Posted by Jim in NC on February 02, 2019 at 04:49:56 from (174.253.4.128):
In Reply to: The local Sears... posted by Dave H (MI) on February 01, 2019 at 20:13:23:
I grew up in a Sears family. My mom was a 35+ year retiree of a catalog order facility. Beginning in 1967 I worked part-time there from the age of 16 till out of college during summers and Christmas seasons. Five years after college I returned home and worked during the Christmas rush seasons from 1978 till the catalog operations shut down in 1993.
Sears relied more on cost-cutting rather than modernizing to maintain profitability. As mentioned by others its practices made it less customer friendly. It was trying to compete with the up and coming Walmant and was content to sell a lower volume of goods at a higher margin of profit.
Local customers could place catalog orders and have their items within a couple of hours. It was very common for folks to drive fairly long distances to get something they needed quickly, like an appliance, water pump, or water heater. The catalog plants began to no longer carry large appliances in the mid to late 1980s, which hurt the company alot. One could still order the appliances, but it would take 3 to 5 days to get them. The retail division stocked some of these items and prospered for awhile, but as service declined, they began to hurt.
Lowes, HD, and others filled the gap, and customers began their exodus quickly.
With a lot of long-time employees and the benefits they received, Sears workforce costs were much higher than Wal-Mart too. More and more, part-time people were hired to work at the busiest times to reduce costs. The quality of workers they were hiring became less desirable as time passed. Combined with the failure to properly modernize its operations, its demise was only a matter of time.
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