Keep Sears in Business

While I did not work at sears myself my wife did for 3 years and my
brother did for 5 years. Some of their major complaints:

Comission sales is a joke. The metrics by which a comission based
employee was measured were Protection Agreements (extended warentees)
and credit card apps generated. If you did well in those 2 areas you
were a success as far as corporate was concerned... whatever the
customer thought and whatever your other numbers were.

The stores are falling appart. Literally falling appart. And nobody
who has the authority to authorize the necessary repairs, or
remodeling, has done anything to fix it for decades.

Ancient software, pre-historic hardware, stone age procedures. Sears
has not updated their core computer systems (checkout, inventory,
etc.) in stores for at least 15 years; their loss prevention and
inventory tracking methods are almost as bad.

My personal reasons for not shopping at sears are simple:
1, the stores are dirty and falling appart.
2, customer service is practicly non-existant.
3, practicly every item is more expensive vs. the competition
4, no worthwhile sales
5, besides Craftsman hand tools, sears has no name brands I would
trust.

And before you go out and buy that Kenmore Elite product know this...
Kenmore is just a brand name which sears slaps on. What they do is
contract out to an existing manufacturer, change 1 or 2 features (like
the dimentions of the lint catcher or the shape of a tray in a
refrigerator) and slap a sticker on the front saying "Kenmore". Ditto
with Diehard. Ditto with Craftsman power tools. Ditto with... you get
the idea.
5,

As a former Operations Manager for Sears (who also worked in
Electronics for awhile too), I saw a lot of things that they could do
better, but the store manager was too preoccupied with getting
"credits" and kissing the regional manager's derriere to satisfy some
artifical numbers that he was looking for.

When suggestions were made for improvments, they just shrugged it off
as unimportant mumbo-jumbo from just another one of the outsiders that
somehow got hired into their little club. Even suggestions for
improving safety were shrugged off. Sears reduced commissions on
items to the point that nobody wanted to bother selling things
properly, and anyone who was good at it left for more profitable
endeavors. Hell...I made more in electronics than as a manager
without all the headaches on an hour-for-hour basis.

The constant barrage of "do you want to open a Sears account" quips
from every single employee was enough to drive them out. NO...NOBODY
wants a 30% interest rate card that changes terms at the drop of a hat
and that deceives them with hidden terms that will hit them with
interest after 12 or 24 months. Granted...I think the warrantee on
things like TV's was the best in the industry and would NEVER go
without, they made getting those warrantees paramount to keeping the
job and getting decent schedules (never had a problem personally...but
can see how others did).

Training was bare minimum, and turnover was very high since they paid
at the bottom end of the scale for any business in the area. Products
were often out of stock, even before an ad special came up...sometimes
they'd never come in, even if orderable.

The most recent oddball thing is that I didn't even see an electronics
ad in the Black Friday section of ads. No wonder they're falling
apart? Who's bright idea was that? Some ivory tower goon who never
went to the stores? Bet you 100% it was.

Customers themselves were part of the problem. They often chose not
to get the warrantees, then blame Sears for not backing up the
product...blaming everybody but themselves or the manufacturer (who
was responsible for replair/replacement if past the 90 day/60 day mark
for store warrantee). Management then would be inconsistent in
enforcement and then one person would take advantage of that
inconsistency forever after and just make things worse on employees
and managers for holding up to store policy, only to have a higher
manager cave in.

What Sears needs to do:

1. Close 1/3 of stores
2. Train employees better
3. Enforce policy evenly both to customers and employees
4. Pay commissions fairly and on more items
5. Fewer junk brands and junk merchandise
6. Stop hiring security that is a bunch of untrained and uneducated
goons only looking at employees
7. Same...except stop letting shoplifters walk away scott free
8. Carry more in-store stock big ticket items
9. Make more stuff in the USA (we will pay more...really..if it's USA
MADE).
10. Renovate - not just touch up - stores...entirely.
11. Fire every one of those SOB's in Chicago...they're worthless
12. Hire some outsiders and ditch the CEO now
13. Price match = no exceptions
14. Get your online act together
15. Stop asking everybody for credit - we don't want it.
16. When you do advertise something HAVE IT IN STOCK
17. Pay the receiving guys more...they do all the heavy work and don't
get squat
18. Get some radios so you can talk to each other and the
back-of-the-house receiving team...and stop all the petty BS of not
allowing overhead PA announcements (right Peggy - your pet peave?)
19. Get back to basics and carry some better quality items in general
that aren't made overseas with sweatshop labor.

Sears should have taken steps to keep themselves in business decades
ago. I have not done business with Sears in over 35 years due to
their lousy customer service and lack of ability to deal with a
defective product. With a huge home to buy for as well as a medical
office, both needing things that Sears sells they have lost out on
tens of thousands of dollars from my refusal to do business with them.
That's just what they lost from me, there are many others who could
spend a lot of money at Sears but they choose not to do so, usually
because of their legendary lousy customer service.

My situation is like many others, and this is what is causing Sears to
continue to crumble. I literally do not know of one individual in my
life that ever shops at Sears. Not a single one. I walk buy the
store at the mall and I don't see anyone go in or come out and I don't
see any shoppers in the store either.

Sears did this to themselves and I see it as a classi care for the
Bed. Made. Lie. files.

Sears has horrible customer service and they don't let their employees
do what is needed to keep customers happy, even the simple things. If
they were interested in staying open they should have fixed this years
ago. My great-grandfather used to refuse to shop at Sears or accept
any gifts from them because of the way they treated him. They were the
only store I ever heard him trash talk and boycott that way and that
was back in the day when they supposivly were better.

'Look busy' activities? Please define.