Falling Fool Favorite Sears Stinks

by Travis Johnson, Stock Gumshoe | May 30, 2008 3:20 pm

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Source URL: https://www.stockgumshoe.com/2008/05/falling-fool-favorite-sears-stinks/


2 responses to “Falling Fool Favorite Sears Stinks”

  1. layendyIllise says:

    I saw a very good interview this week on Bloomberg TV (highly recommended as a primary news source), and the target was Sears. The analyst was very bearish on Sears’ ability to pull the fat fro the fire. Looks like a short to me.

  2. bill897 says:

    I believe Sears Holding is a good turn around stock if they do what I recommend. Here’s my letter to Eddie as follows:

    Mr. Edward Scott Lampert
    Chief Executive Officer and Chairman
    ESL Investments, Inc.
    Suite 200
    Bay Harbour, FL 33154
    Phone: (786) 923-5961

    Dear Eddie,

    You are running Kmart / Sears into the ground. Here are some suggestions as follows:

    1. Amazon.com is basically an on-line catalogue company / Cloud Storage company / warehouse distribution company.

    2. Sears started out as a catalogue ordering company. My grandfather, Frank William Moilanen, was a farmer in North Dakota. He was born in Ishpeming, Michigan; in the U.P. He mined copper. When President Lincoln was giving away land in North Dakota because the U.S. Government owned 80% of the land in the 1840, my grandfather took the train across from the U.P. to North Dakota and got his 500 acres free thanks to President Lincoln. My grandfather had 13 kids, 4 boys each 6 foot 5 inches; good Finish farmers, and 9 girls of which my mom was one of them. My grandfather had a foot and a half Sears & Roebuck catalog on the piano and I could swear he ordered my grandmother as a “Mail Order Bride” out of that catalog.

    3. My dad and mom had 6 of which I was the oldest, went to Vietnam and worked in IT for the US Army for 21 years along with 14 years in the auto industry in IT.

    4. I lived in Lakeville, Michigan for 20 years and slept on a “Sears Best” mattress and had a “Sears Best” furnace. Everything out in Lakeville, Michigan was “Sear Best”.

    5. My suggestions are as follows:

    A. Kmart needs to be “Rebranded” just like Hilton Hotels when the Hilton Family sold the Hilton Chain. It was nicely rebranded and hooked up with APPS like Travelocity, Expedia, Priceline, etc. and they are mostly loaded all the time. They are a competitive place to stay.

    B. Macy’s is moving out of the malls. Maybe they are going for standalone in strip malls.

    C. Nordstrom is doing that. And they have also spun off “Rack” in the strip malls.

    D. Why can’t Sears by like Amazon? Do it exactly like Amazon.com. Change some things but put your on-line catalog on-line and pay your vendors in 60 days with immediate delivery. Amazon uses UPS drop shipments.

    E. Sears also needs to create a “Cloud Storage” company and sell “Cloud Storage” not only for itself but for others too. Sears software is antiquated and slow. What you need to enter new customers is like Social Security Administration handles customers. All you have to know is your Social Security Number and your Mother’s Maiden Name and your birth date and you can get on the Social Security website without e-mail address. Later on you put your e-mail address. You could use the IRS to validate someone’s identity to start with. You don’t need your slow cell phone interface to start with. I put my order in and was not able to get in my website account to complete the transaction. With Amazon it was easy and fast. They got the sale. The three Biggy’s in the Auto Industry: Cost, Quality, and Timing to the Customer. If you have that perfected, you have a sale and a customer for life.

    F. Sears needs to close its mall stores that aren’t profitable. In small towns, keep those and rebrand them and facelift them and make them look nice and inviting.

    G. You need to create Sears Fresh too – food delivery in certain towns.

    H. A Sears Pay would be nice too. A customer downloads an APP on their smart phone and activates it and can buy stuff with their phone. It doesn’t need to be Sears Stuff, but Sears would reap a piece of the action either from the vendor profit or an added customer charge for the convenience. An Autopay controlled by the customer could also be activated to make payments on the debt. I would replace the Sears Credit Cards with this and create your own credit card company.

    I. Why can’t you have a Sears Mail Order Bride Program? This would be a heterosexual program. The bride would have to sign a contract stating that they would be married to this person for the rest of their lives. If divorce happens, they would get nothing of the other person’s wealth. If they had two children, each one would take a child and no child support would have to be paid. If only one child, then the courts would decide.

    J. Also activate your program for farmers again with a nice big catalog sent to all the farmers for free. This could be a worldwide program providing the farmer had a good credit rating.

    K. Also, buy GE Appliances that GE wants to sell. It’s profitable. It makes money. Why let the Chinese buy this? It’s one of our crown jewels.

    Truly yours,

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