and a ceiling tile missing, and the surrounding tiles all waterlogged.

The store had 3 checkouts open mid day today, mostly small transactions.

I will also make the comment the store still has a nice selection of 4th of July Patriotic items and Halloween items selling at full price. The Christmas Department has less merchandise now than it had three weeks after Christmas last year. Clearly they are carefully allocating inventory and this store is not getting much...