Sandy Hetrick drove 15 miles from her home to a Sears in Media, Pennsylvania, on Wednesday to buy folding chairs and clothes.
Her local Sears in Wilmington, Delaware, the 54-year-old retiree said, was so poorly stocked that she stopped going there, even though there is no Delaware state sales tax.
“It’s really going down,” Ms. Hetrick said about Sears, which is weighing whether to file for bankruptcy protection in the coming days.
“You can’t find any help. The stores have minimal items,” she said as she shopped at the store in Media. A change in sentiment among previously loyal shoppers like Ms. Hetrick contributed to the retailer’s sharp decline in sales. Sears’ losses have continued to mount to over $11 billion from its last annual profit in 2011.
On Thursday, Reuters reported that Sears CEO Eddie Lampert is exploring a bid for some of the retailer’s businesses and real estate once it files for bankruptcy.
In September, the retailer said it is cutting down on lower-performing products and becoming more aggressive in clearing out seasonal merchandise. It also expanded the assortment on its online marketplace, which allowed it to add more popular brands.
Sears also said it continues to take steps to improve its in-store experience for shoppers, without offering details. It has made attempts to sell its products like tires and Kenmore appliances on Amazon.com Inc’s website to offset the decline in traditional shoppers by acquiring new customers online.
Even so, its annual sales have dropped nearly 60% to $16.7 billion.
The retailer’s problems, according to shoppers, former employees and vendors interviewed by Reuters , range from its limited assortment of merchandise to poor customer service. In addition, some said the retailer abandoned basic shop-keeping standards such as clean stores. And Mr. Lampert’s leadership over the years to save the chain hurt it more than helped.
The retailer, which for decades was considered the Amazon.com of its time, branched into industries as diverse as insurance, real estate and even broadcasting. A sign of its corporate power was the 110-story building called the Sears Tower, once its corporate headquarters in Chicago and the world's tallest building for a period of time. Ms. Hetrick shopped at Sears since she was a child, and said she recalls looking forward to its Christmas catalogs. But nostalgia for the Sears hallmarks, from the catalog to Craftsman tools, has not helped the 125-year-old department store bring customers through its doors in recent years.
The retailer lost its allure with shoppers after shrinking its total store locations by over 70% in less than a decade. Sears runs nearly 900 stores, including the Kmart chain. As of February 2018, the retailer said it employed about 89,000 workers in the U.S. compared to the same period five years ago, when it employed 2,46,000 people.
Over that time, the number of consumers open to shopping at Sears dropped to 14% on June 1, 2018, from 28% on June 1, 2013, according to data from YouGov BrandIndex, a company that tracks public perception of brands. Only 9% of U.S. millennials — aged between 22 and 37 years in 2018 — said they would consider buying goods from the retailer, it said.
Kmart effect
Some former employees said the retailer started going downhill in 2005 when it merged with Kmart, a deal engineered by Mr. Lampert. In 2004, when the retailer announced the merger, it was the third-largest in revenue behind Walmart Inc. and Target Corp.
Customers used to be able to check out in any department in the store, and there was always someone to ask for assistance, said Judy Davis, 81, of Banning California, who retired from Sears in 1999 after working at the Cerritos, California, store for 27 years. But after the Kmart merger, the checkouts were placed in one corner near the store exit, and cashiers could not leave their registers, she said.
Mr. Lampert’s lack of experience in the retail business was the biggest reason Sears’ fortunes took a turn for the worse, said Chad Brand, president of Peridot Capital Management, which holds Sears bonds.
“What I think he missed was realising that when your competitors are investing that capital and you are not, you are going to lose customers to your competition,” he said.
Mr. Lampert and his spokespeople were not available for comment.
