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Sears Canada (1952-2017)

  • Thread starter CanadianNational
  • Start date
jje1000 said:
I wonder in a hypothetical sense- if some new CEO took over with a mandate to salvage and stabilize the remnants, what would the resultant 'Sears' look like?
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Shut down all the department stores, get out of the big cities, return to the catalogue store model, with of course online focus. Offer free shipping if pick up in store, like Chapters does.

Might be too late now. When we lived in Fredericton we used the Sears pick up service locations all the time for Lands End clothing. Now Lands End is gone.
 
From the above article: Even his critics concede that Mr. Lampert has been stubbornly consistent, refusing to throw in the towel on Sears even after years of deteriorating results. In a news release last week, he showed no signs of backing down, pledging yet another a “fundamental restructuring” of Sears.

His strategy? Cutting “at least $1 billion in costs on an annualized basis".

Right, because that really helped the business the last six times.
 
The shame about the whole thing is that one man will single handedly put 200,000 people out of work, while he banks in his cash. He's simply playing a game with the lives of thousands of people.
 
Amare said:
The shame about the whole thing is that one man will single handedly put 200,000 people out of work, while he banks in his cash. He's simply playing a game with the lives of thousands of people.
Click to expand...

Yes, but those 200,000 people have had fair warning.
 
Still unclear to me what they think they are accomplishing with the pop up, especially since they have closed almost all the stores anywhere close to Queen St. W. Just what shoppers at Spadina and Queen are looking for - a taste of private label and off-price clothing that they have to travel to North York or Mississauga to shop for regularly. TJX, which has a lot more experience with off-price retailing and much deeper pockets, has both a Winners and Marshalls open all the time within a few blocks of this location.

Maybe they think they'll get some media and social media attention with the pop-up? But the media has usually covered every attempt by Sears in the last ten years or so to reinvent its business, and it's hardly made people flock to Sears. Why would this time be different?

The pop-up might have made more sense if it was on the PATH near Union Station - a way to showcase the latest iteration of Sears to 905 GO commuters, some of whom actually live near a Sears and might shop there.

It just seems as though they are flailing about and are just trying new things to see if anything sticks.
 
Another article on the pop-up and the latest reinvention attempt:

Sears Canada pop-up shop to showcase ‘reinvention’
Marina Strauss, The Globe and Mail, 7 April 2017

Tidbits:

  • "Sears Canada is expected to report its fourth-quarter results this month; in its third quarter, its loss more than doubled to $120-million."
  • "Mr. Stranzl used as a model for the Sears remake the affordable fashion lines of Joe Fresh, which is owned by grocer Loblaw Cos. Ltd., and Uniqlo, the Japanese-owned global retailer that launched its first stores in Canada last fall. Indeed, Sears’s $49.97 ultra-light down jacket looks a lot like Uniqlo’s signature down jackets ($49.90 to $89.90). “When I say Uniqlo, you know exactly what you’re going to get,” Mr. Stranzl said. “If I say Joe Fresh, you know what you’re going to get.” [Yes, he is comparing their latest effort to Uniqlo. Okay. Also, Joe Fresh benefited (and still benefits) from being located in and near very busy Loblaws stores.]
  • "He got a lesson in pricing when Sears found it sold almost none of its fur-lined winter parkas at its regular $229 price and, when it marked them down to $175, sold 3,000 a week. But when the retailer reduced the price to $99 in the past season, it sold 20,000 of them a week, he said. [Sure, coats that are made to retail at $229 will probably sell really well at $99. Once they start making $99-quality coats, and sell them at $99, let's see if they do as well.]
  • "Sears’s goal is to double or even triple sales to between $400 and $600 a square foot, he said. The prototype store at Promenade Shopping Centre in Thornhill, Ont. is generating the same sales as previously in half the space, he said, although he would not provide specific figures." [So, generally same anemic sales in half the space, at least on an initial basis. When you're Sears Canada, you take any win I guess.]
 
Honestly the best way for them to turn this around would just be to beg Uncle Eddie to sever all remaining ties with Sears and re-name the company. The name is just tainted, and with what's going on in the U.S stores it isnt going to get any better.
 
I have no link to an article that can provide further details at this time, but the company's lease at the current head office above the Eaton Centre is not being renewed (Cadillac wont renew) and the company must vacate its space by December 2018.
 
That's interesting. I'm surprised that the old Eaton's lease doesn't give Sears the discretion to keep renewing, but bad news for Sears that they are losing their cheap head office space.
 
Another interesting thing to see will be what becomes of all the space. The 4 floors that they currently occupy are massive and they were looking to make it more "open concept".

There's no way they will be able to find anything open concept for cheap in the downtown core. The reason I mention the core is because that's where they will be looking to lease space. Theoretically a mid-sized office building with floors comparable to the Queen-Richmond Centre would fit in perfectly with what they would be looking for but they wouldn't be able to afford something like it, as space like that comes at a premium.
 
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