Sears keeps pruning its business in a years-long makeover, a bid to transform itself from a 123-year-old retail store into a nimble, 21st century operator.
Patience appears to be wearing thin. Shares slid early Tuesday to 13-year lows after the company said it would accelerate the closure of some of its stores following a “challenging” holiday season. The company’s stock is down 20 percent this year, and they’ve been cut in half in the past 12 months.
Comparable-store sales in the fourth quarter dropped 6.9 percent at Sears, and 7.2 percent at Kmart, which the also company owns. That’s a key indicator of a retailer’s health because it excludes the volatility from stores recently opened or closed.
While the quarter that contains the critical shopping season was better compared with the previous three quarters, overall same-store sales fell 9.2 percent in 2015, with Sears stores leading the decline.
“The holiday selling season proved to be challenging, with historically warm weather and intense competition pressuring margins and driving comparable store-sales declines,” the company said in a printed statement Tuesday.
Sears Holdings Corp. has struggled for years with weakening sales, unable to keep up with companies that sell appliances, like Home Depot, or general merchandise, like Wal-Mart, or everything, as is the case with Amazon.com.
It has spent years trying to modernize stores that are decades old, while chasing sales that have increasingly migrated online.
In a bid to turn around its clothing business, Sears said Tuesday that it would shake up its sourcing, pricing and inventory.
As for store closures, Sears said it will include, but not be limited to, about 50 stores that the company recently announced it would be shuttering in the next few months.
The company will attempt at least $300 million in asset sales during the first half of fiscal 2016. Sears is also still looking at options for its auto center business, which could include a sale of all or part of the operations.
Sears said Tuesday that it has reduced its debt by about $1 billion compared with 2014, and anticipates fourth-quarter revenue of $7.3 billion and full-year revenue of $25.1 billion.
The retailer will release its quarterly and full-year financial results on Feb. 25.
The Associated Press contributed to this article.
They should try selling clothes that people want rather then selling the items that they can buy at the best price
Sounds like a company that wasn’t meeting sales goals whose remedy is terminating the salesmen.
Sears merchandise is over-priced, that’s why they are getting killed by Home Depot and Walmart.
Yes and they also overcharge for their protection plans on appliances than Home Depot does!
Also, Sears are liars and have terrible service, do not purchase any majot appliances there as you will never recive them
Sorry for mis-spelled words as meant to say do not but any MAJOR appliances there as you will either not receive it or will be delayed. I had my delivery re-scheduled three times by SEARS and still have not received the refrigerator I intended to purchase – so I ended up canceling my purchase and went some where else to but it!
I so agree
YES BUT JCPENNY IS ON THE SAME ROAD, DOWN.
SO WHAT’S NEXT OR WHO?
AND THEN WITH THE STOCKS GOING DOWN ISN’T HELPING ANY AT ALL.
WHAT’S A POOR GIRL TO DO?
QUIT LISTENING TO THE LIES OF OBAMA. HE SAYS WE’RE DOING JUST FINE….NEVER BETTER….LOW UNEMPLOYMENT AND SO ON. I’LL BET YOU VOTED FOR HIM TWICE!
Sears needs to re-invent itself and come into modern times, they can’t compete with the other big box companies.
What’s wrong? I guess the rich homosexuals are not helping them since they advocate gay marriage
Love it, Red!! That is when the people didn’t want to be saddled with the whole gay thing. Some tried to tell them, but it was such a sweet move for the gays. I never buy anything from Sears except my oil changes & Kmart. I like Kmart much better than the other stores! Thanks for remembering that issue, blessings!
I have read that Sears has been structured so as to remove all things of actual value (such as the land under the stores) from the publicly held company, leaving a business intended for failure. Just a rumor.
Makes me glad I sold off my Sears stock in 2004 before it became a dog!
Kmart owns Sears, not the other way around.
I think what needs to be done is cleaning up their stores and keeping clutter out of the aisles. Making for a pleasant shopping and workers having a safe clean store to work in.
For decades I have purchased the Craftsman line of mechanic tools because they had a quality that I could depend on for me to make my living with, but now that they are made in China and there quality has fell through the floor I find no reason to pay their price for their Chinese tools when I can buy the same Chinese tool at a greater discount price from the likes of Harbour Freight or Wal-Mart. Sears lost a customer of 50 years just to make a quick buck.
We agree. I bought Craftsman tools for my husband, father and brothers for decades. By the time our children became old enough to use such things, the Sears brand had fallen apart. We also bought children’s clothes there until about fifteen years ago when that quality and style hit bottom. Hate to see an old business fail, but Sears has lost all of its good will.
my father was a mechanic for weighing devices and scales for over 50 years he bought craftsman screw drivers because of the quality and replacement policyhe is retired not nut I feel sure there are quite a few people who have had this kind of customer loyalty for years and as a result this company will be missed for years
I quit shopping at Kmart when they removed all ammunition following September 11th. On the day the people of this country might have needed it most!
Maybe Sears needs some personnel changes. Their prices and product lines leave something to be desired. When visiting the nearest mall which has a Sears store I usually go into Sears and usually leave empty-handed. Much of their clothing, electronics and housewares only seem to be a good deal when they are on sale. I have found their appliances and lawn & garden items are competitively priced and are of better quality than what is found at some of their competitors.
I’m always surprised at how few people are in Sears compared to other stores in the mall. I had similar comments and observations about Radio Shack. I used to spend a lot of money shopping in both stores, but neither seems to offer many reasons to buy something in their store today. If Sears wants to survive in the 21st century it is going to have to change.
I like Sear’s Kenmore appliances and used to buy them. But, they charge so much to deliver even though they are only a few miles away from me. All the other stores offer free delivery, connections and take away the old. If they would still offer that I would buy from them. As for their clothes…YUCK. Whoever their buyer is needs to be fired. They have very bad taste in clothing.
Sears has been dead for a number of years but is not smart enough to know it. Resuscitation is only a very remote possibility and only with a totally new team.
I stopped buying at Sears because their prices were waaaaay tooooooo high!
You could never find a sales clerk, & when you did, they barely bothered to give
you the time of day. Now (in Canada) they have changed their so called ‘rewards
program’. You have to call in to activate the new card…..Well every time I called I
was told they ‘were experiencing longer than normal wait times, over 10 mins’….no
thanks. Card has been thrown out.
True, when I went in to purchase a frig, they are willing to help, but try to get them to correct a mistake they made and forget it! They disappear and cannot be bothered then!
if you do not like bad service try finding good customer service at walmart their prices may be good but their servise is absolutely the worst
I bought a Sealy Pillow Top King mattress set from Sears four years for $2000 on sale regular $4000 with a ten year warranty. It lasted about 18 months and felt like sleeping on a bed of rocks. I called Sears and they told me that the manufacture would take care of it. I called the manufacture and told them the problem and they wanted me to lay a board across the mattress and measure between the board and mattress and the would replace it if there was 2 and half inches between the two. The problem was that the pillow top foam was always up but the mattress support underneath was bad. I called Sears back and explained that to the manager and he told me that it was out of his hands and could not help me, That the last time I shopped Sears and I will never buy a Sealy mattress again.
DO ANY OF YOU REMEMBER WHEN SEARS WAS “DOWNTOWN” IN TOLEDO OHIO?
THE ONLY STORE I FELT WHO COULD BEAT SEARS WAS A BRAND LOCAL HUGE STORE
CALLED THE LION STORE HERE IN TOLEDO OHIO.
IT’S GONE TOO.
AND NOT EVERYBODY LIKES TO BUY STUFF OFF THE INTERNET!
AND EVEN K-MART SHRUNK AND GOT JUNKY
WHERE IS ALL GOING TO END UP?
THE US MADE A HUGE MISTAKE WHEN SWOPING WITH CHINA ETC ETC ETC
JUST JUNK!!
I seldom go in the Sears at the mall except to buy bags for my Sears vacumm cleaner which I love (and is made by Eureka); during 50 years of married life I bought 4 or 5 of these vacumms either for myself or for my son and daughter. Always notice how very few people there are shopping in the store when I’m there. Wish they would turn in some of these stores due for closing into K Marts–we had one here in south GA where I live but it left and I, and a lot of other folks, sure miss it. The one we had included a grocery and, I think, a pharmacy, too. So now I do a lot of shopping at one of our two Walmarts, each of which is a 20 mile round trip from my community, Lake Park, GA, a surburb of Valdosta, and only ten miles from the Florida line–lots of folks from FL come into GA to shop, and would love a K Mart in Lake Park!.
yes everything, almost everything you purchase in any mall or store is MADE IN CHINA OR SOMEWHERE ELSE EXCEPT THE GOOD OLE USA. AND RATHER INTERESTING IT ALL HAS AN AMERICAN NAMES ON THEM. FROM TOOLS TO TOYS. PEOPLE IN GOVERNMENT SHOULD BE THE FIRST TO KNOW THAT ——THIS IS THE SIMPLE REASON FOR OUR FAILED SYSTEM FROM SOCIAL SECURITY TO HEALTH C ARE. ONE DOES NOT HAVE TO BE A BRAIN SURGEON OR A ROCKET SCIENTIST TO UNDERSTAND THAT CITIZENS NEED TO BE EMPLOYED . ONLY THEN WILL THINGS FALL IN PLACE AND RUN IN A SMOOTH MANNER LIKE LOOOOGG —LOOOOOGG AGO AGAIN FAILED SYSTEM FROM SOCIAL SECURITY TO HEALTH CARE AND EVERYTHING IN BETWEEN THAT 100 PEOPLE CAN THINK ABOUT. WE ARE BECOMING A HAS BEEN NATION. OR MAYBE WE ARE ALREADY THERE
Some of you may recall Ross Perot in 1992 who said “that sucking sound” is all the American jobs heading for Mexico. Well Clinton got elected and away our jobs started going. Time to look at these free trade deals again. Should Empress Hiliarity get elected this go around, can we expect the last of our jobs to head out also, more of the same?
Well, well, well, our governments claim that our economy is doing well was just blown out of the water. No big surprise there, they’ve been lying about it for quite some time. But then again, obummer and his idiot thugs lie about everything!
Sears and Roebuck used to be the working man’s and his families go to store. Then like most of all stores they got greedy, tried to make money on junk. It used to be if you bought anything from them, they stood behind it 100% no questions asked, and everything was made here, not overseas. If you want things from other countries, go to that country and buy what you want, ship it here (it will be ruined before it gets here unless you buy it from Europe. Not Russia, China, or any other pkace).