Joined: 26 Jan 2004
Posts: 214
| Posted: Fri Mar 19, 2004 4:06 pm Post subject: The Competition Will Kick Our Ass ! | |
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Sears to Rid Shelves of PCs, Film Cameras
By Michael Kanellos - Staff Writer, CNET News.com March 5, 2004 Sears, Roebuck and Co. will remove PCs and film cameras from its store shelves in the third quarter to make room for TVs, DVDs and other consumer electronics devices. The retailing giant, which has carried computers from Hewlett-Packard, Compaq, Dell, Sony and others at various times, is winding down PC sales, after results failed to meet expectations, said Toni Duboise, an analyst at ARS. Film cameras will concurrently vanish from Sears shelves, she added. "They didn't get the response they wanted," Duboise said. "When you think of Sears, you think of tools and dishwashers." A Sears spokesman confirmed the company's plans to stop selling PCs and film cameras in the third quarter. "We're expanding the assortment of high-traffic items such as DVDs and software," the spokesman said. "(The PC) has been a small slice of family entertainment revenue." Although never a giant in PCs, Sears definitely put some elbow grease into its attempt to sell them, crafting distribution deals with a number of manufacturers. Dell agreed to set up kiosks inside Sears stores but cancelled the effort after only opening a few kiosks. Sears didn't confine itself to the low end of the market but sold a wide variety of configurations. The extra shelf space will be dedicated to TVs, DVD players and digital imaging products like cameras, Duboise said. No way Sears can compete with the big guys on TV's or Electronics. Commission salespeople in 3/57 get ready for even harder times ahead ! Also, what do they mean when they say " Software ? " News: CompUSA buys the " Good Guys." 
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Joined: 23 Sep 2003
Posts: 112
Location: USA Somewhere
| Posted: Fri Mar 19, 2004 9:33 pm Post subject: | |
Sooo, do they think DVD's will save the company????? What a joke. 
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Joined: 30 Dec 2003
Posts: 67
| Posted: Sat Mar 20, 2004 3:53 am Post subject: Re: The Competition Will Kick Our Ass ! | |||
What??? When's the last time you made any money selling a computer? I, for one, am glad to see them go, along with that annoying car audio section and the other non-paying d-3 stuff they're getting rid of. Clear the way for more TV's I say! As far as saying there is no way we can compete with the "big guys" in TV's and electronics, how can you say that when we price match the "big guys"? In my town of about a half million people, Sears has THE biggest selection of TV's in the whole area! The only problem we have is floor traffic in my store. We are the town's best kept secret when it comes to high end home electronics at a great price with superior service. Now that they're getting rid of a lot of the d-3 crap, I wish Sears would just focus on telling the customers in my area how great I am and what a great selection and great prices I have for them 
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Joined: 07 Jul 2003
Posts: 1037
Location: Formerly 3333
| Posted: Sat Mar 20, 2004 4:04 am Post subject: | |
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We are making the right call here folks. Computers is a line we need to exit. Let the specialty stores handle this business and let us use the extensive square footage PC's require for higher volume and turnover items. Computer software? Different story. That is MUCH more profitable and generates footsteps.
- Computers come with deplorable markup which equates to little or no margin. - Computers require significant time investment for the sales staff. - Computers take up a tremendous amount of precious floor space. - Computers have traditionally resulted in a high percentage of returns. - We can't keep a complete assortment in stock and available. Often when a new model arrives, it's discontinued the day it's put on display and already out of stock. What's the point? As a former Brand Central Manager, I say exiting this business is the right decision. "Footie" |
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Joined: 26 Jan 2004
Posts: 214
| Posted: Sat Mar 20, 2004 5:15 am Post subject: | |
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The only problem with this scenario Footie is that commission salespeople in 3/57 don't make one cent on DVD movies and only 1/2 to 2% on video systems and games.
How do you spell " Draw " on your paycheck ? Read this: http://biz.yahoo.com/rc/040319/consumer_summit_sears_electronics_2.html 
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Joined: 12 Jul 2003
Posts: 26
Location: Tampa, FL
| Posted: Sat Mar 20, 2004 1:17 pm Post subject: | |||
Frankly i'd rather them get rid of the nonpaying D3 Stuff. A lot of that stuff takes considerable amounts of time to sell with litle or no commission made in return and as Footie said have a very high rate of return. I may not make a killing on ringing up a DVD but at least I don't have to spend 45 mins explaining every feature of a DVD. DVDs are self service just ring em up and move on to the next customer. It's like the people that come in looking for the cheap Apex/Koss/CH DVD players it's an uphill battle getting someone to upgrade just take care of em as quickly as possible and move on to the good stuff. |
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Joined: 28 Jul 2003
Posts: 176
| Posted: Sat Mar 20, 2004 3:12 pm Post subject: | |
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The big question on this post is:
Why should 3/57 salespeople have products in their dept. to sell that don't pay any commission at all, like DVD movies and batteries ? There also used to be a 1% commission on everything they rang up from other departments but no longer ! What this did was give all of the 3/57 commission salespeople an immediate cut in pay. Since 3/57 salespeople are basically paid straight commission, better known as " draw, " there shouldn't be anything they ring up that doesn't have some commission paid on it ! |
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Joined: 04 Jul 2003
Posts: 1380
| Posted: Sat Mar 20, 2004 5:49 pm Post subject: | |||
I believe that some of the office and big box stores use product reps like Canon, HP and Lexmark to explain and sell their products at no cost to the stores. Seems like a good arrangement for both since no commissions are involved. |
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Joined: 27 Nov 2003
Posts: 444
| Posted: Sat Mar 20, 2004 7:35 pm Post subject: | |||
It should have been done 5 years ago Also that phone section should be scaled back dramatically. Just have a good, better best selection in all the phone categories and eliminate the rest. Almost forgot…. Sears should put the videogames in children’s or stop carrying it. |
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Joined: 06 Jul 2003
Posts: 8212
Location: Central CA
| Posted: Sat Mar 20, 2004 9:30 pm Post subject: | |
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Used to BE in childrn's in our store. Some wonder brain then decided it belonged in 3 where I happened to be working. I was there long enough to get the displays set up and go through the Nintendo fiasco, then went to 22.
I used to ask at every store meeting why we were still screwing around with home computers why, if we weren't going to actively persue that market we even bothered with it at all. My SGM told me that we had a certain market share and even though it lost us money over the long run, we didn't want to give up that share to another company. 
An example is when we sold those cheap assed E-Machines, you know, the desktops that had all laptop components in them. Sold the little suckers with PPPs no less. Guess what happened when they quit working and we were no longer selling that brand, let alone that model. Some marketing troll had ex-lax for breakfast one morning and that's how we got that particular example of marketing genius in action. |
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Joined: 05 Jul 2003
Posts: 1522
Location: chicagoland by the big guys
| Posted: Sun Mar 21, 2004 3:18 pm Post subject: | |
| Oh boy I sure remember that good one those people got nice compaqs for exchange. But I will tell you we sold the heck out of those machines. I think we should still carry computers, I think we should try to get Dell kiosik in their | |
Joined: 06 Jul 2003
Posts: 8212
Location: Central CA
| Posted: Sun Mar 21, 2004 7:47 pm Post subject: | |
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I may have to disagree on the Dell thing, Low. When I left, the idea was that the Dell Kiosks were going to be totally independent of Division 3, and in fact they would remain direct channel and you wouldn't have been selling them at all.
In other words, you weren't going to make a nickle on a Dell. With the saturation TV advertising Dell did (remember the Dell Dude, Steven?), you can imagine how you would fare with your low end Compaqs and HPs that were priced higher than the Dells to start with. You were going to be competing with the kiosks, not being bolstered by them. Unless that plan changed between then and when it was finally dropped altogether, (I was gone by then) Dell Kiosks would have simply meant more in-store competition for the associates. One of the earlier effects of TQM, maybe? Dude! You're gettin' a Dell!. 
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Joined: 08 Jul 2003
Posts: 6045
| Posted: Mon Mar 22, 2004 2:08 am Post subject: Mixed emotions here | |
| On one hand yeah there could be more usefull things to do with Square footage and budget $$$ or the other hand this just ANOTHER item Sears DOESNT have anymore or reason for customers too come in.I've been saying this all along SIMPLIFY the lines but don't eliminate them.I beleive it was Henry Ford who started the business buy making 1 model that "everyone could afford".Since they're going into to discount competition anyway why not just sell 1 model bought in such massive quanity that it would be a competitive DRAW-foot steps and sub out the technical support(since thats what Sears is doing anyway).No one is asking to carry a computer department:just a computer.I think some confuse choice as the only way to draw customers but I always thought it was PRODUCT and price along with service that is. | |
Joined: 27 Nov 2003
Posts: 444
| Posted: Mon Mar 22, 2004 6:49 am Post subject: | |||
What should have been done was a store within a store. Having a Dell station inside sears. You would be purchasing the item through dell, not sears. The employees working in the dell station would be getting there paycheck from dell and not sears. If the purpose of selling computers was to generate younger traffic in the store then this would have worked. |
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Joined: 27 Nov 2003
Posts: 444
| Posted: Mon Mar 22, 2004 6:54 am Post subject: Re: Mixed emotions here | |||
The problem is the one model they would sell would be .5% commission. What should be sold is again a Good, Better, best setup. You want to just get online and word-processing then the basic model is for you. If you want a game machine then you need the more powerful mode. Sears just has to follow KISS...keep it simple stupid....if they ever did they would make a ton of profit. |
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Joined: 05 Jul 2003
Posts: 1522
Location: chicagoland by the big guys
| Posted: Mon Mar 22, 2004 2:04 pm Post subject: | |
| Nofs that is all I am saying to totally eliminate the computer customer is nuts. Every home should have one. We are eliminating that traffic in our store the new Vaio package is too pricey, nice but pricey. I think to offer a low under nine hundred package and th vaio is the way to go. We cannot run another foot out of the store we need pc's | |
Joined: 26 Jan 2004
Posts: 214
| Posted: Mon Mar 22, 2004 7:11 pm Post subject: | |||
Right Footie, we need the space for more DVD movies, Sylvania, Cheap DVD players, etc., etc., as long as it has low or no commissions on it and in most cases requires an overpriced PA ! There's no reason Sears shouldn't be able to make a good profit on computers since we charge double what other retailers get for the same features ! What Sears should do is offer no interest for a year like they do all of the other Brand Central products, this way the families that need to buy them for their kid's schooling could afford them. 
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Joined: 26 Jan 2004
Posts: 214
| Posted: Wed Mar 24, 2004 3:09 pm Post subject: | |
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Why computers were always a joke at Sears, from a previous post:
" Way back when I first went into 3, the commission on a computer system was between 5 and 6.5%. Systems cost about $3500-$4500 so there was damned good money to be made. The boom in home computers hadn't started steeply into the toilet yet and I thought I'd died and gone to heaven as far as my paychecks were concerned once I'd settled into things. Inside of two years the commission rates were 1.5 to 2.5% and the bottom had dropped out of the prices on the merchandise. We also began to offer cut rate inferior merchandise that brought the lowest possible commissions AND produced tons of returns too. So instead of 6.5% of $4500 we were getting 2% of $1000 if we were lucky enough that the thing stayed sold for 6 months. I think the biggest insult however was the year they made the old Packard Bell 1540 the Christmas special. We had been getting 2.5 % on it (this was as the industry was bottoming out). A ton of those things had come in in MId November and we were happy that we had them stacked in every corner of the store because usually we ran out of the holiday special the last week in November and were damned lucky to get any more before Christmas. This year we figured we could make up for that puny 2.5% commission through sheer volume. It was actually starting to look a bit like Christmas as the old song goes. Know what the bastards did to us??? On The day after Thanksgiving, they lowered the commission on the 1540 to 1.5% just as the holiday sales season was starting and since we were glutted with them and couldn't get anything else that paid better, we financed the executive Christmas party at Hoffman that year. And then...to add insult to flipping injury, on January 1st, they raised it back to 2.5% again!!! but then of course, we couldn't GET the damned things anymore. Now how blatant is that??? Our SGM wouldn't even come on the floor for days after because he couldn't look us in the eye. The old Division 3, beginning in late 97 and through 98, was where they tried out all the new TQM management philosphies. It was perfect because the big home computer/telecommunications bubble was right in the middle of bursting and it was good place to jack around commission rates and inventories and hours and such. We used to go for weeks without having a single computer in stock. As our department's only tech oriented person, I took to refurbishing returns that the factories wouldn't take back because 90% of the time thre was nothing wrong with them except customer ineptness. Our "generous" return policies had put us over our return quotas and these things were just piling up around the store. Then we'd sell them on the sidewalk in front of the store for 20-30 cents on the dollar. Needless to say you don't make a lot of commission when all you've got is 991 merchandise and you're discounting by 80% from new.. This kind of stuff began to happen on a regular basis in 3 and we could only look at the people in other departments, some of whom laughed at us and some of whom felt sorry for us, and tell them that as soon as they had the new techniques perfected (we didn't know what it was called then), it was going to be applied to all departments and that they really ought to start looking around for ways to maintain their own incomes or they were going to wind up swimming with turds in one of the Hoffman lavatories, just like we had. " 
Last edited by SempCAL on Wed Mar 24, 2004 3:25 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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Joined: 05 Jul 2003
Posts: 1522
Location: chicagoland by the big guys
| Posted: Wed Mar 24, 2004 3:21 pm Post subject: | |
| Boy old memories are painful I sure remember those days!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! | |
Joined: 08 Jul 2003
Posts: 6045
| Posted: Wed Mar 24, 2004 4:30 pm Post subject: company following their montra of | |
The company is simply following their montra of "if you don't like it why don't you just quit?" with this being a case of not having to like dealing with computers. 
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Joined: 29 Jan 2004
Posts: 43
| Posted: Thu Mar 25, 2004 11:27 pm Post subject: Re: The Competition Will Kick Our Ass ! | |||
This is interesting. They tried unsuccessfully to buy Circuit City. Oh well. |
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Joined: 26 Jan 2004
Posts: 214
| Posted: Fri Mar 26, 2004 7:30 am Post subject: Re: The Competition Will Kick Our Ass ! | |||||
http://www.findarticles.com/cf_dls/m0EIN/2003_Dec_20/111500624/p1/article.jhtml
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