Is Sears Going The Way of Montgomery Ward?

[ccride]

I go way back with Sears, liked them best when they had the catalog. We ordered everything, could get much more information about any item from it than you ever could from a salesperson. All our appliances were Kenmore and all my tools were Craftsman. And everything came with good manuals and parts lists, which is pretty much unheard of now.

I worked for a Fortune 500 company in the 70's where we made digital watches and also made them for Sears. Sears had tighter specs than ours, many times watches would fail their specs but would still pass ours so we put our company name on them and sold them even tho Sears had rejected them. This was typical of Sears quality standards back then and really impressed me.

The times have really changed tho. I still like Sears and still have many Craftsman tools, but don't buy much from them anymore, mainly because their prices are too high for same items you can now buy elsewhere. And more and more of their tools are now coming from China, altho they still appear to have tighter specs than many others that are Chinese made.

One thing I still like about them is you can usually get parts for most appliances and tools they sell, even older ones. The down-side is the parts prices are so high along with the shipping that many times it's cheaper to just replace the whole thing.

Another thing I like about them is their policy of holding jobs for service people till they return.

I never was much of a Wards fan. Every time I ever went there to get something they advertised being on sale, they had always just sold the last one. I liked Penney's much better than Wards back when they had hardware like Sears and Wards, and even a catalog, before they changed to just clothes and housewares.

 

[sfloggie]

I pass Sears by although they have a large Mall Store close by. The Craftsman tools are breaking and they do not have the replacements in stock, although they use to do so.

Week before last my niece put her truck in for an alignment. The technician drove the truck off the lift! They did not tell my niece until she called the third time and about two hours after the truck was to have been services.

The a technician almost hit her as he drove very fast around the building into the service area. Little cooperation on their insurance, but we finally worked through it. I will not trust them although they were my store of choice when I was younger.

Jim

 

[Bird]

When we bought our place 5 years ago we bought all new kitchen appliances from Lowes. Stove, microwave, and fridge. And we also bought the Lowes extended warranty with these appliances. So after a year our oven burner gives out on our Lowes purchased Frigidaire oven and we call for warranty service. Guess who comes out? A service man from Sears. Seems Lowes doesn't do appliance repair. They farm this part of the deal out to Sears. Sears is still trying and I hope that they do well.

Was he in a "Sears" labelled truck?:laughing: I have a Whirlpool window unit air-conditioner I bought from Lowe's and when I had a problem and called Whirlpool, they sent an A&E Repair Service truck. And yep, that's a Sears guy working out of the same location as the other Sears service people. He said they go to stores, such as Lowes, to do repairs and those other stores don't want to see a competitor's (Sears) truck there for such jobs.:laughing:

 

[Bird]

Sears here in the Toronto area have a couple of 'clearance centers'...
that's about the only part of their stores that I go into.
It's a good place to get appliances, etc.
Usually the stuff at these clearance centers is returned merchandise, you can check out if it's damaged, or why the original buyer sent it back, etc.
Most stuff can be had for about half of original retail, or less.
And with normal Sears guarantee.

Pete

We have one, too, but they call them "outlet" stores. Ours is in the Grapevine Mills Outlet Mall. And the stuff has tags that show whether it was returned, damaged in shipment, etc. One of our daughters bought a clothes dryer from them a few years ago. It had a very small dent in one side, and she paid an extra $50 to have it delivered and installed. The delivery guys put another bigger dent in the front of it.:laughing: So I made a couple of photos of it, she took them to the outlet store and they said they would replace it at no additional cost, but asked her if she'd be willing to just keep it (it worked just fine) for a $50 refund. She declined, so they ask if she'd keep it for a $100 refund. She accepted that offer.:laughing:

There is also the service center in the area and they have a number of things for sale there, too.

 

[cdaigle430]

I still consider Sears a good place to shop. Most of my tools have come from Sears and I consider Sears Craftsman second to none on price. Our water softener died this week and I did a search of "Best Water Softeners" tonight. A Sears Kenmore kept popping up at the the top of the list regardless of price. The passing of Montgomery Wards didn't bother me that much. If Sears goes I think that would be something that I would consider a loss.

Yeah-Sears has been great for me, but 15k worth of stuff from them since I bought my house 7 years back. All were on the credit card and all of them I paid 0 percent interest and all of them still working great No one else comes closer. If they go under it will be a sad thing for me.

 

[jonyyuma]

We have one, too, but they call them "outlet" stores. Ours is in the Grapevine Mills Outlet Mall. And the stuff has tags that show whether it was returned, damaged in shipment, etc. One of our daughters bought a clothes dryer from them a few years ago. It had a very small dent in one side, and she paid an extra $50 to have it delivered and installed. The delivery guys put another bigger dent in the front of it.:laughing: So I made a couple of photos of it, she took them to the outlet store and they said they would replace it at no additional cost, but asked her if she'd be willing to just keep it (it worked just fine) for a $50 refund. She declined, so they ask if she'd keep it for a $100 refund. She accepted that offer.:laughing:

There is also the service center in the area and they have a number of things for sale there, too.

They closed Both of the Sears Outlet stores here. I liked buying the Surplus parts and tools that had not been used? It had a lot of used returned items too, for fair prices. We just have one large sears store left in Wolfchase mall?a

 

[Bird]

Well, I started this thread because of the huge price difference for the MoJack lift between Sears and Amazon. Anyway, this morning I was in the local Sears store and there was that lift at the same price as Amazon.:laughing: Of course, I still save $18.97 in sales tax. The Sears clerk said the reason it's marked down so far from the Internet price is that it's on "clearance" and this store isn't going to handle the product anymore.

 

[ccride]

The Sears clerk said the reason it's marked down so far from the Internet price is that it's on "clearance" and this store isn't going to handle the product anymore.

LOL, talk about timing, I just saw a commercial on TV for the MoJack, with them saying get them at Sears, Home Depot, and TSC.

 

[brin]

Sears lost me when I was at the register and my card was declined... it has never happened to me...

Had the card since I was 18 and they had just sent me the new card as they did every couple of years...

I called in to say I had received it and destroyed the old one and was told I was good to go.

Went to buy some tires and a refrigerator that were on sale... I left with neither, even though I had another card I could have used.

I still have their lifetime garden hoses and a lot of sears purchased items around the home.

Now that is funny...the very same thing happened to my wife and me about 5 yrs. ago..They sent us a new card and then when we went to the store it was declined...we have not been back since.

We had had the card since we got married 47 yrs. ago...go figure and like you, it had never happened to us on any other card before ...

 

[brin]

They closed Both of the Sears Outlet stores here. I liked buying the Surplus parts and tools that had not been used? It had a lot of used returned items too, for fair prices. We just have one large sears store left in Wolfchase mall?a

I miss their surplus stores too...Years ago I went into a Sears surplus store and they had the bookshelf tops of buffets marked down to $25 each..these were 4 ft. tall by 6ft wide , solid oak and had 4 oak shelves and they had some that had two shelves and cabinets on the bottoms..They were being sold on closeout since the buffet bottoms had been damaged..I bought 4 of them for $100 total and when I got them home and in our family room I flipped the one with all shelves upside down on top of the one with 2 shelves and cabinets on the bottom and we have had 2 sets of these great bookcases for years now and visitors always compliment them....

There were some really good deals there over the years.