Retail Watchers

The outlet stores are so hit or miss with what they carry though. Some have a little of everything while others are pretty much appliances only. They don't seem to ever have much in the way of tools though. This could be because of how many service centers have disappeared. The outlets used to carry quite a bit of repaired/reconditioned stuff at a lower cost.

Honestly, isn't an employee discount one of the *few* benefits of retail? In my years it was only 10% and you had to buy on the company charge card, but still. . .
Sears to replace employee discount program with new points program

Sears spin on the matter: https://blog.searsholdings.com/inside-s ... s-program/

They sold off Craftsman which eliminated one of the few reasons left to go to Sears. Now they are ramming Shop Your Way down the throats of the employees which will push some to shop elsewhere. I wonder how long it will be before Lampert gets the idea to charge a membership fee since he already thinks Sears and Kmart qualify as membership stores. I would not put that past him at this point.

Super S wrote:They sold off Craftsman which eliminated one of the few reasons left to go to Sears. Now they are ramming Shop Your Way down the throats of the employees which will push some to shop elsewhere. I wonder how long it will be before Lampert gets the idea to charge a membership fee since he already thinks Sears and Kmart qualify as membership stores. I would not put that past him at this point.

This is one of the dumbest things I have ever heard. Then again, at the time of the merger I said "Sears + KMart does not equal SMart."

I think turning them into membership stores with a membership fee is a great idea. At this point, it is time to just let this go. Adding a membership fee would simply make customer counts drop so far that they likely could not sustain operations for even a few weeks.

They would, however, need to end the membership requirement once the liquidation sales start.

I cannot even believe they have just tied employee discount to the points program. And with a 30 day expiration? Seriously? Come on. It was only a 10% discount and only on regular price items. And as it was you had to pay it with cash, debit, or Sears Card. They have always been a bit strange about the employee discount. Kmart used to extend its employee discount to distribution center employees; soon after the Sears merger, they took that benefit away from the distribution center employees, but told them they should still shop at Kmart to support their employer. The other change that was made under Sears was the Kmart discount required you to pay with cash, debit, or Sears Card (no more using a third party credit card like Visa, MasterCard, etc.). Their hope was to get people making large purchases like appliances to sign up for a Sears Card.

Went to the Willowbrook Mall (Houston) Sears today and noticed that they were advertising that Sears Portrait Studio was back (now with Picture People), and the store was reasonably stocked and merchandised (looked pretty nice, better than the local store which is starkly merchandised and almost looks like it's beginning liquidation sales itself). The store was basically arranged so that there were two halves, the clothing half in the mall side, and the hardware/electronics in the other half closer to the parking lot. Probably still too late to save the company at this point, but I wonder if they could spin off the "better" stores to Sears Hometown and have independent operators use them.

Another wave of closures is coming to Sears and Kmart. Here are some more stores on the list.

https://uk.news.yahoo.com/sears-quietly ... 16661.html

If memory serves, that E. Stroudsburg, Pa. K-Mart was a former Grants location they took over almost immediately after they folded in 1976.

And....the slow death continues with news that 50 Sears Auto Centers and 92 Kmart Pharmacies will be shuttered.

http://www.upi.com/Top_News/US/2017/04/ ... 492895751/

And now their CFO is leaving after 7 months

http://www.retaildive.com/news/amid-res ... ail%20Dive