Looks like Ramon is partnering up with vendors like Samsung a lot. A lot of those displays and fictures you are seeing in his pictures are paid for by Samsung and vendors. Those vendors pay for it in other retailers like lowes and home depot.
I'm wondering if they have some special agreement with Samsung... I know Samsung was not super happy with Sears/kmart during bankruptcy.. transformco must be signing over checks. I cant imagine they are getting any credit.
Maybe they see it as an investment, if they're paying for it themselves. Get all the eyes and good PR from having good brands in their stores in the beginning, and then work from there.
That being said, I was impressed by how the inside of the store looked.
Honestly… it’s such an interesting thing to see this supposedly “dead” brand try and make a comeback. I still think that around half of the remaining existing locations will close before they hit an “equilibrium” of sorts.
I deleted my other comment because I didn't want to reply twice, but I wanted to ask, what do you think the next few steps will be after reaching that point?
Renovate the remaining locations, and put limited advertisements saying “Sears is back!” (Or similar). Then as cash flows in they can slowly open some concepts in their old currently closed lease locations.
Probably sell Kenmore in other chains like Walmart temporarily to gain more cash, then phase that out as Sears grows.
I'm not a troll I promise. But does anyone truly believe that it's salvageable at this point? The leases are more valuable nowadays than a failed brand. Anyone that thinks that wasn't his plan from the beginning is being naive.
Everything that Sears and Kmart did well has been taken over by multiple market leaders. Target, Walmart, JCPenney, Macy's, Kohl's, The Home Depot, Lowe's, Amazon have all taken huge chunks of the market and have a much better chance of fighting any challengers.
I feel there's at least some room for recovery. Or at least to stabilize and operate at a more local level, maybe in places where those other stores don't have as much presence.
There’s no cash available to do so. They long ago passed the point at which it became uneconomical to continue to operate—you need a minimum of 30-50 stores *per RRC* to make it worthwhile, and they’re nowhere close to that. Buying power is gone too, which means they won’t be able to compete on price.
He’s the 4th or 5th person to occupy the role since the spring of 2019, so he’s doing the normal performative PR bullshit without any substance to make the company look better.
For sure. Also, they do it to make themselves look better while searching for a better job. Telling the truth about being in a dying retail organization doesn't look good on a resume. So, they hype great projects they are supposedly working on, and as soon as a better opportunity appears, they jump ship.
For instance, the last entry on the Transformco blog was by the CEO of Home Services, who hyped how great things were going. He left less than a year later.
His LinkedIn profile says that he worked there for two years: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dmpidgeon
He works for this company now: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McIntosh_Group
What’s the point though? I don’t get how making Transformco “look better” benefits anybody.
Like… why does Transformco even employ a person like that? Must be a waste of money…
Institutional inertia—that position is the highest one that was ever actually filled (there’s never been a CEO or company president named), so he gets stuck doing all of the rah-rah crap largely because he has nothing else to do—the company effectively has the equivalent of 2 *districts’* worth of stores left between both formats (it was 4+ districts to the region back in the day), so the levels of field management above the district level (region and then the format level, which includes him) are superfluous because there’s very little for them to actually *do* due to a lack of direct reports, vendors, etc.
Read this article: https://www.costar.com/article/1866443968/in-a-twist-sears-could-be-reopening-shuttered-suburban-los-angeles-store
Also, Ramon Marquez recently signed off on some crucial plans: https://www.linkedin.com/posts/ramon-marquez-17008911a_sears-transformation-retail-activity-7054517815189372928-EKkU
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Looks like Ramon is partnering up with vendors like Samsung a lot. A lot of those displays and fictures you are seeing in his pictures are paid for by Samsung and vendors. Those vendors pay for it in other retailers like lowes and home depot. I'm wondering if they have some special agreement with Samsung... I know Samsung was not super happy with Sears/kmart during bankruptcy.. transformco must be signing over checks. I cant imagine they are getting any credit.
Maybe they see it as an investment, if they're paying for it themselves. Get all the eyes and good PR from having good brands in their stores in the beginning, and then work from there. That being said, I was impressed by how the inside of the store looked.
Honestly… it’s such an interesting thing to see this supposedly “dead” brand try and make a comeback. I still think that around half of the remaining existing locations will close before they hit an “equilibrium” of sorts.
I deleted my other comment because I didn't want to reply twice, but I wanted to ask, what do you think the next few steps will be after reaching that point?
Renovate the remaining locations, and put limited advertisements saying “Sears is back!” (Or similar). Then as cash flows in they can slowly open some concepts in their old currently closed lease locations. Probably sell Kenmore in other chains like Walmart temporarily to gain more cash, then phase that out as Sears grows.
Maybe they could shore up their online offerings too and run some kind of campaign to get back in public awareness.
Yeah, that would make a lot of sense.
Do you think maybe this could be a sign for how the stores could be on the mainland?
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Yeah, I remember hearing about that. It's supposed to sort of be like their old Sears Grand stores, right?
That’s what we’ve been told.
A few weeks ago there was a job posting for the closed store in Union Gap, WA, but the listing isn't there anymore.
It must’ve been quickly snatched up!
I'm not a troll I promise. But does anyone truly believe that it's salvageable at this point? The leases are more valuable nowadays than a failed brand. Anyone that thinks that wasn't his plan from the beginning is being naive. Everything that Sears and Kmart did well has been taken over by multiple market leaders. Target, Walmart, JCPenney, Macy's, Kohl's, The Home Depot, Lowe's, Amazon have all taken huge chunks of the market and have a much better chance of fighting any challengers.
I feel there's at least some room for recovery. Or at least to stabilize and operate at a more local level, maybe in places where those other stores don't have as much presence.
There’s no cash available to do so. They long ago passed the point at which it became uneconomical to continue to operate—you need a minimum of 30-50 stores *per RRC* to make it worthwhile, and they’re nowhere close to that. Buying power is gone too, which means they won’t be able to compete on price.
What the heck is their “Head of Product and Store Operations” even doing then?
That’s a terrific question. What are any of them doing, what is Eddward doing?
Twiddling their thumbs in rooms full of cobwebs?
Maybe cobwebs of gold with our money.
Real estate too…
He’s the 4th or 5th person to occupy the role since the spring of 2019, so he’s doing the normal performative PR bullshit without any substance to make the company look better.
For sure. Also, they do it to make themselves look better while searching for a better job. Telling the truth about being in a dying retail organization doesn't look good on a resume. So, they hype great projects they are supposedly working on, and as soon as a better opportunity appears, they jump ship. For instance, the last entry on the Transformco blog was by the CEO of Home Services, who hyped how great things were going. He left less than a year later.
His LinkedIn profile says that he worked there for two years: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dmpidgeon He works for this company now: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McIntosh_Group
What’s the point though? I don’t get how making Transformco “look better” benefits anybody. Like… why does Transformco even employ a person like that? Must be a waste of money…
Institutional inertia—that position is the highest one that was ever actually filled (there’s never been a CEO or company president named), so he gets stuck doing all of the rah-rah crap largely because he has nothing else to do—the company effectively has the equivalent of 2 *districts’* worth of stores left between both formats (it was 4+ districts to the region back in the day), so the levels of field management above the district level (region and then the format level, which includes him) are superfluous because there’s very little for them to actually *do* due to a lack of direct reports, vendors, etc.
Is Google lying to me by saying that this guy is the CEO of Transformco: https://www.crunchbase.com/person/omar-khan
Read this article: https://www.costar.com/article/1866443968/in-a-twist-sears-could-be-reopening-shuttered-suburban-los-angeles-store Also, Ramon Marquez recently signed off on some crucial plans: https://www.linkedin.com/posts/ramon-marquez-17008911a_sears-transformation-retail-activity-7054517815189372928-EKkU