"2017 was a record year for both store closings and retail bankruptcies. Dozens of retailers including Macy's, Sears, and J.C. Penney shuttered an estimated 9,000 stores — far exceeding recessionary levels — and 50 chains filed for bankruptcy."
I'm guessing anyone who has ever complained about Sears closing hasn't shopped at Sears lately. I hadn't even shopped at Sears for years before this weekend. The stores are so dark and prisoney inside.
But this weekend Mr S. and I needed some corner wood clamps and Sears was literally the only place we could find on line I could get them the same day. And not the Sears in the town next to me, the Sears on the other side of San Jose. I live in the East Bay.
So Mr S. placed the order. Their website said we could pick them up the same day, and we left to get our 4 clamps.
We get to the store only to find out that we could not in fact get these clamps the same day. They would come on Tuesday (today). Which I could have just had Amazon send them to me. The store did have three of these clamps in the tool isle - but those couldn't 't be used to to complete our order.
We actually had to pay for those three clamps and then cancel the first order for 4. But while we were paying for them the sales guy wanted to sell us other stuff.
"We have some great garden tools he says" No thanks we reply, but he starts walking over the the garden tool area to plead his case where we again decline. And everyone wonders why Amazon is eating these stores lunch. You know who doesn't try to upsell me? Amazon.
Mr S. said canceling the original order of four clamps was the easiest thing about the whole ordeal. Which we couldn't even do at the store, we had to call in. And I kind thought that was retarded. It should be easy to take your money, and not as easy to get it back. Or hell, lets go crazy and get both. Easy to order and easy to return. Oh right. That's Amazon. Never mind.
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I was a big time, long term fan of Craftsman tools. I had a 1/4" ratchet that started slipping, it's guaranteed so I took it back.
ReplyDeleteThe new Craftsman ratchet was junk, the next one was junk so I bought one that works from Lowes.
Sears is dead.
Wow. I guess that kinda makes me sad in a way. I'm fairly tool agnostic - but Craftsman used to be a solid American brand.
ReplyDeleteYeah, everything in my sidebar today has been from Sears. I wonder if Amazon is doing so sarcastically and a little LOL at the end.
ReplyDeleteCraftsman tools went to crap long ago, so who did Sears sell Craftsman to?
ReplyDeleteBlack and Decker. That's almost like a punch line to a joke right there.
Their motto should be, "When you absolutely, positively have to get this one project done, and then you no longer care."
There's a really good reason Dewalt and Milwaukee sell a lot of stuff at Lowe's and Home Depot -- they're good enough for contractors, and at least the stuff that's going to wear out (like deck driver bits) is sold in multi-packs.
It's not just the Sears that's bleak now -- I've visited Not Quite Dead Malls where an entire arm of the mall is full of stuff you wouldn't even see in a shopping center strip. The mall management justifies this by saying that they have 98% occupancy by square footage of "all of the space available to lease".
Which means they simply ignore the three level box on the end of an arm of the mall as something that isn't available to lease.
Problem solved!
Oh, I didn't know that. My chop saw is a Dewalt.
ReplyDeleteHuh - that's interesting about the quasi dead mall. Apparently according to Concord California if you stick new stuff in there, the mall all of a sudden becomes popular. So I kinda feel like the dead malls are more because of these dead dinosaur stores.