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A comment on Sears has another chance to avoid closing down. Parent comment

Re:Sears has another chance to avoid closing down by ghaff on Tuesday January 08, 2019 @12:44PM (#18857552)
TBH, I think there's a much better case to be made for Sears doubling down on some of its core assets and creating Home Depot before Home Depot did. Its store footprints weren't right, which is no small thing. But they were already a significant home improvement and major appliance store. They probably had a window when it was clear that discount retailers (and some high-end stores) were the future of "department stores" and if they couldn't go there--which they probably couldn't--their future lay in focusing.
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Re:Sears has another chance to avoid closing down by bluGill on Tuesday January 08, 2019 @02:55PM (#18859023)
Note that Target stores have always been entirely owned by Dayton's department stores. Some years back they realized the department store was much smaller and changed the company name to Target but there was never a big shift, just lots of little shifts that turned the department store into the discount retailer.
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Re:Sears has another chance to avoid closing down by ghaff on Tuesday January 08, 2019 @03:38PM (#18859430)
Fair enough. My main point is that the fact that Sears once had a rather famous catalog business seems a fairly tenuous competence on which to base "They could have been Amazon." As you suggest, challenged as segments of retail are in general these days, Sears under different management could presumably have taken things in a number of different directions that wouldn't have resulted in it going bankrupt. Whether that meant Target, Home Depot, or some category that doesn't really exist today.
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Re:Sears has another chance to avoid closing down by Vivtek on Tuesday January 08, 2019 @01:33PM (#18858058)
They literally had the best tools in the world - my dad swore by Craftsman, told me never to bother buying any other brand. Then they threw it away on a demonstration of Randian philosophy.
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Re:Sears has another chance to avoid closing down by jessaustin on Tuesday January 08, 2019 @02:03PM (#18858431)
Even while our dads were swearing by Craftsman, better tools existed. You're right that Craftsman was good enough for most people's needs. Craftsman is still an OK brand for hand tools (not power tools). It was just easier to get Craftsman, because they sold it at a store that wasn't too far away. Back in the day you could only get Snap-On etc. if you were affiliated with e.g. a mechanic's shop that was on a Snap-On truck route. Now thanks to Amazon, Home Depot, etc. there are more ways to get quality tools.
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Re:Sears has another chance to avoid closing down by overcast on Tuesday January 08, 2019 @04:25PM (#18859856)
Snap-On may makes quality tools, but their prices reflect it. Unless you're actually a mechanic that uses those tools constantly, the prices are tremendously prohibitive. Enter Craftsman. Combined with the warranty, they were a FAR better deal with 90% of the quality.
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Re:Sears has another chance to avoid closing down by greedo on Tuesday January 08, 2019 @04:01PM (#18859653)
Sear's return policy for Craftsman pro tools was exceptional; lifetime warranty. If it broke, bring it in to exchange for a replacement.
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Re:Sears has another chance to avoid closing down by Broken_Hippo on Tuesday January 08, 2019 @04:19PM (#18859811)
I was just going to mention this! The warranty is the real reason my father had quite a few craftsman tools. Well, at least the ones he used the most, anyway.
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Re:Sears has another chance to avoid closing down by megaremote on Tuesday January 08, 2019 @05:51PM (#18860568)
This happens so often, I would not be surprised if it was a widely accepted business process. The MBA's come in and run a good brand into the ground. It happened a lot with bike brands.
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