Tag / Sears

by Frank Maduri

Fighting For Survival: Sears & Toys R Us

The recent developments around two once-iconic American retail brands: Sears and Toys R Us, have been in the news this week with their attempts to reinvent themselves amid a changing retail sector.

The two brands have similar, but different paths that have led to their current dire predicaments. The attempts now to innovate or reinvigorate the business could still be measured as a “too little, too late” type of scenario.

The Toys R Us retail chain as we all once knew it is gone, the company declared bankruptcy, and this was the first holiday season in several decades without that retailer being in existence. The consumer feedback was that, because of that toy retailer being out of the mix, prices on toys were dramatically increased as well as difficult to find.

The Midwest had a slightly different experience as the owners of some of the intellectual property leftover from the Toys R Us era launched a “pop-up” concept called Geoffrey’s Toy Box which was featured in Kroger stores. The idea was to have a small area of the store featuring toys for the Christmas holiday season from brands which the former Toys R Us owned the rights to, since their other vendor relationships have moved on.

The results, unfortunately, were underwhelming. The consumer sentiment overall was mixed to negative in response to the concept. The cause of those reactions varied from price, to limited selection, and it will most likely not be replicated within another retailer such as Kroger, Giant Eagle, or another regional player of similar scale.

The rumor mill is spinning that the “Toy Box” concept is going to relaunch like a spin-off of Toys R Us into smaller retail spaces. The other potential scenario being discussed is to roll out Babies R Us again. Some within the media have speculated whether the Toy Box and Babies R Us could be merged in one location and smaller in size than the original spaces that they occupied in the prior iteration of the company.

In my local area, some people with knowledge of the commercial real estate developments have told me that Geoffrey’s Toy Box spin-off store is going to be built across the highway from a former Toys R Us store that is now vacant. The validity of that claim is still speculation as nothing has been confirmed by the township or the commercial real estate developer.

The group that owns the rights to Geoffrey, the mainstay giraffe character that we all loved as kids, is not confirming any definitive plans for the branding of the character or the expansion of the “pop-up” concept from the holidays. In prior articles, I have covered the demise of Toys R Us and the attempts to revive it prior to full liquidation. The idea of a smaller scale brick and mortar toy store certainly fills a void, but it has to be executed properly.

The “knock” on the Toy Chest concept was that it seemed like a half-baked idea to keep consumers from forgetting about the brand, in essence, they rushed it out into the market and it backfired.

The one situation that those involved with the Toy Chest concept have confirmed is that they are exploring ways to revamp and relaunch Toys R Us in some form. They would be wise to reestablish vendor relationships and have a comprehensive marketing plan in place before they make that sort of attempt.

In the case of Sears, my recent piece was on their most likely demise as the company is in the final stages of bankruptcy proceeding with creditors seeking to begin the full liquidation process. The court did give their chairman, Eddie Lampert, time to present a new offer to avoid the liquidation of the company.

The news media has widely reported that his bid was accepted to keep 245 store locations open and save some of the jobs that would have been lost had the chain gone completely out of existence. The plan Lampert put together has his private equity firm taking on more risk from the floundering retailer.

However, others feel it is just a ploy and that Lampert is trying to save the company only to sell off what is left of the brands, assets, and real estate holdings to benefit his own self-interest. There are still others who feel that Sears is too close to “circling the drain” to make it back to solid footing.

Some retail industry analysts maintain that Sears might be living on borrowed time for only a short period before it falls apart. It stands as a reminder that the Lampert plan to save those stores and keep some version of Sears alive has to be approved by a judge, or else the liquidation process will begin officially in the next few weeks.

Moreover, there are still others in the retail industry that believe that Sears could live on if it narrowed the focus to strictly “hard goods” such as tools and appliances and eliminated “soft goods” such as clothing and shoes. Mr. Lampert has been reticent to make this type of shift in the past, it remains to be seen if that sentiment will change in this potential “reboot” version of Sears.

The name of the game today, not only in retail but in everything: customization and niche marketing. Sears could potentially survive in a niche where they would have certain brands of tools, tires, lawn mowers, and appliances. It would require a concerted marketing plan and advertising to remind the consumer that Sears has not closed and reinforce the value proposition it provides to the customer. If those elements are not executed flawlessly, then Sears has a very slim chance of survival.

These two American brands: Sears and Toys R Us were once dominant players in the retail landscape and are now either on their last legs, or determining how to reboot themselves not to succeed, but at this point, just survive in a changing world. It remains to be seen if either of these brands can be salvaged, or if they are headed for the inevitable end that so many other retail brands have been met with in the past. Stay tuned.

by Frank Maduri

Follow Up: Sears Begins Liquidation Process

The seemingly impending demise of the once dominant American retailer, Sears, took another significant step in that direction on Tuesday. The news media is filled with reports that Sears has rejected a proposal from CEO Eddie Lampert who was attempting to put together an investment proposal through his private equity company to salvage Sears.

The Sears Board of Directors informed the judge overseeing their bankruptcy case that they intend to move forward with the liquidation process. This is the final step taken before a company dissolves, and Sears will now take the necessary steps of liquidating inventory, shutting down stores, and laying off employees.

It is a very sad day for the American retail business landscape because Sears was a huge player for over 100 years (126 years to be exact) and the end of that company and some of the brands associated with it, is an end of an era in retail. The company consolidated with Kmart about 14 years ago and that proved to be one of the key factors in the demise of Sears.

In earlier coverage of this story, I shared how Sears was a store that my parents shopped in frequently for tools and appliances. It is unfortunate that many people thought of Sears for those products, and not for anything more. It also did not help that Sears did not connect with consumers that were not my parents age or older, they lost that next generation of families as well as their children who are now young adults.

The aggressive marketing of Wal-Mart, Target, and Amazon siphoned those customers away from Sears and Kmart ; and neither one could recover from that setback. My local area is a good representation of that effect, the Sears has been there for decades and the Target has been there for less than twenty years. The Target location is consistently crowded, jammed. The Sears has been so empty the last five years that I would drive by and wonder if it was closed.

I read a post on social media earlier that was effectively stating that Sears will cease to exist after 116 years, which is longer than Wal-Mart, Target, and Amazon have been in business combined. The “Amazon effect” is hurting several brick and mortar retailers that have failed to innovate. Sears missed the window to innovate their business model.

Sears should have built up their website and used their physical stores as essentially distribution centers where the customer could come and pick up items, especially expensive items that they would not want shipped. Sears owned so much of the real estate that their physical store locations are located upon that they controlled so much of the costs of not having to lease or rent space from a commercial real estate landlord, that they could have reaped so many benefits from the order online, pick up in store scenario. They did not capitalize on that in a forward-thinking way, by the time they went that direction it was already too late to recover the business.

However, even Jeff Bezos, the CEO of Amazon conceded recently that one day he expects even Amazon to perish, to cease operations. That seems unthinkable to so many, myself included, but his full quote explains further that essentially everything has a shelf life, and at some point Amazon will outlive its usefulness.

Sears managed to cobble together a pretty good run when all things are considered in the retail industry space today. It was such a huge part of Americana, the trips I remember as a kid to Sears to buy a TV, a dishwasher, or going with my Dad to buy tools for a home improvement job. I also recall before I left for college my Mom taking me there to get clothes and lamps to get my dorm room all set up.

Those memories will be all I have as well as others will have left of Sears, it will join the list of retailers and in a similar fashion to Toys R Us, who were crushed by a debt load that was unsustainable. In a similar fashion, an ex-CEO of Toys R Us attempted to save the chain from going under, and was rebuffed by the board and the court in charge of the proceedings.

Eddie Lampert put together a $4.4 billion package to try to save Sears, or at least part of it. The number was deemed to be not adequate enough to effectively salvage the company for a sustained period of time. Lampert will receive criticism for his handling of the last years of the Sears brand. His involvement with a private equity firm has already drawn scrutiny from industry analysts. His next venture remains to be seen, but this loss is going to follow him around for a long time.

My own personal last visit to my local Sears store, which is slated to close very soon, was in mid-November. I went to get work clothes and active wear at greatly reduced discounts. The store was a wreck, and it was sad walking through empty corridors and empty areas of this huge store. The memories came flooding back from my childhood one last time, of days that were easier, simpler times. That is where those memories will stay, like Sears did, frozen in time. A piece of America is gone and is never coming back.

by Frank Maduri

Sears Sells Craftsman to Stanley Black & Decker

In a follow up to a recent story on the overall business structure of Sears, the company was in the headlines again on Thursday. The news of the official announcement of the sale of the Craftsman brand was made today to Stanley Black & Decker for an estimated $900 million.

I had reported weeks ago that this move was certainly possible and that Black & Decker was probably the best suitor for such a transaction. The sale of this iconic American brand of tools provides Sears with an infusion of capital at a time that it desperately needs cash. The company, as I wrote last week, needs about a billion dollars to stay in operation through 2017, some estimates have it as more like $1.5 or $1.6 billion which means that Sears has some more credit line borrowing to secure.

The detractors have been quick to jump into the discussion today and make projections that Sears will be in bankruptcy proceedings before the end of the year. In fact, this question was posed to the Stanley Black & Decker executives during the announcement of the Craftsman deal. They acknowledged that if Sears is in bankruptcy proceedings that will have a detrimental effect on the Craftsman purchase being fully completed.

In related news, Stanley Black & Decker also announced that they were planning to open a new factory at a site yet to be determined to manufacture the Craftsman products in America. The new factory would employ around 3,000 and would return an iconic American brand to being “made in the USA” after being made overseas for many years in the current scenario with Sears.

The potential bankruptcy of Sears is an added issue when consideration is given to the fact that those stores are the primary channel for sales of Craftsman tools and other products. The Stanley Black & Decker side explained that they plan on marketing Craftsman in many new channels and to distribute to new retail partners (Home Depot and Lowes jump to mind) to offset the loss of business from Sears in the short term.

Sears gains the injection of cash it needs but it sacrifices the sales revenue it would receive if they owned the brand, it is a real “catch 22” scenario for companies, who like Sears, also own the rights to other very recognizable brands. The retailer gets to the point in their life cycle where some hard decisions need to be made to save a sinking ship.

The announcement from Sears also came with a side note regarding some of their Kmart branded stores. Sears will be closing 41 of their store locations as well as 109 Kmart store locations will be shuttered. The company did not disclose how many jobs would be impacted by the closings, but most of them are part time positions which the company is still concerned about in their release today. The company acknowledged that the stores were underperforming for a long time but that they essentially kept them open to keep local jobs in those communities intact for as long as possible.

This news comes on the heels of Macy’s announcement yesterday of store closings and layoffs of thousands of employees. It is a sad time for some iconic American brands. The sale of the Craftsman brand was something I wrote about weeks ago as well as the potential sale of Kenmore and Die Hard, but Craftsman was always viewed by industry experts to be the most important of those three Sears brands.

The question then becomes: without Craftsman, is Sears really viable? The answer sadly is no, and the outlook for their survival past 2017 is pretty grim. The Sears stock did jump 5% today but they and many of their competitors are being devoured by Amazon. The terrain has changed and Sears may not be a part of it any longer.

The silver lining in this mess is that Craftsman products will live on and will be made in America in the years to come.

by Frank Maduri

The Inevitable Demise of An American Icon: Sears

Sears has been in the news again this week with news regarding the potential sale of one of their iconic brands. I wrote a post for another site a few months ago when Sears first decided to put three of their mainstay brands up for sale: Craftsman tools, Kenmore, and Die Hard. This is most certainly an effort to increase cash flow through both the sale of the brands and through the almost certain jump in Sears stock as a result.

The news that an as yet unnamed bidder (rumor has it the bidder is Black & Decker) is interested in paying a significant amount of money for the Craftsman name with some estimates in the $2 billion range; has Sears stock trading at an increased level in the past two days. Craftsman is a symbol of uncompromising quality in tools and related hardware products that is well established in the consumer marketplace.

The unfortunate other side to this transaction is that many industry experts and financial market insiders with great knowledge of the situation indicate that even if Sears divests Craftsman in this deal, the cash flow is not enough to make a reversal of the outlook for the company.

In fact, those same experts as well as some other reports I reviewed state that even if Sears sold all three of those brands at a premium it still would not help their cause. This is where the Sears merger and acquisition of Kmart stores again looms large in the negative outlook for the company.

In my understanding of the situation having covered this as well as other failing retail brands in the past is this: essentially while the sale of the brand, in this case it is Craftsman, may help Sears in the short term; Sears will lose the profit generated by the sale of those branded products which it currently owns outright.

The mere fact that Sears put these three well established brands on the block to be sold is (if some of you remember my previous work on this subject) an indication that the times are desperate there. It is an indication that the company is definitely preparing for “reorganization” (i.e. bankruptcy) in the near future.

Sears also owns a great deal of real estate between the buildings of their brick and mortar retail stores and the land that those stores are situated on which contributes to their profit and loss situation. It is expensive to maintain both buildings and land, so Sears has either been divesting itself of one or both, as well as determining some other methods of cost reducing those components of their business model.

A couple of prime examples of these strategies are right in my backyard in New Jersey. Sears owns the building that is home to their Freehold Raceway Mall location, in order to control some of the costs the company consolidated their inventory from multiple levels of the store onto one level. They subsequently rented out the other two levels to an Ireland based company called Primark, a retailer of discounted products, mostly clothing brands.

In Middletown, the Sears location and the large piece of land it sits upon was sold to Investors Bank. The bank is now constructing a new branch location at that site, and most certainly has some kind of long range plan for the development of that land in the future. Most retail and financial market experts put the time frame for the bankruptcy and demise of Sears at 18 to 24 months from now.

It still boggles my mind that Sears, such an iconic retailer will cease to exist in potentially that short a period of time. I always think of those employees who will be out of work, some of whom have undoubtedly served the company for many years. These same workers have a set of skills and experience in the retail field which is shrinking and may have a difficult time finding new employment.

Conversely, Sears could not seem to get it right, they were missing that connection with the consumer. They were the retailer that was an afterthought in the minds of the average consumer. Sears is thought of as a place where you get tools or tires or a dishwasher; and not where you would get a television, a jacket, or a pair of sneakers. They could not seem to connect the value of their full complement of products to the consumer in the way that Wal-Mart and Target most certainly have accomplished.

The management at Sears keeps telling Wall Street that they are in the middle of a “turnaround” but that has not seemed to materialize. I liken it to the professional sports team that is in seemingly a constant rebuilding mode and never seems to turn that corner where the results manifest themselves tangibly.

Sears CEO, Eddie Lampert, has stated again this week that the company will not close down the Kmart division of the business, which is seen as an anchor around the neck of the entire business operation. They will continue to close Kmart stores that are “underperforming” as they recently closed my local Kmart here in New Jersey. They will not shutter the entire division. I think that this is a mistake and that there is a point where you have to start bailing the water out of the ship before it sinks further.

The business model for Sears in this turnaround phase is a case of “too little, too late” as the saying goes. The damage has already been done. The executive team is now focusing on selling off the brands that are most profitable, closing down lapsed consumer credit lines, and whittling down their overhead costs through the sale of real estate holdings or through sublet type agreements as I mentioned similar to the location in Freehold.
Those are all signs that the executives are trying to maintain what little profitability remains in the business. Therefore they can divide up those revenues when it comes time for them to take the “golden parachute” ride before the operation shutters the doors for good.

The demise of Sears is inevitable it seems, and it is sad because I am sure that most of us at a certain age have memories of shopping there, or of our parents bringing home a picture of the new Kenmore refrigerator. I remember going in the garage and seeing all of my father’s Craftsman tools or getting a Die Hard battery for one of the cars during a harsh winter. My mother would take me to Sears to get clothes for an athletic team I had joined.

All of those instances and so many more will remain memories that other generations of American children will never have. That is due to poor business decisions by Sears, marketing campaigns that consistently missed the target, and the societal shift towards online shopping and away from traditional retailers. It is a scenario where it is essentially “adapt or fail” and Sears failed to adapt in time to save an iconic American retail brand from joining the long list of other retailers who no longer exist. It is a sad trend overall, but one that is a harsh new reality.