I remember when Montgomery Wards died. My parents never shopped there \u2014 it was too low-class for them (they were Penny\u2019s people), and neither did I, with the exception of our new washer\/dryer after we bought our first house. And we never got the rebate because they liquidated shortly after that purchase. <\/p>\n
In fact, that\u2019s the only thing I remember about them. I don\u2019t know why we would have purchased the set from Wards in the first place, and I was surprised, in looking at Wikipedia, that they didn\u2019t actually liquidate until 2000, but they did declare bankruptcy in 1997, so they must have closed our local store at that time. <\/p>\n
Is Sears as doomed now as Wards was then? <\/p>\n
They are the last remaining \u201ctrue\u201d department store, offering hardlines as well as softlines \u2014 everywhere else, it\u2019s just clothing and home goods. \u00a0(Or at least, the last such one in the United States \u2014 they would fit in pretty well in downtown Munich.) \u00a0But in the U.S., there isn\u2019t much advantage in being a full-line department store: \u00a0Best Buy competes for appliance purchases, Home Depot for lawnmowers, Sports Authority for sporting goods, and so on \u2014 and the customer base of people who want to manage all these purchases at one store is too small. \u00a0(Has Sears tried to emphasize small towns where there isn\u2019t a Home Depot, Best Buy, and Sports Authority? \u00a0I don\u2019t know \u2014 presumably even there, the customer base is too small.)<\/p>\n
What Sears does offer is a set of private-label brands with a reputation for quality: \u00a0Kenmore, Die-Hard, Craftsman, and Lands\u2019 End. \u00a0True, the last of these was an acquisition, but it\u2019s part of the Sears stable nonetheless. \u00a0There also is\/was the Toughskins clothing line for children as well (I say \u201cwas\u201d because when I was at the store most recently, they had notices at the cash register that the \u201cthey\u2019ll outgrow them before the clothes are worn out\u201d guarantee was eliminated; whether that means their quality was down or the administration of the guarantee was a hassle I don\u2019t know).<\/p>\n
(My own \u201cSears Quality\u201d story: \u00a0a Kenmore sewing machine that I bought at a garage sale just out of college. \u00a0It dates to the early 60s, I think, based on some online research I did a while back, and is nearly indestructible. \u00a0Incredibly heavy, but indestructible.)<\/p>\n
They also have a very expansive website \u2014 pretty much every category under the sun, though I can\u2019t figure out from a cursory look the extent to which this is an Amazon-type of \u201ceverything\u201d or just \u201clots of stuff.\u201d<\/p>\n
So \u2014 Sears executives, are you listening? \u2014 the only way forward is what Ford did in the 80s: \u00a0\u201cQuality is Job 1.\u201d \u00a0I grew up a half mile from the K-Mart world headquarters, and a further mile from a Ford facility (not a factory \u2014 I think a tool and die facility, but I don\u2019t remember any longer), and remember the blue \u201cQ1\u201d flag fluttering in the air. <\/p>\n
The only way that I see for Sears to differentiate itself is to go beyond its historic brands and promote a guarantee that everything with a Sears private-label on it will be durable and built to last. \u00a0Clothes will be properly and consistently sized, with quality material and finishes, and pre-shrunk (granted, some here-today, gone-tomorrow styles of women\u2019s clothes may need to be an exception, for fabrics that are inherently non-durable). \u00a0Shoes, linens, everything \u2014 telling customers, \u201cyour budget is tight, it only makes sense that you want to buy things that\u2019ll last.\u201d \u00a0Or, the \u201cgreen\u201d pitch: \u00a0\u201cit\u2019s environmentally wasteful to sell goods that\u2019ll just have to be thrown away.\u201d <\/p>\n
As for the items that aren\u2019t private-label? \u00a0I suppose for brands that are household names, it doesn\u2019t matter. \u00a0But they could still differentiate themselves from Amazon by a promise that they\u2019ve picked only quality products to sell online. \u00a0If they can get consumers to think of Sears as a first choice for products where they\u2019re concerned about quality if they buy elsewhere, then maybe<\/i> the points\/rewards promotions can make a marginal difference for other purchases, too, as well as the convenience factor once you\u2019ve got a customer in the door.<\/p>\n
Of course, everything else has to be right to keep the customers: \u00a0stores stocked well and clean, well-lit, and laid-out well*, systems running smoothly, employees speaking reasonably accent-free English. <\/p>\n
(*One of my gripes with the local Penny\u2019s is that in their recent remodel, they moved the petites section, that is, clothing for short women, to a different floor than the rest of the women\u2019s clothing, rendering it useless for me, when I\u2019m in-between sizes and need to try on both. \u00a0Some executive somewhere probably though it was a good layout on the diagrams but they lost my business.)<\/p>\n
Could a pitch of quality for budget-minded consumers work? \u00a0Probably not (after all, I was cheering for the everyday-low-price experiment at Penny\u2019s that was such a bust, too), but I don\u2019t see what other direction they could take. <\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I remember when Montgomery Wards died. My parents never shopped there \u2014 it was too low-class for them (they were Penny\u2019s people), and neither did I, with the exception of our new washer\/dryer after we bought our first house. And we never got the rebate because they liquidated shortly after that purchase. In fact, that\u2019s […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2209,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-650","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\n