Joined: 09 Feb 2008
Posts: 1292
Location: Brand Central
| Posted: Wed Aug 06, 2008 5:41 am Post subject: question: how many of you | |
|
I remember reading SHLD was the 3rd largest retailer in the US after Walmart and Home Depot
But the investor webite says 4th... so, who slipped in there and dropped Sears a place rank? |
|
Joined: 06 Jul 2003
Posts: 7087
Location: Central CA
| Posted: Wed Aug 06, 2008 6:23 am Post subject: | |
Kroger... and yeah, grocery stores are retailers. 
Edit: Actually Sears may still be third or fourth in size or number of stores but in sales it's been a different picture for a while now. Based on billions of dollars in sales, a search turns up the following on several sites and a couple of others had Sears at #8. Seems the current regime has done more harm than we thought. Top Ten US Retailers 1. Wal-Mart $288.2 2. Home Depot $73.1 3. Kroger $56.4 4. Costco $47.1 5. Target $46.8 6. Albertsons $39.9 7. Walgreens $37.5 8. Lowe's $36.5 9. Sears $36.1 10. Safeway $35.8 |
|
Joined: 09 Feb 2008
Posts: 1292
Location: Brand Central
| Posted: Wed Aug 06, 2008 2:18 pm Post subject: | |
|
OK - many lists you see leave the grocers out and refer to the 'broadline' retailers as a category... and thats what I was looking for, thanks ... but still, to have dropped from 55 billion to...36.1?
oooouuuuuch. Still, that would place Sears behind Walmart, Home Depot, Target & Lowe's We're #5 then... guess its time to update the website once more. |
|
Joined: 06 Jul 2003
Posts: 7087
Location: Central CA
| Posted: Wed Aug 06, 2008 2:30 pm Post subject: | |
|
There's no way Sears could have continued to lose sales the way it has... some estimates have put the decrease at between 40 and 50% since the decline became firmly entrenched about ten years ago and it does seem to average roughly 3.5-4% annually... and maintained any kind of position on any of these lists.
In terms of sales, customer base and now actual profits, the words, "Sears Holding Company", are just a long drawn out way to say "FAIL". The only question for me is how much of this "failure" has been deliberate. The decline started when the "money types" took over and it certainly accelerated when Lampert, one of the ULTIMATE moneychangers and the current BOD became involved. I've always been forced to wonder how much of the decline and fall of an icon, if I can wax a tad poetic here, is due to the "get in, grab everything you can and get out." mentality that has seemed to govern big business in this country for about the last two decades. |
|
Joined: 05 Dec 2007
Posts: 280
| Posted: Wed Aug 06, 2008 5:31 pm Post subject: | |
|
Krogers..... I only shop there when I can't find anything and that isn't often.
Krogers is so high on prices I just can't see how people shop there. I shopped at Krogers and another food store and I saved 40 bucks at the other store buying the same food off brands and brand names. |
|
Joined: 27 Mar 2006
Posts: 224
Location: east of the Mississippi and north of the Ohio
| Posted: Thu Aug 07, 2008 3:48 pm Post subject: | |||||
nofs, I wasn't going to post this, but it seems to tie in with your point. The author has previous connections with Kmart. LT 
Sears and Kmart defy bottomline gravity
|
|||||
Joined: 08 Jul 2003
Posts: 5005
| Posted: Thu Aug 07, 2008 4:08 pm Post subject: double digits | |
|
Nice pull LT
I disagree somewhat with the article in that things like the double digit declines slowing down.Kmart's double digit declines might be slowing but Sears are hanging around them more and more. Throw in Sears slow but steady decline in appliance share Eddie looses his profitable category-less pa sales. I still see some Eddie worship that isn't justified.Fewer sales at higher profit???.They lost money last quarter and all indications are this one will be the same.And Eddie along with the Sears Roebuck crew that decided to ignore or exit those not as profitable assortments FAIL to realize you need them just for a draw.Sorta like you need a side of veggies for a complete meal. |
|
Joined: 28 Apr 2005
Posts: 1718
| Posted: Thu Aug 07, 2008 4:20 pm Post subject: | |
|
"Now in his role as president of MaxImpact, Rick uses his vast experience helping individuals connect to their dreams and teams connect to a common vision".
Maybe he can help people connect to their dreams since he's in a dream world himself. Lampert is growing the company? Apparently the guy hasn't been paying attention to the news over the last year. Sales are down, profits are down, market share is down, the stock is down. What exactly is it Lampert is growing, other than his own bank account? Lampert isn't just trying to rewrite the rules of a particular business. He's trying to rewrite basic economics. Not selling enough in a competitive environment? Well let's just raise the prices, alienate all the employees, quit advertising, stop investing in the stores. That will surely bring in the high profit customers.
|
|
Joined: 20 Apr 2005
Posts: 1069
| Posted: Fri Aug 08, 2008 1:40 am Post subject: | |||
|
|||
Joined: 26 Aug 2005
Posts: 1454
| Posted: Fri Aug 08, 2008 2:38 am Post subject: | |
|
Has anyone seen a break out of brick & mortar sales vs. dotcom sales?
Inquiring minds want to know. |
|
Joined: 22 Jul 2008
Posts: 204
Location: HELL
| Posted: Fri Aug 08, 2008 3:10 am Post subject: | |
Hell the whole system was down for hours this evening; so I can say all areas are minus zero today! 
|
|
Joined: 06 Jul 2003
Posts: 7087
Location: Central CA
| Posted: Fri Aug 08, 2008 5:21 am Post subject: | |||||||||||
My TOTALLY UNINFORMED opinion?
This whole thing reads like a press release from three years ago. If this guy did work for KMart during the period it was being taken down the road to bankruptcy by a corrupt executive management team and set up for it's ultimate "rescue" by the magic man of retail, I'm not surprised that he a die hard holdout, still trying to make a case for Eddie's "genius". But... I haven't seen too many analysts lately who are "boggled" by Lampert's genius or even baffled by his bullshit. In fact, most of them seem to finally be figuring it out. I don't think I'm gonna buy much of what this guy is selling here other than to once again acknowledge Eddie's penchant for claiming he can survive indefinitely by producing fewer sales with higher margins per sale. It totally ignores the basic premise behind the theory of diminishing returns, namely that those returns will ultimately diminish to a vanishing point. That's what "diminishing" is all about, after all.
What report or information does he cite that indicates that once again "profits are up significantly."? I'm not disputing it because I'm not knowledgeable enough to do so especially as it would help explain the little stock price spike over the past couple of days, but this article contains not a shred of evidence or even data that would indicate that fewer sales at higher margins has produced any significant margin boosts for the company, now or ever. I'm especially intrigued by this one:
Forgetting that it doesn't stack up with the last two quarterly reports, I'm wondering how the author squares it with this one:
Actually, I don't remember there ever BEING a double digit annual decrease. There may have been one or two QUARTERS where they approached double digits but the actual ANNUAL decreases have run about 3-4% a year. This is what happens when you rely on hype to make your points for you. But in any event... a constant decrease, even of only 3-4% annually must eventually produce a situation in which the number of transactions are no longer "sufficient to offset expenses". It's simply a law of nature. It's also a vicious circle in that sales go down and you're forced to jack up prices to maintain "margin" which causes sales to go down again which forces you.... blah blah blah. This is NOT a business model that anyone could invest in for any kind of a long haul because it eventually becomes a case of the snake eating it's own tail. The margins this guy is talking about have been so far been derived pretty much solely from CUTTING EXPENSES. That's where the profits came from during 06 and 07 and as the company ran out of places to cut expenses margins started going down and that's been the story for the last two quarters. I've always said Eddie is still capable of pulling yet another bunny out of his hat that might save his butt, but I see nothing in this article to indicate that it's happened yet. And that's my humble opinion.
|
|||||||||||
Joined: 28 Apr 2005
Posts: 1718
| Posted: Fri Aug 08, 2008 4:33 pm Post subject: | |
|
I think you've covered it well Nofs. When I read the article I had to go back and check the date, because it looked so much like the hype being issued a couple of years ago. The authors facts are wrong and his analysis is pathetic. There are some "rules" of business which aren't likely to be rewritten by anybody. Sears is in a competitive business and most of the products are not unique, so they aren't going to get away (in the long term) with pricing things drastically higher than the competition. If they want a premium price, they have to convince the customers there is something special about Sears, but that would require advertising. Lampert wants the high profit sales, but he doesn't want to do anything to get them.
Maybe Lampert has some "genius" at stock market manipulation, but when it comes to operational business he's a complete idiot, IMO. |
|
Joined: 08 Aug 2005
Posts: 491
| Posted: Sat Aug 09, 2008 12:32 pm Post subject: | |
| Lately, every time I go into SHLD, the store is empty except for a few people buying clearance mdse in the womens dept. Probably. most small businesses in the area are making more profit than this giant. | |
Joined: 09 Feb 2008
Posts: 1292
Location: Brand Central
| Posted: Sun Aug 10, 2008 2:08 am Post subject: | |||
OK. Thinking outside the box is one thing, but this? Lets see if I understand this: We'll sell less product but at a higher margin. Sure. That'll work in a competitive environment.... IF you are providing added value in the form of superior service and/or delivery. Even if you do succeed in selling fewer products at better margins, eventually that strategy will kill yo on the back end, for as your volume drops, then you become less important to the manufacturer, and your unit cost will rise to cover the cost of carrying your lower volume. Nice PR spin try, but... fail. |
|||
Joined: 04 Mar 2008
Posts: 136
| Posted: Sun Aug 10, 2008 5:39 pm Post subject: | |||||
When I worked there , Arthur was trying to make a NICKLE net profit on every dollar taken in at the till. A friggin nickle. And it was NEVER achieved. |
|||||
Joined: 28 Apr 2005
Posts: 1718
| Posted: Sun Aug 10, 2008 6:27 pm Post subject: | |||
Back in marketing 101 they gave us a simple model based on economic truisms. To succeed in a competitive environment you can either choose to compete on price or else convince the customers there is something special about your product, so they become less price sensitive. Eddie wants to get the higher margin AND quit spending any money on marketing. It's retail suicide. The program only makes some sense if they plan to milk the loyal customers for all they're worth, and then drop the business. Back in the same marketing 101 class they called it a "cash cow" strategy. Maybe this is what Eddie intends, but personally I don't see any rational method here at all. |
|||
Joined: 09 Feb 2008
Posts: 1292
Location: Brand Central
| Posted: Sun Aug 10, 2008 11:40 pm Post subject: | |
|
Neimans, Nordstroms, Saks and Bergdorf's can get away with this strategy....
but.... Sears....??? All we sell are commodity goods and house brands that have lost their luster a bit. |
|
Joined: 22 Jul 2008
Posts: 204
Location: HELL
| Posted: Mon Aug 11, 2008 2:06 am Post subject: | |
|
I really do like to think of myself as an asset to the company. [customer service], but it seems not important to anyone.
|
|
Joined: 28 Apr 2005
Posts: 1718
| Posted: Mon Aug 11, 2008 4:55 pm Post subject: | |||
The training and experience necessary to provide good customer service should be an asset to company, but the finance types running the show can only see employees as an expense. It's partly a limitation of accounting and partly the fact SHC is managed by idiots... |
|||
Joined: 06 Jul 2003
Posts: 7087
Location: Central CA
| Posted: Mon Aug 11, 2008 4:58 pm Post subject: | |||
My guess is that you would definitely be an asset to a RETAIL company but as AllHands pints out, that ain't who you're workin' for. |
|||
Joined: 24 Jan 2005
Posts: 27
| Posted: Sun Aug 24, 2008 6:51 pm Post subject: | |
| It seems like Sears has really lost any type of focus - do we exceed at customer service (nope - Satisfaction Guaranteed is gone, experienced, trained sales people are gone, managers are stretched too thin doing just about everything to be effective)? Do we exceed at cost/value (nope - we tend to be higher priced and rely on our price match guarangee to get the people to buy. My thinking, if store A was willing to charge me $100 more and store B was going to give me a better price right off the bat, why go back to store A and price match). Do we have the best service department (not necessarily. We had a PA check done on our washer/dryer buy a nice young guy and when he found a couple things needing to be fixed, he was not qualified to do anything. We had to schedule another service call (and take time off work again) to have it fixed. One fix worked (dryer) the washer fix did not work. ) Are we in stock (nope, we send merchandise down from a distribution center for the most part rather than stock locally. Depending on the weather and whether or not it's actually at the distribution center, it may or may not arrive on time). Highly professional delivery staff (maybe. I had one driver chip a SLAB GRANITE countertop while delivering a refrigerator. Yeah, just try to figure that one out. Many don't speak English well enough to communicate with the customer either). I read somewhere that we have declined in our appliance market share from just over 44% in 2001 to under 29% now. That's a big decline! The thing seems to be that Sears is a UNIQUE store. Name another that you can get clothing, appliances, tools, car repair and hearing aids all under one roof. How can we compare in the market place when there's no one just like that? It seems like the consumer does not necessarily want that all in one shopping experience any more either. They are willing to go from store to store to save $10. My GUESS is that Sears will somehow restructure and be focused on their internet business, keeping some stores for those who want to touch/feel or need sales help, but with the on-line shopping being such a high focus (not to mention not having to have the overhead for the store/staff) it would make sense from company stand point (ie. stock value). You can be more profitable yet have more stores close and employees laid off. | |