There were several reports early this morning that Sears has announced the plan to close between 100 and 120 full-line Sears and Kmart stores of their 4000+ combined US locations. Apparently holiday sales fell quite a bit short of expectations, with Sears looking to close 100+ “marginally performing” stores.
Some analysts have already predicted a bleak 2012 outlook for Sears. Sears’ closing of up to 120 of their 890 full-line Sears and 1307 Kmart stores isn’t doing a lot to prove these predictions wrong. How will vendors respond? How will consumers respond? If Sears’ long-term future is potentially in question, things will likely get progressively worse unless they find a way to increase sales.
So what does this mean for the Craftsman brand and the tool department? Nothing, yet. But we’ve already seen the Craftsman Professional brand vanish, with quite a few hand and power tools gone for good. And no, they haven’t been pulled into the Craftsman Industrial line, if that’s what you were thinking.
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A listing of which stores will be closing will be made available via this Sears media page. For reference, there are currently 2700+ Sears stores, including 890 full-line and 1350+ specialty locations. As of Jan 2011 there were 1307 Kmart locations.
Original Press Release (Dec 27th 2011)
Update: The first 79 store closures have been announced here (PDF).
rob
Very quietly a few weeks back Sears Holdings announced that they were splitting off Orhcard Supply Hardware as of 1/1/12. Seems like quite a few changes could be taking place, one analyst I heard mentioned the idea of Sears selling Lands End to bring in some cash. They also mentioned Sears Holdings wanted too much $$$ for a lot of their properties in 05/06 when Kohls and Target were expanding, so they missed the chance to sell those properties off. I also found it interesting that Sears leads all major retailers in tools and appliance sales. So needless to say Home Depot and Lowes are watching closely with Best Buy standing by to see what happens too. I sure hope this isn’t the end for Sears/KMart.
Stuart
I don’t think it’s the end, but I also don’t think this will be the end of the store closures. I’ve been saying for the longest time that Sears should spin off the Craftsman brand and tool dept. as a sort of “store within a store.”
jeff_williams
If you do find out the list will you be updating this post or starting a new one?
Stuart
Assuming the details are released soon and I catch the announcement, I will update this post.
Bill Owen
Their Mall of America store is nearby me, and always empty. I go to SEARS, so I don’t have to deal with crowds. As for Craftsman, I stopped buying their power tools, after Home Depot expanded their line to Bosch and Dewalt.
Israel David
Sear’s may be worth more dead than alive. Alexander’s Department Stores went out of business and became a successful REIT. The only difference is that we are currently in a weak real estate market.
Parke
I wonder how the tool department does compared to the rest of Sears. I bet individual Craftsman stores would be able to hold their own just fine.
John
With their tool line slowly becoming more made in China, it will depend a lot on how the quality is effected. Eventually if it turns into a high priced AliBaba outlet, most uninformed common customers looking for a screwdriver or hammer will simply go to the cut rate stores to spend 1/5 the cost.
Stuart
That’s actually something I’m afraid of as well. I just found out the other day that a couple of the Craftsman ratchets are now being made overseas. I suppose it isn’t long before the same happens to their sockets and then the screwdrivers, and then there will be less of a reason to buy Craftsman over any other brand.
Of course they say that the tools are still manufactured and tested to the same Craftsman standards, but we know that’s not necessarily true. If I want inexpensive import tools, my first choice is Stanley.
John
There is a thread over on GJ where a person did a side by side comparison between a USA made and China made ratchet. Same model number, slightly different packaging. The pieces looked and were nearly identical. The Chinese ratchet was slightly larger in some dimensions but the internals were interchangeable. What I fear is that they will start out like this but will slowly degrade over time so as not to be as noticeable until it’s basically not even worth walking into the store anymore, or any store that sells that brand for that matter.
Stuart
The first 79 closures have been announced, PDF link added to post.