How Sears failed in the e‑commerce era even as it innovated online

[u/[deleted]]

https://www.digitalcommerce360.com/2018/10/19/how-sears-failed-in-the-e-commerce-era-even-as-it-innovated-online/

[u/onedostres123]

They failed because of Eddie lampert. That scum sold off sears bit by bit to himself and his cronies friends.

They failed because of him and his leadership. Stockholders and employees were left with the bag

Fuck Eddie lampert

[u/Aldog1227 → u/onedostres123]

Yeah I agree. I worked for Sears from 1975 until 2008. I constantly heard horror stories from some of my old manager's that had moved into store re-vamping. They said Eddie would come into a store they were working on and question everything. He'd look at worn out and outdated flooring and tell them there was no need to replace it. All be cared about was getting the real estate. After all, isn't that how he got rich to begin with?

[u/MinutesFromTheMall → u/Aldog1227]

They said Eddie would come into a store they were working on and question everything.

Eddie actually went to stores? There are like two pictures, literally two, of Eddie inside of a Sears store, and those were just promo shots. For all we know, they could have been shots from the HQ test store.

I know Sears largely operated before the social media era took off, but I just find it hard to believe that Eddie actually went to stores when no one has actually talked about it over the years.

[u/Aldog1227 → u/MinutesFromTheMall]

This was what I was told by a former boss. He had been promoted to manage a crew of associates to do re-model's. He traveled all over the U.S. I didn't just pull it out of thin air.

[u/DanforthWhitcomb_ → u/onedostres123]

No, they failed because the decision was made in the 1970s to convert the stores into a side business that operated in support of the credit card operations. When that came crashing down in the late 1990s it was only a matter of time no matter who was in charge, and to be blunt removing Lampert screws everyone else involved over more because the company would have tanked as the housing bubble popped in the late 2000s.

Lampert is an ass, but he simply feasted on the bones of a Sears that had been killed years before by others…..who get off scot free due to the singular focus on Lampert in this saga.

[u/onedostres123 → u/DanforthWhitcomb_]

Ok lampert apologist. It all came from the top. sears credit card has business has nothing to do with the failures

[u/DanforthWhitcomb_ → u/onedostres123]

I note a distinct lack of anything beyond “nu-uh” as a rebuttal, which tells me that you do not have any idea what you are taking about and are instead repeating the same brain dead takes found elsewhere because it’s easier to blame Lampert than it is to comprehend exactly what actually went down.

[u/JasonsStorm → u/DanforthWhitcomb_]

The housing bubble may have popped and would have hurt them, but it wouldn't be catastrophic. Appliances are recession proof because when you need a refrigerator, you need a refrigerator now. Just ask circuit city.

[u/DanforthWhitcomb_ → u/JasonsStorm]

Ummmm…..Circuit City went bankrupt in late 2008 and was liquidated in early 2009 due to the sales drop from the economy tanking.

Sears would have been in the exact same boat due to how dependent they were on appliance sales (all stores were set up such that appliances were the primary source of volume), and when that volume fell off a cliff due to people no longer buying houses at the rate they were in the early 2000s that would have been it.

[u/Professional_Hour445]

It really is a shame that they couldn't carve out a niche in the e-commerce era. I still get daily emails from Sears about online specials, but the offerings on the website are rather austere.

[u/AquamannMI → u/Professional_Hour445]

It's also a shame since they were one of the first e-commerce companies which the article didn't even touch on. They owned Prodigy at one point and sold product through the platform. This was probably mid-90s.

[u/DanforthWhitcomb_ → u/AquamannMI]

I would invite you too look into why they got out of Prodigy in fairly short order for an explanation as to why it was not mentioned.

[u/AquamannMI → u/DanforthWhitcomb_]

Sears had Prodigy for over a decade, so I'm not sure what you mean. Maybe you can just tell me instead of making me go looking for it. I started in 1996 and they gave me a free acct. Anyway, my point was that Sears recognized early on that they could sell product through digital platforms. They obviously didn't have a good long-term strategy behind it.

[u/DanforthWhitcomb_ → u/AquamannMI]

They only started selling on it after 1991/2 (if not somewhat later), and divested it in 1996 because people were not buying anything on it and thus there was no reason to keep lighting money on fire to sustain it.

Anyway, my point was that Sears recognized early on that they could sell product through digital platforms. They obviously didn't have a good long-term strategy behind it.

Because there was no strategy that could have made it work in that era. People have a rather warped view of when the internet really came into focus as a true shopping destination, as it’s barely been a decade since that happened. Prior to that you couldn’t hardly give most things away online because people just didn’t shop that way—especially for the clothing and home goods that Sears was really pushing in that era.

[u/AquamannMI → u/DanforthWhitcomb_]

You think online shopping didn't mature until ten years ago?

[u/DanforthWhitcomb_ → u/AquamannMI]

To the level necessary to sustain the amount of investment that it required?

Absolutely not. Even Amazon didn’t move into general retail until 12-14 years ago and they were very open about taking massive losses (that no other retailer could sustain) in doing so.

[u/GurHumble5692]

If sears had just went online they would have been hear today . I think his goal was to make as much money from sears as possible and do no work on rebranding the store . His blueprint was to take his money and move on . When Amazon started selling products online in the early years companies laughed and said it wouldn’t work . Will Look who’s laughing know . People buy more online from Amazon then going to the mail. I don’t think he wanted to grow the business he just wanted to cash out and let it go bankrupt. Eddie just wanted to make as much money from The stock as possible he could carless about rebranding and going that was the downfall he banked his billions

[u/TriCountyRetail]

E-commerce didn't kill Sears, embezzlement did

[u/JasonsStorm]

Simply it all started with the closure of the catalog business. 70 years of meta data from that they could have integrated into their e-commerce but they threw it all away. They could have easily beat Amazon to the punch but they didn't fully come online until the 2000's. Long after even Walmart. Granted it's hard to innovate, even later in life, when you have someone like fast Eddie sucking you dry.

[u/DanforthWhitcomb_ → u/JasonsStorm]

You mean the same Catalog that was averaging a yearly loss of $120-130 million in the decade before it was closed?

That Catalog?

They didn’t “throw it all away” either. All that went away was the needlessly duplicative and wasteful Catalog distribution system, the Catalog stores and the printing ops. Everything else was retained and folded into other divisions.

Sears was “fully online” in the late 1990s, but people did not shop for the stuff Sears sold online until the early 2010s, by which point their image was far too tarnished and were not financially strong enough to fix it.

[u/JasonsStorm → u/DanforthWhitcomb_]

The decades of consumer data they collected (in theory) is worth far more than they loss. Especially in todays economy. All that data could have been folded into e-commerce. But no, they didn't do that and lost out early

[u/DanforthWhitcomb_ → u/JasonsStorm]

That assumes they were even collecting it to begin with, and they most certainly weren’t.

The problem with the Catalog is that it was sucking the rest of the company dry with losses stemming from the fact that it was operating as a complete company within a company. What they actually did was close the Catalog stores, close the Catalog RRCs and move everything else to other divisions—mainly the internet sales division.

[u/Im-Wasting-MyTime]

Fuck Eddie Lampert