Sears Through the Years

Thinking back to the video that we watched about Sears in class, I recall several things mentioned. Sears began in 1886 as Sears Roebuck. They originally sold products to farmers through their magazine. Since then they began to emphasize several things. One thing is to treat their customers fairly at all times. A second emphasis is customer service. Third is to remember that the Sears culture is family. Fourth is to continually build relationships with new and existing customers. Finally, they stress remembering that they are usually serving families, and want to continue to do so.

Today they have 860 stores and continue to drive profitable growth. They are customer-centric, and are currently looking for new growth opportunities. Recently Sears has been sold-out, and the company is in different hands now. I wonder how successful they actually are though… In Holland Sears moved from their large space in the Westshore Mall, to a small individual building near the mall. I’m not sure why Sears did this. It was either because of the change in ownership, or because the mall is becoming a ghost town. Either way, Sears doesn’t look like much of anything in Holland. It is smaller than most of the buildings surrounding it, and looks like the oddball. I haven’t bothered to go inside it because I can get everything I need at the other stores. At least when it was in the mall I would casually walk through it sometimes to check out their stuff. Now that I have to go to a separate building I’m not interested in bothering.

Sears is going to need to do something different to get my attention. Possibly I will become more interested in this company when I become older since I do like the Craftsman tools. My perception of Craftsman tools is that they are a good value (quality is good for the price.) In the meantime, I’ll stick with the bigger stores that I already go to. Hopefully Sears can stay afloat in the meantime…