I worked at Sears for 34 years. These people don't cover what happened to Sears when the focus was no longer on long time experienced employees and got rid of them and hired part time non experienced people that had no idea where things were

Lampert didn't take over Sears to save it. He deliberately killed it to stuff his own pockets, and feeding on the corpse.

The reason I stopped going to Sears many years ago is because the quality of the clothes was so bad, their fashion was terrible and the stores were dingy.

Worked for Sears 39 years. In my opinion Sears downfall began when instead of looking for ways to make money they shifted to trying to save money. Most shoppers came to Sears for the reliability in the Kenmore name and the warranty. “Satisfaction Guaranteed “ was no longer their motto. You knew it might cost a couple dollars more for an appliance, but it was a Kenmore. One of their biggest failures was cutting the commission of the sales people and replacing them with low wage employees who weren’t vested in the sale. Sears tried to compete on pricing vs quality and service they lost direction and their competitive edge. As a customer you no longer found informed employees about the products or even caring if you made a purchase.

Sears is a case study on how not to run a business.

What about the competition, Walmart took all the lower income shopper away. Then stores like Home Depot and Lowe's took their home improvement, while Best Buy took electronics.

Everything changes. Someday Amazon will fade too and something new will take its place.

Two points to mention: 1. I remember circling the toys in the Sears Catalog. Just think, the Sears Catalog was Amazon before Amazon. If they just kept it going they would be the Amazon of the world. 2. Notwithstanding, CEO Lambert is the reason for the collapse. He only had self interest to gain money, his greed destroyed Sears.

My dad worked at the Sears in Pasadena CA as a salesman in the automotive department from the late 60s until 1979 when we moved. He got a 6% commission and brought home really good paychecks. Sears thrived, their warranties were good, their products were good, and they made boatloads of money. When they started dumping good salespersons for gum-chewing know-nothing register operators, folks were put off. Sears killed the goose that laid the golden eggs that kept Sears profitable.

The Sears catalog was how you passed time leading up to Christmas, slavering over all the stuff you asked Santa to get.

Reasons for down fall of sears: 1. Eddie Lambert 2. Eddie Lambert 3. Eddie Lambert 4. Eddie Lambert 5. Eddie Lambert There you go.

That Christmas Wish Book was a force of nature when we were kids. Miss that now.

Don't forget Sears- you fired full time adult, knowledgeable employees and hired part-time, stupid, lazy high school kids in their place.

Lambert was a bad CEO - he helped ruin the company

Sears in a way was the Amazon of yesteryear. They had the future in their hands with the catalog and let opportunity slip away. So sad 😔

Killing the catalog for Sears was the death knell. Sears left the delivery service that Amazon.com took over, so you see who made the unwise move. Had Sears concentrated on the delivery service that they were known for over 100 years, they would still be alive today.

One word Lampert. He is a vampire.

ive noticed a pattern of lowes steering themselves down a very similar road as sears . if you are known for good tools , you will always have solid ground. sears had a very loyal customer base for almost 100 yrs& they blew it all in 20? smh

Until about 30 years ago if I was repairing something and needed tool I knew I could find a excellent quality tool at Sears. Then thirty years ago they stopped re-stocking their Craftsman tool shelves.

CEOs of corporations should be chargeable with felonies for the evil deeds they do to their customers, employees, and businesses. Eddie Lampert should be on trial for first degree murder of Sears Holdings.

Amazon. Basically the Sears catalogue on line.

I can think of these specific events that turned me off of Sears -Denied for a Sears or Discover credit card. I had good credit and a steady income, already had Visa. Sears didn't accept Visa, only their own card or Discover. -Clothing that screamed 'generic', but I went looking anyway, only needed a generic blue fitted dress shirt that day. Between sizes, the sleeve sizes differed by 4", not the usual 2". I could have a Sears shirt that covered my thumb, or one that left my wrist bare, but not one that came even close to fitting. -Ripped off by their auto service center, sold shock absorbers that it didn't need, that in fact degraded the ride & handling of the car

The former CEO/Chairman Eddie Lambert doesn't know how to run a retailer and hedgefunds won't save the company

I spent this video lowering and raising the volume when the lady in purple was talking.

I was employed at SEARS for 7 years (1987-1994) as I worked my way through college. I can personally attest that many of these conclusions discussed in this video, about the demise of SEARS, I witnessed and agree, never should have occurred. The most spot-on accurate of these conclusion was the comment that "upper management" forgot that the core business was merchandising - not the other 4 or 5 businesses - that company was pursuing. For one example, SEARS floor associates used to have to "push" Discover Card (which Sears' Financial Services used to co-own) along side of SEARS Charge - to it's customers, at check-out. The associate would receive a $2.00 cash incentive for every completed Discover Application an associate managed to get - but only a $1.00 cash incentive - for a regular SEARS Charge account. At the same time, the company was heavily pushing Discover's acceptance at Penny's - Macy's - etc - the bottom line - we were working toward our customers being able to PURCHASE from our competitors? The result of this nonsense was - instead of the healthy profit margin the company earned for a retail purchase - for example - on the purchase of a dress shirt & tie - at our Men's Store - the Company's passionate focus was on the meager percentage of interest income it received - on it's Discover Card business. It was this type of stupidity and poor decision making, which caused the ultimate demise of SEARS..

Eddie Lambert is a vampire conman...he sucked the corpses of Sears and Kmart dry!

It was the only store that carried high end tools that where on great sales a few times a year.

They started selling cheap tools like you can get at Harbor Freight and then hired sales associates that were clueless about their products and often could barely speak english. Another thing I remember is they redesigned their vacuums such that the old attachments didn't fit the new units. I had bought their vacuums for decades but that new design was a big mistake in my mind. I quit shopping there at least 10 years ago.

Everyone is missing another major failure and that was its online presence. To this day the Sears online shopping site is an absolute mess. It is not truly an online version of a store. It functions as a portal for innumerable online retailers selling cheaper versions of the sears items being sought. There are steps required to filter out non sears results from any search. It is so frustrating that I would always just end up driving to the store to check availability and purchase.

CEO orchestrated this 1: Sells stock then buys it backback lower price 2: Sold the Sears Tower, 3: Craftsman tools from China, removes, warranty 4: Buys failing Kmart...... 5: Fired professionals 6: hires part-time untrained staff BRILLIANT just BRILLIANT 👍

Sears’ downfall = Lambert

.... imagine if they put the catalog online on AOL way back in 1993 when they stopped printing the catalog and kept updating it. My parents bought everything at Sears until sometime around 2002 when Sears stopped taking returns on the same basis they were famous for.

Sears could have been Amazon before there was an Amazon. It was theirs' to lose and they lost it.

I hated to see the decline of Sears. I was a loyal customer on my own from the mid 1960’s, a predisposition I got from my grandfather who was a Sears fan for as long as I can remember. When we bought our present home, a major part of the decision was being walking distance (just a few blocks as my wife does not drive) from a wide range of retail stores including a Sears. You can imagine my disappointment a few years later when Sears closed that store, leaving only the one on the far side of town. I used to jokingly say, if you can’t buy it at Sears, you probably don’t need it.

I'm confused... Hasn't Sears been going out of business for like 30 years?

I think all the wheeling, and dealing help kill Sears. I felt like I was at a shifty used car dealer every time I bought something at Sears. Even things on sale I had to argue over the price. "Oh sir thats not our local price". Or "yes its the same item number sir but we are substituting this for that". To the point of me threatening to have the police come in for bate and switch tactics. Get this I was the loss prevention manager at that same store before Lambert took over. Sears turned to the same sales tactics Montgomery Wards used, and caused them to loose sales, and go out of business. One last thing that dragged Sears down was corporate HQ in Chicago. Millions spend on ludicrous, lavish, exotic, lush spoiling of employees at Sears HQ. While seasoned sales people out in the stores were payed under minimum wage plus commission. After employees were denied stock options, and all jobs except management were cut to part time only, everyone left, myself included. Only employees at Sears now is high pressure, underpaid, part time wheeler dealers. Lambert destroyed Sears, I feel his intent all along was to wring it out. My moto: the rich must take care of the people making them rich with a living wage and bennifits. That way people feel like a needed part of the team, and aren't living below poverty while working full time. That used to be Sears motto as well many years ago.

Kmart + sears Aol + Time warner Chrysler + Daimler Equals billions of dollars set on fire. No one held accountable.

I was in my local sears store two weeks ago to buy a Kenmore canister vac. When I walked in I honestly think I may have been the only customer in the whole store, it was creepy. I found a vac that I wanted, there were 4 associates standing around looking into thin air and not one of them offered to help me. I was wearing a sling from a recent shoulder surgery and still had to get the item off a high shelf, while they looked on. I finally asked one of the associates for help finding the bags. I then followed him to the checkout, carrying the box with my one functional arm. One more reason Sears is struggling.

The disconnect between customers and management is what broke it. Everyone wants to be an idea man but it's what the customer wants, not management. That woman totally summed it it when she said the turn over was so high that no one stayed long enough to have perspective or see things through but that never stopped them from going in the wrong direction.

Failure to transition to online marketing was fatal but the stores had been poorly managed for a long time. When I worked at Sears 25 years ago, Chicago micromanaged things they did NOT understand (including things such as displays) in the stores. When employees suggested helpful changes that would have facilitated sales their ideas were shot down and the employees viewed as rebels. Many (not all!) department managers were young people with degrees in business but with very little real-world sales experience. These kids were put in charge of skilled salespeople with decades of real experience and the managers would never listen to the wisdom of the sales staff. I could provide several, very puzzling examples of mismanagement by Chicago and local managers. Chicago's periodic requests for input from sales personnel proved to only be investigations into employee loyalty, with "disgruntled" employees who had contrary ideas being fired on some pretense shorty afterward. I could see that Sears was on its way down due to the incompetence of its management.

Worked for Sears all through high school many years ago. Thanks for the job. Feel badly for those for whom Sears was a long-time career.

Also, Sears/Kmart failed to update their stores. Some stores look really old and run down, plus they didn't update their cash registers to more modern ones

The customer experience for me began to tank about 10 years ago. The customer service wasn't just bad--it was horrible! I reached a point where I hesitated ... and then finally stopped purchasing anything there. Once upon a time they were my go to for lawnmowers, appliances, Craftsman tools, etc. I felt like how are they possibly going to guarantee the products I purchase there ... with such a declining customer experience? Sadly ... I havent been in a Sears store in six years or so.

Death of this company is not changing with the culture. Nowadays u have to put more money on running your business online. And treating ur employees good wages to keep the company balanced.

Sears started to fail 30 years ago. It is entirely the fault of management and now the 23 years I worked for the company leave me without the medical coverage I was promised and I may well loose my tiny pension.

I work for Sears for nine years part time. Then I left for the government. Those years were the happiest years of my working life so This saddens me. I’ve missed Sears and roebuck ,a great store

In 2012 maybe, my wife bought me a Craftsman Drill Press; it came with a defective part. I called and was told to BUY the part (~$70) and then send them the defective one and they would decide then if they were going to reimburse me. I returned the whole thing for a full refund and bought a drill press for cheaper at Home Depot and it’s been perfect since. I don’t even buy canister vacuum bags there anymore.

We recently redid our kitchen and bought all our appliances including a brand new washer and dryer from Sears. They had the best products too bad that they went out of business

I hadn't been to Sears in years but went in one Xmas a few years back...it was full of horrible, cheaply made, junk. That was not cheaply priced. Areas of the store were nearly empty and poorly maintained. Honestly, it was sad. Never went back.

*_(_**_4:02_**_) Dude... I can not listen to this lady's voice._* Seems like a nice woman, but that voice is *_piercing._*

Why is the lady in purple yelling? Lol Jesus !

Companies need to learn from Sears, Blockbuster, Nokia,.

I used to work for Sears as a telemarketer-- selling service contracts for any sort of mechanical device sold at Sears. Power tools, appliances, treadmills, etc. Hated that job and knew they were shooting themselves in the foot. Once people realized that they're going to be pestered incessantly by telemarketers if they buy from Sears, they'll take their business elsewhere. And they did.

I worked for sears back in 1980. That year they cut employees hours to save on benefits and overtime. I knew then that was the beginning of the end.

Two years ago I went to buy shoes at Sears. I was there about 20 minutes looking for help. I saw who I assumed to be a manager. When he saw me coming toward him. He turned and practically ran away. I got my shoes at Kohls

Dear Wall Street Journal, My now belated dad, who would be 99 years old this Sunday (March 24th) 2019, told me about the Sears catalogue and how he used it. 📖 He had to grow up during The Great Depression, "bathroom tissue" was not invented yet. 📃 So, after reading the catalogue, he said he spent hours crumpling up each page by hand. Only outhouses were something used back then.🚽 So, it served as a multipurpose catalogue and recycling was still the same. "The Softer Side of Sears" indeed! 😁 Peace! ✌

It took an hour and a half to pay, even though there were ten people in line. Never went back. The employees were not helpful and rude when people ask for help.

This such a good video!! Please make more like this!!

Out family always looked forward to the sears catalogue, now we all shop at Amazon.

When I was a young adult, in the late 90s and early 2000s, I remember trying to shop in a Sears, the prices were outrageous, 2-5 times more than the competitors for comperable goods. They we're using the business model of coupon and sales to make the merchandise retail priced. Sears never marketed to my generation, but continued to market to my grandparents generation.

Sears missed doing what Amazon is doing.

Just say it, Eddie Lampert had little to no experience in retail. So why was he really there

The service in the stores was awful. I purchased a washer and dryer. I had to lend the "highly trained installer " my tools to install because he didn't have any. He didn't hook either up correctly. The washer flooded my house. Finally got Sears to agree to pay my insurance deductible by going through BBB. They have never paid though. I will never shop there again.

Sears died long before amazon. Its been on life support since the 90s

As a customer I don’t think any of these reasons mentioned here was essential. it all boil down to its low product quality and high price. I am new to US I have no idea how sears were back into its days but now its items are way more expensive than, say, Macy and JC Penny, but not better than these large retails.

My last experience at sears was in November 2018 and was as follows: - Walks into sears to buy a set of Craftsman wrenches to repair my heater, find wrenches and walk to checkout. 1 lady is in line in front of me, cashier asks this decrepit old bag if she'd like to save 10% on her purchase right now by signing up for their credit card. Ancient woman thinks about it after being pressured 80 more times and agrees. After 35 minutes she cannot remember/find her SS number. A further 20 minutes passes waiting for some bank verification. Old woman starts talking to cashier for a further 20 minutes, I set my wrenches down on the floor and walk out of Sears. Took me 12 minutes to buy them at Lowes...wonder why they went bankrupt hmmmm

So many comments regarding Eddie Lampert, but he came into a company already struggling. I bought my first house in 1998. I went to Sears to buy a vacuum. I passed on the extended warranty. For the next year I got call after call from Sears trying to sell an extended warranty for that stupid vacuum. That was the last major purchase I made from Sears. A few years later I got a part time job in the same store. As a sales person, l was required to push extended warranties even though I knew they were just a money grab for the company. Even worse, if I didn't sell enough warranties, I could be written up and eventually fired. This was all prior to Eddie Lampert coming into the picture. In my opinion, the hard sell of extended warranties caused the initial decline of Sears. Customers were offended and alienated. Everything after was a drunken stumble down the mountain.....

I got my first 'charge' card from Sears. It was a whole $250.00 dollar limit.

the Sears catalogue was good for reading while shitting before smart devices..

I quit shopping at sears when the employees first response to a question or problem became "go home and look on the internet for your answer or product". I wonder how many people they sent straight to amazon

That'll teach ya for not hiring me. HAHAHAHAHA!!!!

The downfall of sears absolutely cuts to my soul. I started there at 16 as a commission sales person in electronics. I never wanted to work for another company. The year I graduated college I became the Brand Central manager at our store. I had my career goals planned out and sears was every bit of it. No company ever represented middle class America better. You didn’t need a speciality store when you could buy a suit, a pair of Levi’s, new tv, appliances, lawn mower, and get your car serviced in one place with quality items and a quality guarantee. The morning I woke up and saw the Kmart merger news I knew then it was over. It broke my heart but after a year I left. Eddie never wanted in retail and is simply a corporate raider. The downfall of sears, a company older than General Motors, whether it was internal or external is another nail in the coffin of middle class America. I hope somehow that can be reversed.

Eddie Lampert was the final Nail in the coffin for Sears.

I worked for Sears for 5 years ... they never kept up with technology and they were very arrogant

Hey, what's left of Sears: Are you listening? Do you even care at this point? Although not what they once were, I miss my closed Sears (and even Kmart) stores. Commission employees cared, a dedicated visuals person/team kept things looking nice etc... Lots and lots of etc... Echoing other comments, I would shop the website for certain things if it were not so stupidly laid out.

Anything I’ve ever worn from there was bought by my mom or wife. The store repels me, the entrance is a wall of bras and the aisles have clothing racks jammed right in the way.

I remember my grandma and mom shopping at that store when I was a kid during the 80's. We live in small town, after Sears closed shop the, other big retail stores left to

Kodak used to be my main example for a myopic management team. Missing almost every single major trend in their market can't be an accident. Now Sears is dying. Again, poor management. An American institution is being flushed down the toilet. We, as a civilization, pay the price.

1964, my first full-time employment, and my first unfurnished residence. I spent 25% of my gross income that year at Sears. And the engine in my old used truck failed, so I bought rebuilt engine from Sears and swapped the engine in the driveway of the rental house. Sears even had separate auto parts catalog. Sears offered just about everything.

For me it was buying Kenmore appliances and they actually wouldn't honor their service agreement kept saying I wasn't home at my ranch, ghosting service calls until the warranty was expired. Even though I wore Toughskins as a child, owned a telegames, and my first credit card was a Sears Card - I'll never spend a dime there, ever again. Now they're gone!

The limousine company I work for was used by sears for the last 30 years. We’re located right down the street from them in Hoffman estates IL. They currently have 130,000 trips with us and since I started working here, Sears would outsource their jobs. I would get calls from People in India who were flying in for interviews all the time who needed transportation from the airport to sears. Eventually these calls stopped and sears has used us probably 4 times in the last 4 months. It’s sad to see a company who helped us build our company go.

The #1 thing I hated about SEARS was trying to find a cashier in the department you were in to cash you out. The #2 thing I hated about SEARS was finding the cashier and realizing it's just one person behind the register and having 10 people in line ahead of you. One hour of your day waiting to cash out at SEARS.

Just did a search only to find 12 stores left operating in the US. My brother was an appliance salesperson back in the 1960s and was able to feed and provide for his family. So sad to see the end of Sears.

My grandparents used to let me pick out what I wanted for Christmas from the Sears Catalog when I was little. I have a very fond memory of that.

Sears is gone in Canada ('bout 18 months). Worked there out of high school ('76-79) in Ottawa area. Early '80's they eliminated most of their warehouse space, I guess some whizbang decided they could save a few buck by cutting back on inventory. I know dozens of people who just got sick of being told "it's on backorder". Then the 4-6 week wait. They cruised along on brand loyalty for a long time, then the bottom fell out.

My personal experience is that customer service was the biggest downfall of the store. I (the customer) had to tell an auto mechanic there on how to correct an issue with an auto alignment. The express lane for battery service was super slow. I actually left the express lane and drove across the street to Walmart and got a new battery for my truck in no time! I went there pricing mattresses and all they had were comparable top of line models. My local Sears just closed last year.

Sears employee attacked me physically when I went back in the store to tell them they were missing a part on the new appliance I just bought. Chased me out of the store into the parking lot. It’s on camera and the regional manager paid me for the appliance, delivery and installation as compensation. Working at Sears brick and mortar must be “stressful.”

Regular folks use to brag about having a die hard battery, or roadmaser tires, a kenmore washer and dryer. Sears was quality stuff. Craftman tools. Sears should have stayed with and concentrated on retail, not finance, not the stock market, their bread and butter.

Craftsman tools. That's all Sears meant to me. Appliances were good years ago then not so much.

At that time "I was a single mom". If I had a penny for every time I have heard this. I could walk into a Jordan Marsh, Macys or Sears and the middle age women behind the counter would do everything they could to ignore me. The employee was just horrible to deal with & same at Kmart. It all came down to "low life" employees. They never invested in employees. I bet that VP and General Manager very rarely visited a Sears store for more than a quick walk through. I know a lot of big vendors wanted cash from Sears because they didn't pay their bills on time. Amazon and Walmart will fall down the same rabbit hole. You need to invest in the physical plant and the employees. You can't paint a store white, throw some cheap clothing on a rack and expect people to buy. You could do that in the 1950s but not in the 1990s. Eddie L. bled a dead company to death, but they were already dead. He got a chunk of the real estate. Stockholders got screwed. Had nothing to do with not publishing the "catalog". They were cheap junk in the 1970s and never changed because they thought they had the American customer by the short hairs. Suddenly, all those clothing mills in the South closed and went to China.

I loved Sears until they merged with K Mart. The quality bit the dust after that. The stores also looked trashed after that.

Yups, remember Eatons? Simpsons? Zellers? Consumers Distributing? All gone.

Its pretty sad. I was an LP manager there for 3 years while transitioning into government and I could see the problems immediately. So much was done wrong, and the mid level executives were just there to make 6 figures quickly and get out. Cant blame them, but Lampert couldnt effect the change because the same thing was happening on his level. The one thing they could have done to remain profitible was to change the name a decade ago and begin modernizing their approach to retail..boutiqueing etc..

I noticed one of the stores featured in this story had a sign where the letter "E" was unlit. I saw something similar happen at the Miller Hill Mall (Duluth, Minn.) Sears store in January 2003, during the SARS scare.

Best boots I ever owned were from Sears. Still have them

My last experience with Sears I went in to buy socks and underwear and the sales girl kept trying to sell me this that and the other to lower the cost of my purchase. A Sears credit card would take some percentage points off, and a couple of other gimmicks which I can't remember to lower the price. I kept saying no thanks, I'm a cash and go kind of guy. Then she rang up a package of 3 underwear and a package of 6 socks and it came to $25.00 I was shocked and left without purchasing. This was at least 15 yrs ago. I've never been to a Sears store since. I just want a reasonable price with no hassle and no gimmicks.

I stopped shopping at Sears when they charged me $65 to look at a sander that started smoking after 19-20 hours and originally cost me $120. I also could not buy a shower hose because they were "out of stock", couldn't tell me if and when it would be in stock, couldn't find a supervisor to answer that question. This occurred after Sears was taken over by a foreign company.

#4 The last KMart I went to, most of the lights were out, ceiling and floor tiles were missing, the staff were few and weren't there to help. It was a place where I felt I needed to shower after I left the store.

It was useful to watch. I'm a former employee. I worked there during the early 80s. It was a different store, than my visit last week to a location in San Bruno, CA. Devoid of an actual tool department, (empty shelves, a shelf with broken/returned tools and a few screwdriver/socket sets), one aisle upstairs with toys hidden by the empty optical/photo department and lots of uninteresting clothing styles. No thanks. Senior management is where the blame lies. They lost their perspective of who shops at Sears and what they want, or wanted, when the operations were in healthier condition. Did they ever do a REAL SWOT analysis? Perhaps they had a meeting, but never acted on the issues.

i remember when they were in talks of people trying to save the company recently and they didn't have anyone so we were close to just closing the store all the stores at the same time