Sears Canada is writing the book on value subtracted retailing
Ahh, Sears: surely to be the next national department store obituary following Eatons and Zellers.
Echoing the sentiments by others, Sears Canada is altogether digging its own grave. I remember how Sears used to have a stocking parts depot just down the street from the department store on Fairway Road in Kitchener. It was fantastic in its heyday: knowledgeable staff, excellent cross-referencing resources, and they often had supply chain connections that rivalled most other appliance/power tool/small engine parts suppliers. Often, I was able to get repair parts and literature special ordered even for non-Sears products that were deemed discontinued elsewhere. Then, one day in the late '90s, some bigshot at head office no doubt had to justify their existence, and rather than stay the course, decided to close down the parts facility, sell the land to developers, and move it to a brand new building inconveniently hidden within an industrial park in nearby Cambridge. And, of course, just this year, the suits threw in the towel and shut
all those Sears repair places down nationwide, under the infinite wisdom that relegating it to a single cashier desk within the department store would somehow suffice. Now, thanks to some MBA-totting executive, they even charge a ridiculous fee of something like $3 to $7 just to process a parts order for a customer, even when you're going to come back and pick them up at the store, yourself. Gee, great way to alienate customers, eh! I guess they have to find a way to pay for unnecessarily relocating their distribution warehouse from Belleville to Toronto. I have zero incentive to ever return to Sears for parts; you're not even "allowed" to call the parts depot, only the outsourced 1-800 customer service call centre.
It's also amusing how they just give up on certain areas. Like Hudson's Bay, Sears used to have generic restaurants in their department stores, and then hastily closed them down a few years ago. Did anything substantive fill the space where the cafes once were? Nope. Depending on the store, they either just drywalled in a new backroom stock area, or they shoved existing stale inventory into that area like luggage items.
Once upon a time, Sears Canada made a big deal of their Craftsman brand; nowadays, it seems as though they're intentionally killing it off. I recall "Tractorama" days being a recurring marketing event, back when Sears Canada actually sold a large complement of lawn & garden power equipment -- I'd find it hard to believe that Home Depot, Lowes, etc. fragmented the market so much that Sears decided to just abandon it. And yet, this appears to be what's happening.
I can even remember when the Kitchener Sears store used to have an automotive repair garage, and I think ran a gas station, too; all long gone, even though nothing profitable has replaced those lost value-added services. Recently, a quiet decision was made to convert the [much newer circa 1996] Cambridge Sears to an outlet store, essentially cramming it full of unsold merchandise pulled from other stores. Whose brilliant idea was it to put the junk stock inside one of their
newest locations, while leaving the dumpy Fairview Park Mall location continuing to deteriorate? That Kitchener store has been there since the mall opened in the 1960s, has never had a proper renovation, and even smells funny inside.
And I don't understand how it's sustainable to have two separate Sears appliance/mattress 'Home' stores in Kitchener alone. According to handy online municipal building permit records, Sears spent $2.1 million just to build the Gateway Park Drive 'Home' store in 1999, and $700,000 just on interior finish work for the 'Home' store at the Sunrise Shopping Centre in 2005. You gotta sell an awful lot of furniture just to breakeven with those startup expenses!