Mike Brady once wonderfully said, "Put on your Sunday best, kids--we're going to Sears!"
Those were the good ol' days when Sears was king. Well, those days are long gone (you know things are bad when you merge with Kmart). Sears, Roebuck and Co. pretty much sucks these days. And because of this, they are officially on the Ostler Family Blacklist. This puts you on warning other companies, you do NOT want to be on this list. It has very large repercussions.
So why has Sears fallen? They haven't adapted. You can't keep on working the same way and expect to compete. A nice, large catalog can only go so far. They acquired Land's End, which seemed to help somewhat, but in the end, they are still in the decline.
Because of this, we avoided shopping there for awhile. Then the blacklist day came. We were looking for a new washer and dryer. After doing a lot of research and checking out other stores, we took a family trip to Sears (for the record, we were not in our Sunday best). It was atrocious to say the least and only confirmed previous bad experiences with them. Here is a summary of what we encountered:
Those were the good ol' days when Sears was king. Well, those days are long gone (you know things are bad when you merge with Kmart). Sears, Roebuck and Co. pretty much sucks these days. And because of this, they are officially on the Ostler Family Blacklist. This puts you on warning other companies, you do NOT want to be on this list. It has very large repercussions.
So why has Sears fallen? They haven't adapted. You can't keep on working the same way and expect to compete. A nice, large catalog can only go so far. They acquired Land's End, which seemed to help somewhat, but in the end, they are still in the decline.
Because of this, we avoided shopping there for awhile. Then the blacklist day came. We were looking for a new washer and dryer. After doing a lot of research and checking out other stores, we took a family trip to Sears (for the record, we were not in our Sunday best). It was atrocious to say the least and only confirmed previous bad experiences with them. Here is a summary of what we encountered:
- The exterior was bad. It looked old. As we walked in the door, I felt like I was going back to the 1960's.
- The interior wasn't any better. Same 1960's feel, with a half-attempted effort to update the floor. It looked old, the layout was cumbersome and it was way to dirty for a store.
- After finally finding the appliance section, we realized their selection was limited.
- The salespeople were really bad (do they hire from used car lots?). If you work on a commission, you can at least try to make it seem like you don't. They wanted a sale. That was it.
- Often when we go to stores, Blaire plays dumb. Like she doesn't know anything about the product, even though she does. Besides being entertaining, it is nice because you see what they really know about the product. What did we find out? They didn't know their product, lied to my wife about some of the details of their products and otherwise looked stupid.
- Upon taking a stroll to the electronics section, I realized other parts of the store were inferior also.
- Well, they must have cheaper prices then, right? Uh, no.
I could go on, but that should be enough. Clearly I don't recommend them as a store to shop at. A few months ago, I needed something and for a second thought I'd stop by Sears since it was close to pick it up. Then I realized it was Sears, so I kept on driving. Blaire was proud of me.
So I say to you Sears, lose the current slogan of "Sears: Where It Begins". Face the inevitable, and close shop. Then again, I hear the government is giving away a lot of $$ in some bailout or something. Maybe they have some for you?
