On Dec 28, 7:07*am, Doug Miller
wrote:
On 12/28/2011 6:21 AM, Bill wrote:

"oldyork90" wrote in message
I'm reading bad news about Sears/KMart. If Sears goes tits up, I hope
they hand off the Craftsman line. I always had good luck with their
hand tools.

You might want to RE-READ the story!

"Sears, which has more than 4,000 full-line and specialty retail stores"...

"said yesterday that it will close 100 to 120 Sears and Kmart stores"

i.e. less than 3% -- probably not nearly enough, IMHO.

http://www.dispatch.com/content/stor...2/28/sears-kma...

I noticed this comment by one analyst quoted in the article: “The only
reason why people buy at Kmart is because it’s close. No one would buy
at Kmart if they’re closer to a Walmart or Target."

It brought to mind something I'd read about ten years ago, that
WalMart's market research showed that something like one-third of the
people shopping at WalMart drove past a Kmart to get there.

I haven't been inside a Kmart for years. There used to be one about five
minutes from home, but it closed around 2002, and now I don't even know
where the nearest one is.

I have one a Kmart a couple miles from my house. It's about 15
mins to Walmart, so I'll go to Kmart once in a while for
convenience if I need a particular item right away. The Kmart is
much smaller and older than the Walmarts.

Last year just before Xmas I was in there and the cash registers
were running extremely slow, with people backed up. Just as
I made it to pay, they decided to reboot the whole system. At
that point, they should have just told everyone that it's going to
take the better part of an hour, because that's how long it takes
to reboot the whole system. As part of the reboot, they have ot
be brought back up one register at a time. The thing was
a very old IBM system, guessing it's at least 25 years old.
From listening to the cashiers, the system being slow or
crapping out isn't uncommon.

I waited about 30 mins before I finally went up to the manager
and asked if I could just leave the items and come back later.
They gave me a bag and I put my name on it. Soon almost
everyone else was doing the same thing.

I saw the same thing happen again a couple months later.
And I only go there maybe once every couple months.
That article says that Wall Street analysts say Kmart hasn't
invested in their stores to keep them current. Seems spot
on to me. It's interesting how a company like Kmart can
sit around for decades and let a competitor like Walmart
emerge and sink them. Older store, less choices, longer
lines, cash registers that don't work, what do they expect?