This is not a trick question.
Have you seen a new Sears or Craftsman tool catalog for 2014-2015, or perhaps just for 2014?
In past years, Sears and Craftsman sent out new tool catalogs in the second quarter, and I haven’t seen anything yet this year.
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They also used to send out a holiday tool catalog in late September, and I haven’t seen that for a couple of years now. The last time I asked someone at Sears about this, they said they would “look into it.”
Over at Sears.com, they only show the old 2013-2014 catalog, which came out a long time ago, sometime around June 2013.
There’s a lot of talk about Sears’ financial woes, and I really hope that the tools catalog isn’t one area they’re looking to save money. Even an all-digital catalog would be appreciated. Digital isn’t as much fun to flip through, but it’s better than nothing.
If anyone catches a glimpse of the 2014-2015 Craftsman or Sears tool catalog, or a 2014 holiday tool catalog, please let me know!
Sean
I work at Sears as a salesman and speak to the brand managers. Currently there are no plans to ever produce a paper tools catalog, as far as I have been able to find. They are considering an online one.
I wish they’d sell the catalogs. You can still get a catalog of Craftsman via craftsmanindustrial.com, though you will have to e-mail or call your regional distributor for one.
Any other questions about anything Sears related feel free to ask, if it’s not confidential or proprietary information and I can share it, I will. I probably won’t see this, so e-mail me. [email protected]
fred
Interesting philosophy.
I have often wondered why my wife and I still get so many print catalogs – then I heard a piece about how many internet retailers still send out catalogs because they find that internet sales spike up after the catalog mailings.
Toolfreak
Sears abandoned the print catalogs quite awhile ago, or were at least phasing them out in favor of online-only due to printing and mailing costs, same as what they did with the monthly Craftsman Club flyers, (although strangely enough they still have those in stores each month and don’t mail them out to Craftsman Club members.
The 2013-2014 was just a last gasp, basically being a bunch of old stuff with a few new things thrown in, although quite a few items in that catalog can no longer be ordered. They didn’t even print many of those, and it seems they were just something to display in the stores, they never mailed me one, and once they were gone from the store displays, they were gone.
I’m not expecting a 2014-2015 print catalog, or even an online one. Sears is in the middle of reducing the number of SKUs and tools they sell, and sending just about everything overseas, so a catalog now would either be incomplete or outdated within months when they add more China-made tools and get rid of a bunch of currently sold ones.
It’s really too bad, because looking through the tool catalog was a lot of fun, and you could pick out tools and sets you wanted to buy in the future. The number of items and tool sets has been reduced to the point there’s not much left to want if you already have the basic tools. The larger sets are no longer available, partly due to the discontinuation of USA tool production.
Really, most of what’s left in the stores and what you can find on the Sears website is all that’s left to buy. That would be a pretty thin catalog.
Jim Felt
Wow. I find the hedge fund Sears and K Mart buyout then mashup more and more egregious by the moment.
At least the bigger Sears brick and mortar stores still maintain a fair selection. Fair based I supposed on foot traffic and sales.
But it’s truly been decades since their tag line “Where America Shops” meant much.
All pretty said. Arrogance and hubris at their management level, as usual, are mostly responsible for this near end.
SteveR
I still like the print catalogue, as I can flip from page-to-page and compare tools one against the other. That’s difficult to do on a computer, tablet or a phone screen (unless you have 2-3 screens arrayed in front of you). It gives you more of an “in-hand” experience than can be achieved online. It also allows me to discover tools I might not have known existed unless I was specifically looking for them online.
The paper catalogue puts everything in front of you in one shot, and we probably buy more online because it gives us that capability. I probably “impulse buy” more items because of that, just like buying gum, candy bars, batteries, etc., at checkout in a grocery store causes us to do. It might take me several hours of browsing online to find something that I would discover in 15-20 minutes going through a paper catalogue. If I want to know more about a product, I can then go online to find the lowest price, customer reviews, availability, etc.
The paper catalogue is a finite book. The online catalogue can seem to be infinite in size, and thus gives up its secrets more slowly. I also grew up in a time when we only had paper catalogues, so this “old school” approach is ingrained. Younger people, not having ready access to paper catalogues, probably don’t miss it; I suspect it’s a generational thing
Stuart
That’s why I like the the catalogs as well. Plus, it’s easier to sort out the newer offerings in a print catalog than the online one.
Not only that, unlike Sears.com, print catalogs cannot ever crash on me.
In the past few months, I’ve encountered numerous server errors with Sears.com, including several times when it translated everything to Spanish and numerous times when looking at certain tool categories led to missing database errors.
Toolfreak
There are also a great many items on Sears.com, including many, many tools, that just do not show up, even in a search for them, even though they are in stock.
Sometimes you can accidentally “find” them by searching for something else which accidentally shows them in the results – but that’s it. Otherwise they are hidden, and for this reason, many items people would likely otherwise buy just sit in the warehouse completely ignored.
Grady
I’m with Fred on this one. I love looking through the paper catalogs, when I see something I like, I now have the model and part number. I can go online research and compare before buying or not.
Toolfreak
Then imagine going online to Sears.com and putting in the model or part number and getting a an error page, or one showing the item but indicating it’s “no longer available” or just “out of stock for shipping” and only available to buy in-store at stores that have them in stock – and the only stores that have them in stock are thousands of miles away and they won’t ship the item to you, even if you offer to pay full price and shipping.
I think at least part of the reason for getting away from paper catalogs is to avoid the buyer anger and fustration with these types of scenarios, online buying lets stores limit buyers to viewing what they can order and buy. It’s pretty bad to frustrate potential buyers by showing them a wide variety of items – for them to only find out when trying to order that a great many of them are out of stock, discontinued, or were never available to begin with.
Companies that send out paper catalogs these days tend to do so with things they almost always have stock of, or of items they produced and stock just for the purposes of fulfilling orders from that catalog. Sears isn’t in either position at the moment, with tools or anything else.
John
Since the offshoring of Craftsman hand tools with the exception of the odd old stock find, I’ve pretty much given up on Sears as a place to buy tools. Their website sucks. The last paper catalog (probably 18 months or so old) I had kept telling me to look at the previously mentioned terrible website for more info.
To me, their only saving grace is that I have a Sears Hardware store 10 minutes from my house and a regular Sears store 25 minutes away so if I need something short notice I can run to a store (at least during their limited hours). It’s probably only a matter of time until one or both is closed.
Stan
I haven’t had much reason to visit Sears much as they continue to pick offshore suppliers in favor of American manufacturers. I rather buy American made products first and foremost, but this has been a VERY long time since their old slogan “Where America” shops had any meaning.
Sure some products are still USA made, but not much anymore these days.
As for catalogs, I see this as a sign of the times though. Paper is more expensive than to publish this information online and is more appealing to the younger crowd as well. Not that this ideology is 100% correct or that I 100% agree with this, but why carry a catalog when you can easily find products via iPhones or other electronic devices?
Sledgecrowbar
It’s still 2014, that catalog has lots of life left as something I will never buy anything out of.
I’d be fine if they abandoned the paper catalog, although I always loved to read it, if they would just upgrade their website to have everything they make, not just what they want me to buy, or what’s piling up in the warehouse right now, let me sort the search results, and actually have it sort by what I click on, and for *’s sake make it faster. And stop trying to be Amazon. I understand you want to make money, just stop crapping up my search results with porcelain dolls I will never be interested in. I have to click on the “[sold by] Sears Only” tab every damned time I choose another specifier. Nobody goes to Sears.com to buy the shit they buy on amazon, and that’s not going to change.
I invested heavily in Craftsman back in 2008 when I was ready to create my workshop as I would spend a lot of free time for the rest of my life. Now my thousands of dollars of famously American chromed steel is all collector’s items and I’m starting to buy Kobalt and Husky and Harbor Freight just to keep from feeling bad when I want to be in my space doing what I like. If I knew I could replace it ten minutes up the road I’d open that chest right back up and feel good again about the tools in my hand, but this Chinese stuff gets the job done, has the same warranty, is just as close to get a replacement, and at least the replacement will still come from the worst place to work on Earth, rather than being newly-outsourced to it.
I want to see the COO on every product page, too. I actually went back to Sears three times this past month just to look at labels after giving up when the gimmick wrenches from China started coming out, and it damned sure was important to me where it was from with that brand name on the front.
The Craftsman truck series should be nothing but donkey-drawn wooden carts hauling bags of rice on dirt roads.
Oldasdirt
I used to look at Sears Craftsman with joy. I enjoyed the heft they had. But sadly now I don’t buy Craftsman that often. Why because now the tools feel like JUNK and in some cases look like junk. The catalog made excellent reading material when using the out house. But alas that is gone to. Oh for the good old days.
Rob
I do not like the sears website. When doing simple searches, it does not return everything. Go look up Nextec or c3 and see what returns. They are slowly working to get rid of all of my business.
john stagg
Sears is on their way out thanks to mismanagement, no sales incentives and very bad customer service. They outsourced all of their tools to china. I gave up on sears when they no longer stocked what they offered online. If sears just stayed the coarse instead of mismanaging every possible aspect of their company, they would have survived; Instead they just did not care about their product or their customers. This is nothing short of criminal and very sad. I’m waiting for their going out of business sale. I’m headed for Harbor Freight tools who has the same tools at much cheaper prices and the stock what they sale.
jack
I called several “Sears” 1-800 numbers and did numerous drill downs to talk to someone about a tool catalog. I finally found myself talking to a “Lady” with a heavy foreign (Hispanic) accent. She informed me that the catalogs are no longer available. Quite possibly a cover up for being too lazy to chase down whether or not a catalog actually is still available. She seemed very uncertain about it. I believe that Sears is dying a slow death along with K-Mart. I have many “Other” tool catalogs and it’s nice to thumb thru the pages and quickly see what’s available. Bye Bye Sears!! 🙂
jack
I found this old 2009 request link, but I do not believe it is still working. But FWIW: http://www.sears.com/shc/s/ordercatalog_10153_12605_Tools+Annual+Catalog+2009
🙂
WADE EVANS
I need a catalogs
Ron Brown
If you want a really good tool catalog go to Grizzley.com