I am pretty certain MP3 players and ipods are driving the changes. People still want to listen to a ballgame but an ipod can't do AM.

A lot of it is also that FM sounds so much better than AM.

I occasionally go to the Sears on State Street in search of underwear and wrenches and things like that. A few months ago a Target opened more or less across the street, so that Sears is doomed.

The Sears by me opened a decade back, in a relatively upscale mall (by local standards, at least), is by a Target and other nicer options - yet seems to be doing okay. I don't get it either.
Kmart, otoh, is ######.

My first color TV, bought back during my first paid vacation, came from the Sears near University Mall in Little Rock. I dunno if the Sears is still there, but I'm pretty sure the mall died some years ago, as is the way of older malls. (I bought my first VCR on the same shopping trip at said mall's Montgomery Ward ... or maybe it was the other way around) My dryer came from the Sears at North Little Rock's McCain Mall in the mid-'90s, I'm pretty sure (I just looked, & it's a Speed Queen rather than a Kenmore, so it might have come with this house when I moved in back in 11/01 ... but I think it's the washer that stayed behind in NLR instead).

My vinyl copy of Licensed to Ill came from the LR Sears, too.

Years ago they also had a Montgomery Ward too.

My first credit card, obtained while I was a near-penniless college student (they must've forced it upon me, because there's no way I would've thought to try to get one), was from Montgomery Ward. I still remember the number.

I've been to Sears once since I was an adult. My girlfriend wanted a candy thermometer, and Sears' website showed that they had them in stock at the local store, and I was free, so I went to get her one.

First off, there weren't any ofvthem anywhere in plain sight.

Second off, it took twenty minutes for a retail associate to appear. She immediately told me that she was the wrong sales associate and left to get the "right" one.

Third off, the "right" sales associate appeared ten minutes later, made a failed cursory search, and said "The website never gets our inventory right. I think we used to have some but not any more." I got out my phone and ordered one from Amazon right in front of her and told her the same thing I later told my girlfriend and am telling you now: Sears is obsolete, and if they don't adapt to modern times they are doomed.

I have never gone back to Sears since, nor will I.

{55] Did you play frisbee in there?

I worked for Kmart for 11 and a half years (my store closed down this summer). The funny thing is the opinions of Sears and Kmart in this thread pretty well reflect what the general public perception of them is (that Sears is still a decent place but Kmart is hopeless) yet when it comes to profitability for Sears Holdings it's actually the opposite. The Kmart side of the business has been profitable for years while Sears has really been dragging things down; I'm not sure what the current state of things is but a couple years ago the company as a whole was slightly profitable but the Sears side wasn't. I suspect it's because people just aren't shopping at Sears that much any more so the massive amounts of slow-moving, expensive inventory they have on hand combined with mall rents is making it difficult for them to make much money. Kmart is in a much better position as far as being capable of making profits though in the end it's going to be irrelevant because overall sales are constantly declining (my store tended to decline 2-3% every year). More and more stores are closing (even ones like mine that were profitable and perfectly good, we were one of the top stores in the area) and there doesn't seem to be any real interest from the top execs in turning the company around, they're just looking to squeeze every dollar out of it till the end.

The company as a whole has little chance of surviving. Eventually the annual article in the business section of the paper predicting that this is the year that Sears and Kmart are going to fail is going to be true, I think it's inevitable at this point. Kenmore and Craftsman are still really strong brands that deserve the reputation they have but they're doomed to being sold off to the highest bidder at some point.

One thing that's struck me about Kmart is the wide variance in store quality. When I lived in Richmond, the local Super K was somewhere between Walmart and Target in terms of looks - it was clean, organized, etc... The Kmart closest to me now is post-apocalyptic - decidedly worse than, say, area dollar stores or the T.J. Maxx/Home Goods/other junky places of the world in terms of upkeep.

The K-Mart in Vega Baja, Puerto Rico is immaculate, bright, and fresh, much like a Target store. I had to run back out and look up at the sign to make sure I was in a K-Mart. I have never been in a K-Mart within the confines of the 50 states that was in the same league of niceness as that one.

The K-Mart near me is uninviting, like their clientele. It was recently announced that Walmart is buying the property and will be razing that building and the adjacent Holsum Bread bakery and store to make room for their new monstrosity. So I guess Walmart is the Borg of retailers.

There's no Sears where you are? It sounds like you're talking about Woolworth's or Ames.

I remember thinking that about 8 years ago, about a pocket radio. "Isn't it a good idea to have a portable radio? Why is my only radio the one in the car? I like listening to the radio." Sears was the obvious place to go.

Would have to get in my car and lose my parking space to drive out of the city to get to a Sears. Not doing that.

More and more stores are closing (even ones like mine that were profitable and perfectly good, we were one of the top stores in the area) and there doesn't seem to be any real interest from the top execs in turning the company around, they're just looking to squeeze every dollar out of it till the end.

I seem to recall it was the belief that Sears wanted KMart primarily for the real estate, rather than the stores themselves, then the real estate market went kersplat, no?

When I was a kid our shopping mall was Fox Valley in Aurora. It had Sears, JCPenney, Lord & Taylor, Sears, and Marshall Field's.

Lord and Taylor was where the womenfolk would shop for upscale clothes, jewelry, perfume, and such. Marshall Field's was where you would shop for generally nicer things. Men would shop at Sears for mangear like tools, appliances, gadgets, tv, lawnmowers, and such. JCPenney was the low end store.

I seem to recall it was the belief that Sears wanted KMart primarily for the real estate, rather than the stores themselves, then the real estate market went kersplat, no?

I thought the same hedge fund manager that bought KMart then used KMart to buy Sears and is basically using the asset to pump cash into his other ventures.

I thought the same hedge fund manager that bought KMart then used KMart to buy Sears and is basically using the asset to pump cash into his other ventures.

Oops... looking up some of the old articles from the time of the merger, I did have things slightly mixed up in that it was Lampert, the hedge fund manager, who was envisioned as using Kmart for its real estate and using Sears as the ongoing retailer.

Sears is an honest place to buy blue jeans. J.C. Penney will do if Sears is not available, or out of one's preferred blue jeans.

Yeah, Eddie Lampert is the guy calling the shots and pretty much making any Kmart property available (profitable store or no) to anyone who wants to buy it. I'd say that any plans he had to use Sears as the ongoing retailer have gone kaput though, Sears as a whole is doing poorly and there's no reason to think it's going to turn around in the future. At this point I think his plan is just to milk as much money as possible out of the company before it fails completely.

Jeffrey Loria got rich selecting the artwork endorsed by Vincent Price and sold through Sears. I doubt any entity that helped Jeffry Loria get rich is still rich today.

I feel like I'm falling for a joke here. "Rich"? As in, "make a lot of money" rich?

That just seems like an incredibly odd thing to be able to get rich at, like finding out the pull tabs on old beer cans are worth $100 apiece.

We stopped buying at Sears when we had delivery problems with a refrigerator we ordered, in the course of which we found the customer service to be atrocious.

And if their stuff is what falls below Whirlpool's quality standards, their appliances must be complete pieces of ####.

So, Vlad is fat?