Sears Sells Craftsman to Stanley

[runco]

I guess $1B will keep Kmart/Sears a little afloat little while longer.  

http://www.chicagotribune.com/business/ct-sears-sells-craftsman-stanley-20170105-story.html

 

 

[hardknox00001]

Back in the day, Craftsman tools had something.  Now a days, you can get lifetime guarantee hand tools from about anybody.  The instability and appearance of instability has me not shopping at Sears anymore.  Don't want to buy something and have them go out and then have a problem with what I bought.

While I was visiting my mom in ATL over New Years weekend, I went to a Sears, at Northlake Mall, to see what they looked like since it had been a good while since I've been in a Sears.  It was depressing.  The whole store looked to be a ghost town with the lack of merchandise.  I looked at the tools specifically and came away depressed.

I'm pretty much a Home Depot guy now or off the internet if I'm needing something tool wise.

[Murgatroy]

I have a lot of Stanley tools.

 

I break tools no matter the brand. I have Kobalt, Stanley, Craftsman, Husky, etc. If they do what I need them to do when I need them to do it they are good in my eyes.

 

More often than not the tools do what I need them to do. It is rare that they break, and if they do, I just buy the right tool for the job when I replace the broken one.

 

I don't even hate Harbor Freight.

[jpx2rk]

It was the primary reason to go to sears, except when I need a fridge or washer & dryer.

[Dustbuster]

used to go crazy over the sears catalogs when i was a kid, pick out tools i wanted, then buy them at the store......the craftsman guarantee use to be awesome,now all the big boxes will lifetime  replace tools, but it sucks having to deal w inferior quality,,,,hate to see craftsman go in for the nose dive, they used to be one of the few that kept snap on from pillaging after truck rape......Kobalt, Matco and cornwell arent too bad, but a 100 dollar torque wrench that said craftsman sure beat snap on and the rest hands down... taps for craftsman..

 

Edited January 6, 2017 by Dustbuster

[frankmako]

i was a sears tool person for years.  but now there are other brands that are just as good or better.  last time i was in a sears store it look bad.  not much going on and not a lot of tools or man stuff. 

[monkeylizard]

I needed a hex-bit socket about a month ago. I stopped at Home Depot and Lowes, but every hex bit socket they had was made in China. There's no Sears near me, but there's a K-Mart near my work and they carry Craftsman. I know Craftsman power tools have all been shipped off to China, but I thought their hand tools were still made here. Nope. I don't know about all of them, but the sockets were made in China. I just went back to Lowes and got a Kobalt.

Edited January 6, 2017 by monkeylizard

[hardknox00001]

1 hour ago, monkeylizard said:

 There's no Sears near me, but there's a K-Mart near my work and they carry Craftsman.

All of the K-Marts are gone now around M'boro.  The one in Smyrna shutdown at the end of summer.  I haven't been to K-Mart in a good while either.  Sorta quit going there when the sporting goods department was neutered.  

[TNWNGR]

I've bought a lot of sears tools and appliances but when I replaced a stolen Made In USA tool set a couple of years ago I sadly realized that they were all Made in China now. I'm not opposed to Made in China tools if they're of good quality but am opposed to paying a premium price for them I'd rather apply to a Made in USA, Germany, England etc. took. Like Murgatory I have all kinds of different name brand tools and more then a few from Harbor Freight.

 

 

 

 

[gary_boom]

The Sears in Kingsport Tn and Bristol Va are closing and that leaves very little left in the malls. Kingsport has a man with sign that says UP TO 30 % off. 

Starting in late Nov.I needed to replace a 9/16" ratchet wrench that wouldn't ratchet .they still hadn't restocked any wrenches or sockets after Christmas I thought they were going under.

[Ronald_55]

4 minutes ago, gary_boom said:

The Sears in Kingsport Tn and Bristol Va are closing and that leaves very little left in the malls. Kingsport has a man with sign that says UP TO 30 % off. 

Starting in late Nov.I needed to replace a 9/16" ratchet wrench that wouldn't ratchet .they still hadn't restocked any wrenches or sockets after Christmas I thought they were going under.

With the Sears and Movie theater going out of the Fort Henry Mall I expect they will be hurting. I think the center with BestBuy on Stone Drive is hurting them too. Basically it is just a bunch of teenagers hanging out when I have to go in there.

I used to dream of owning craftsman stuff, but not anymore. The last time someone I knew tried to get a replacement for a lifetime warranty wrench, they hassled him. They ended up asking him to ship it for a replacement because they couldn't just give him a new one at the store.

[TGO David]

Shopping malls, in general, are having to find new ways to re-invent themselves and remain relevant to the consumer, especially now that Amazon is making serious strides in same-day and next-day delivery for so many items.  Sears is a relic of ages past and has failed to keep up with evolving trends.  It's very sad to see them divesting themselves of the Craftsman line, and you could make a very safe bet that Sears won't be around in 2-3 years since this was arguably their largest cash-cow.

In the 70's and early 80's, the Sears in my hometown was still a stand-alone store near the downtown shopping district.  When the small shopping mall on the south side of town closed and the big modern mall opened on the west side of town, not only did Sears move to become an anchor store but the whole of the downtown shopping district either moved as well or just simply went out of business.

Now we are seeing the next wave of evolution for retail shopping, and the malls themselves are at great risk of drying up and going away.  Consumers either want to be able to shop from the convenience of home and receive their items same/next-day, or they want to be able to once again walk through open air shopping plazas (the modern twist on a downtown shopping district).

But, I digress!

I've been buying Kobalt, Husky and Rigid tools for the past 10-15 years and only occasionally went to Sears to pick up a new Craftsman tool or replace an older broken one.  I have a slew of classic Craftsman tools made in the USA that I inherited from my dad and grandfather, and never have a problem out of them.  It's sad to think, though, that when one of them does break I will have to replace it with a Chinese-made Craftsman.

The only thing constant is change, I guess.

 

[monkeylizard]

They have a crap ton of real estate. They own most of their buildings, rather than lease them like many stores do. I see them transforming into a REIT over the next several years.

[MrJones79]

Sears probably will be done in a couple years. Selling off their assets is more profitable than trying to continue as a business. Don't even remember last time I was in a Sears. I still like Craftsman tools, but I buy them at Ace Hardware, not Sears.


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[analog_kidd]

Several years ago, the Sears in the Oak Ridge Mall closed down. It wasn't a surprise, as the ORM was a joke and everybody was leaving. They just recently tore the whole thing down and are going to build it back as an open air marketplace kinda thing. Like TGO David says, I guess that's the latest trend.

I noticed that a couple of months ago a new Sears Hometown something-something opened up here in Oak Ridge. It's a tiny little store, maybe Dollar General sized. Have not been in it yet, and I really have no reason to. I was wondering what they were all about.

[Schadenfreude]

Over 20 years ago my dad had a rain check for a Sears shop vac that had been on sale after repeated trips there & they would say no we don't have that in stock, we tag teamed them. Dad asked with the usual no we don't have that, & I went in asking to buy one at regular price, they immediately pulled one out & brought it up front. I gave them the rain check & thanked them. Pretty much been done with Sears since then. Also Kmart can is pretty useless as well. Hate to see people lose jobs though.

[Omega]

When I started seeing Craftsman tools at autoparts stores,  and the PX, I seen the writing on the wall.  The only thing going for them was the lifetime warranty,  but everyone has that now so...

Edited January 8, 2017 by Omega
Speeling

[Chucktshoes]

On 1/6/2017 at 2:11 PM, monkeylizard said:

They have a crap ton of real estate. They own most of their buildings, rather than lease them like many stores do. I see them transforming into a REIT over the next several years.

They already did that in 2015. Seritage Growth Properties  

 

[Spiffy]

On 1/7/2017 at 9:40 AM, analog_kidd said:

Several years ago, the Sears in the Oak Ridge Mall closed down. It wasn't a surprise, as the ORM was a joke and everybody was leaving. They just recently tore the whole thing down and are going to build it back as an open air marketplace kinda thing. Like TGO David says, I guess that's the latest trend.

I noticed that a couple of months ago a new Sears Hometown something-something opened up here in Oak Ridge. It's a tiny little store, maybe Dollar General sized. Have not been in it yet, and I really have no reason to. I was wondering what they were all about.

There used to be a store like that in Athens. You could get Sears and Craftsman items but they were independently owned.  Sis was telling us about it a couple of weeks ago. She works at Belk and saw it open up. It might be a storefront for the whole "Ship my pants" deal they had going a couple of years ago.

 

The only Kmarts around us now is the one in Crossville and I think there is 1 in Knoxville. Mom worked for the one here in town and always said the stores with more competition was what was killing the rest of the stores. Take Sweetwater for instance, with year round layaway they did good business with that and the pharmacy. Kmart appealed to a certain demographic of shopper and none of the bigger stores has year round layaway to compete with that.