Sears Hometown files for bankruptcy

Predicting the demise of Sears & Kmart since 2017!
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cathandler
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Sears Hometown files for bankruptcy

Post by cathandler »

It appears the local store owners will be left holding the bag with nothing left to sell
https://archive.ph/O6d0p
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Re: Sears Hometown files for bankruptcy

Post by storewanderer »

cathandler wrote: December 12th, 2022, 9:29 pm It appears the local store owners will be left holding the bag with nothing left to sell
https://archive.ph/O6d0p
They haven't had much to sell for a while. The lack of inventory is why they are down to just 121 dealer stores. This is the first time in a while we have seen them give a store count for anything.

What is odd is I thought they had brought Dealer Stores back under Transformco. The way this reads they were still separate, but they were being controlled by Eddie.

Earlier in 2022 when Dealer Stores closed many Corporate Operated Dealer Stores I had a feeling this was going to happen.
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Re: Sears Hometown files for bankruptcy

Post by norcalriteaidclerk »

https://www.prnewswire.com/news-release ... 09960.html

We can now stick a fork in the hometown stores.I must note that the last Google Maps review for the Auburn location(across 49 from the Auburn Thrifty)was at least months if not years ago.Only real competitor there is home Depot further up 49(across from the center with the Bell road Payless and former k-mart which mercifully has since been subdivided instead of being snapped up by wmt).

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Last edited by norcalriteaidclerk on December 27th, 2022, 7:30 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Sears Hometown files for bankruptcy

Post by pseudo3d »

So what about the Sears Hometown stores that weren't operated by Eddie? The Corsicana, Texas store was one. Can't imagine this going anywhere without some sort of lawsuits, alternative merchandise stream, or rebrands of existing stores.
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Re: Sears Hometown files for bankruptcy

Post by norcalriteaidclerk »

https://www.bizjournals.com/sacramento/ ... uptcy.html

I know Home Depot is further up 49,but I wonder if Auburn has an Ace hardware franchise as well.

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Re: Sears Hometown files for bankruptcy

Post by storewanderer »

pseudo3d wrote: December 27th, 2022, 7:36 pm So what about the Sears Hometown stores that weren't operated by Eddie? The Corsicana, Texas store was one. Can't imagine this going anywhere without some sort of lawsuits, alternative merchandise stream, or rebrands of existing stores.
All are closing. They were all notified by Sears that they must close. Sears will no longer provide inventory or support them. They will have to remove the Sears signs and quit using the Sears name when Sears determines the liquidation sale is done. I wonder who will pay for sign removal- probably the poor dealer. At these stores even with independent "owners" Sears consigned them all of the inventory, controlled their point of sale/payment processing, etc. What is interesting here is these dealers owned their own delivery trucks and install equipment, that part of their operation was not controlled by Sears...

Some dealers were ordered to close immediately and Sears came and took their inventory. Other dealers are going through the liquidation sale process being managed by Sears (since the inventory is property of Sears). It is unclear how they selected which close immediately and which go through liquidation sale.

Other thing I wonder is if I am a Sears Dealer and I have a lease on a building, can I let Sears do this liquidation sale then open up my own independent appliance/hardware store in the building? After all, I am tied into a lease. What do I do? Do I have to make my dealer store LLC go bankrupt in order to get out of the lease? It seems to me if I have a space, and if I have delivery trucks, I could open an independent appliance store in the space and see how that works out. With as big of a mess as Sears has been lately, I have to think these folks who have been able to keep their dealer stores open this long, must be excellent salespeople.
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Re: Sears Hometown files for bankruptcy

Post by Super S »

storewanderer wrote: December 31st, 2022, 12:03 am
pseudo3d wrote: December 27th, 2022, 7:36 pm So what about the Sears Hometown stores that weren't operated by Eddie? The Corsicana, Texas store was one. Can't imagine this going anywhere without some sort of lawsuits, alternative merchandise stream, or rebrands of existing stores.
All are closing. They were all notified by Sears that they must close. Sears will no longer provide inventory or support them. They will have to remove the Sears signs and quit using the Sears name when Sears determines the liquidation sale is done. I wonder who will pay for sign removal- probably the poor dealer. At these stores even with independent "owners" Sears consigned them all of the inventory, controlled their point of sale/payment processing, etc. What is interesting here is these dealers owned their own delivery trucks and install equipment, that part of their operation was not controlled by Sears...

Some dealers were ordered to close immediately and Sears came and took their inventory. Other dealers are going through the liquidation sale process being managed by Sears (since the inventory is property of Sears). It is unclear how they selected which close immediately and which go through liquidation sale.

Other thing I wonder is if I am a Sears Dealer and I have a lease on a building, can I let Sears do this liquidation sale then open up my own independent appliance/hardware store in the building? After all, I am tied into a lease. What do I do? Do I have to make my dealer store LLC go bankrupt in order to get out of the lease? It seems to me if I have a space, and if I have delivery trucks, I could open an independent appliance store in the space and see how that works out. With as big of a mess as Sears has been lately, I have to think these folks who have been able to keep their dealer stores open this long, must be excellent salespeople.
Sign removal has not been a priority for the regular Sears stores that have closed. As of a week ago signage is still in place on the closed store in Lacey, WA, although some construction is taking place on the building. I also know that signage was still in place in Puyallup a few months back. Early on, Sears and Kmart moved quickly to remove signs, sometimes the day after closing. There are other Sears and Kmart stores from more recent waves of closures where signs just stay in place until the building gets another tenant, or is demolished.
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Re: Sears Hometown files for bankruptcy

Post by storewanderer »

Super S wrote: December 31st, 2022, 7:39 am

Sign removal has not been a priority for the regular Sears stores that have closed. As of a week ago signage is still in place on the closed store in Lacey, WA, although some construction is taking place on the building. I also know that signage was still in place in Puyallup a few months back. Early on, Sears and Kmart moved quickly to remove signs, sometimes the day after closing. There are other Sears and Kmart stores from more recent waves of closures where signs just stay in place until the building gets another tenant, or is demolished.
Somehow I suspect landlords and Sears will hardball these dealer store owners into paying for sign removal.

It will be another one of those things where a big corporation (okay maybe they aren't so big anymore), Sears, doesn't bother to remove signs. But when a store run by an independent one unit business (dealer) closes, someone (be it Sears or the landlord) will threaten legal action etc. against the little independent dealer store owner who has just been thrown out of business and they will be intimidated to call someone out and pay sign removal. I also wonder if Sears will arrange for sign removal itself and just take the cost of that out of commissions due to the dealer for liquidation sales.

All of the Sears dealer units I've seen that have closed that were run by individual dealers have removed their signs promptly upon closing. However some of the corporate run Sears dealer locations that closed over the summer still have signs up.
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