Craftsman and Lowe's

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  • woodturner
    Veteran Member
    • Jun 2008
    • 2047
    • Western Pennsylvania
    • General, Sears 21829, BT3100

    #46
    Originally posted by LCHIEN

    I meant in Years. Sears started in 1893, And ended in 2019 - 126 years.
    Ended what in 2019? Sears is still in business and seems likely to survive reorganization.

    --------------------------------------------------
    Electrical Engineer by day, Woodworker by night

    Comment

    • cwsmith
      Veteran Member
      • Dec 2005
      • 2737
      • NY Southern Tier, USA.
      • BT3100-1

      #47
      We will have to see how much they "survive" or even what that survival is going to look like. The problem in my eyes, is that Sears' management is pent on self-enrichment more than any long-term goals that would benefit the overall business. One simply does not sell-off major assets in the name of survival, it is done to put profit bonuses into their own pockets in the very short term; and that forsakes the long-term viability of the company as a whole. For example, cutting 'Catalog' made the bottom line look really great and the management personally profited from that move; but, it also saw sales drop considerably over the next few years. To counter that, they sold more assets and closed some stores which balanced the books. But once again the following years showed more loss of income and once again to counter that they sold off more and closed more. Picking up K-Mart was a disaster, as it was already a failing enterprise, and worse perhaps was dispersing "Craftsman" to other outlets. 'Craftsman' was, in my opinion, the major draw to Sears. You went there to browse and buy the tools and you wife and kids went with you to browse and buy from other departments. Once "Craftsman" was available elsewhere, there was little need to visit the Sears store. Finally, selling off the Craftsman brand was like getting rid of a major appendage,

      I liken it to a guy who looses his job and to make ends meet, he sells his tools, then because he needs those tools to get a job... and can't, he then sells his truck. Yes, he keeps fulfilling his monthly need to pay the mortgage and buy groceries, but he also looses any possibility of getting a job. Once he sells his truck, he now can't even look for a job!

      That is about where Sears is today and I see the pattern repeating itself in a lot of companies; not only retailers, but in manufacturers too.

      For example, the company that I used to work for, and at one time was the leader in its market. The top management was on a bonus system. If they made their annual estimates in shipping they'd more than double their incomes via bonus. Sounds good, except for the greedy and short-sighted nature. Every month we'd have a number shipments/profits to meet. The first week of a new month the shops would almost be idle, recuperating from the rush of the previous week's "panic-to-ship". Second and third week of the month would be relatively normal except the last day or so when the numbers didn't look like they'd make the estimates. That third week would see some overtime, but it was the fourth week, when we see every shop on full-scale overtime, everybody going full-bore to ship and cutting corners to do so. Stuff shipped with wet paint, etc.

      (Edit, it should be noted that unless overtime is bid into the contract, the company is loosing it's profit margin, if not taking a loss.... the company would too often take a loss because of such poor production planning, lack of proper scheduling cycles, and, of course, a competitive market where other companies planned better!)

      Then would come the end of the 'third quarter', when annual estimates would be looked at with serious consternation. Product orders would be scrutinized and customers would be called to see if they might possibly take their January, February, or even March orders "early"! The shops would add a third shift, working almost 24-7. Nobody got to take vacation time and you'd better not call in sick! The results were year after year, we'd make "those numbers" by the end of November (our end of "fiscal year"); and with that, the management would get their bonuses. If they exceeded "the numbers" they'd get plus-bonuses (and were talking about pretty big $'s here)..

      What would the workforce get? They'd get decimated, with two or three-hundred layoffs, those that remained would get their hours cut and we'd all go into the holiday season in a pretty bad way as the December orders were already shipped, as also were January and February orders! This left the shops with little to nothing on the schedule, but the management would be ecstatic, with the plant manager getting a new Cadillac every year (out of only a fraction of his gain). Any of the younger skilled workers would find jobs during those two-to-three month layoffs, as would many highly skilled workers, and often they wouldn't return; and if they did return, you'd know their heart wouldn't be in it, their loyalty heavily damaged.

      Along with that, we'd see perhaps a cut to a particular product line, and in the mid-80's we started seeing major products "off-shored". I worked both directly and indirectly for this company almost forty years and almost every year I'd see a repeat of the process. When I started working there, we had about 4,800 employees, when I left in 2003, we had about 800 and today, we have less than 600 which mostly re-hab products coming from the plants we established in India and China, I'm told. The company has torn down or shuttered many of its buildings. Rumor has it that it will close the entire facility sometime next year.

      CWS


      Last edited by cwsmith; 04-21-2019, 06:58 PM.
      Think it Through Before You Do!

      Comment

      • leehljp
        Just me
        • Dec 2002
        • 8429
        • Tunica, MS
        • BT3000/3100

        #48
        Not directly related to Sears but this kinda does relate to change in philosophy of products vs sales.

        Steve Jobs: "And how are monopolies lost? Think about it. Some very good product people invent some very good products, and the company achieves a monopoly. But after that, the product people aren't the ones that drive the company forward anymore. It's the marketing guys or the ones who expand the business into Latin America or whatever. Because what's the point of focusing on making the product even better when the only company you can take business from is yourself? So a different group of people start to move up. And who usually ends up running the show? The sales guy. John Akers at IBM is the consummate example. Then one day, the monopoly expires for whatever reason. But by then the best product people have left, or they're no longer listened to. And so the company goes through this tumultuous time, and it either survives or it doesn't. Look at Microsoft -- who's running Microsoft? (interviewer: Steve Ballmer.) Right, the sales guy. Case closed. And that's what happened at Apple, as well."
        Hank Lee

        Experience is what you get when you don't get what you wanted!

        Comment

        • cwsmith
          Veteran Member
          • Dec 2005
          • 2737
          • NY Southern Tier, USA.
          • BT3100-1

          #49
          I look at IBM with even more consternation than I do Sears. I live in IBM country (Painted Post, Endicott (Binghamton, Johnson City, and Endicott are NY's southern tier "triple cities"). Tom Watson (the founder of International Timekeeping, later to become 'IBM') lived a couple of miles from Painted Post, in an area now called "Watson Homestead". He worked for a time at a local hardware store in the village of Painted Post.

          Endicott, was for decades a thriving town because IBM occupied almost half of it, with many divisions, international training center, etc., and neighboring Owego was the location of IBM''s Federal Systems Division. I started my career illustrating IBM keypunch and 360-systems equipment and doing presentation graphics for their Defense Dept operations in the Federal Systems Division. I've also done work for their Fishkill, Poukeepsie, and Wappingers Falls facilities. I've got to tell you that by the mid-80's they were so over confident and top heavy, the left didn't know what the right was doing and even in the same manufacturing facility one department would be working against the other. IBM was killing itself with ignorance and a bloated idea of how important to the world it was.

          In the 50's and 60's IBM was the place I would have loved to work and in high school we visited the Endicott facility almost every year. Likewise, when I was going to night school in the mid-60's, several of my instructors were IBM engineers. In the mid-80's a team of our engineers and data processing people visited the Wappinger's Fall facility at the invitation of IBM sales. They put on a very impressive presentation with an overnight stay, buffet, breakfast, etc. But getting down to the technicalities of what they were selling was short-sighted. At my initiation, my employer was in the beginnings of "Personal Computer" operations, which our mechanical engineering staff was very interested. For my part, I had already worked with Corning, Inc to move their documentation to a 'PC' platform and I was trying to do the same with Dresser-Rand, but was being fought 'tooth-and-nail' by our own Systems Department. This IBM trip was supposed to be helpful, but their concepts were still back in the 70's. They had no idea about scanning or printing, with their touted technology being a print device looking like a negative printed on a foil-like paper. The team of IBM customer engineers knew practically nothing about their own 'PC' and the "Terminal" team didn't even know about the printing technology that was just shown to us that very morning.... Remarkable! Software was still in development and their tests were being run on a version of Autodesk software that was a bloody fortune.

          While my company's Engineers came away 'mixed', our Systems folks loved it. On the way home in the IBM-chartered bus, I spent most of the time talking to the IBM rep about what I saw as shortcomings; she agreed with me. A few years later, I had my entire department was on the 'PC', by 1992 we were using laser printers, and I did my first illustrations and all the publishing on a PC. Just in the first year, we eliminated close to 20 file cabinets of drawing copies used to make up service manuals, and an estimated two hundred hours a month in access labor, by going to the PC. IBM was still pushing mainframe and our Systems dept. was bloated with programmers doing little more than clerical work. IBM was showing us nothing, all the while their own 'Entry Systems Division' was killing their mainframe and peripheral sales.

          Like Sears, this 'Giant' of the systems industry just didn't have a clue how to deal with it's own maverick innovation and in that attempt, they downplayed the 'PC' with the PC Junior (a very inferior product), and within a very few years sold off the whole product like to Lenovo! IBM, like Sears is still out there, but here in our area they are gone, some buildings sold of to BAE systems and others, and many buildings left to rot. Most dis-concerning is the massive ground water pollution that Endicott is left with; and, of course the loss of thousands of jobs!

          (The sad part of IBM's decline was that it was one of their own Engineers, a fellow by the name of Phil Estridge, was the innovative thinking behind the 'PC'. From concept to production was something like six months, using available technology and vendor supplied components for the most part. They patented nothing, didn't secure any of the designs, and they had a very young Microsoft, design the operating system.... and left ALL the software rights to MicroSoft, because they thought the whole thing was just a fad!)

          CWS
          Last edited by cwsmith; 04-22-2019, 06:42 PM. Reason: Additional commentary
          Think it Through Before You Do!

          Comment

          • LCHIEN
            Internet Fact Checker
            • Dec 2002
            • 20914
            • Katy, TX, USA.
            • BT3000 vintage 1999

            #50
            Originally posted by woodturner

            Ended what in 2019? Sears is still in business and seems likely to survive reorganization.
            Wikipedia says: Sears had the largest domestic revenue of any retailer in the United States until October 1989, when Walmart surpassed it.[4] In 2018, Sears was the 31st-largest retailer in the United States.[5] After several years of declining sales, its parent company filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy on October 15, 2018.[6] Sears announced on January 16, 2019 it had won its bankruptcy auction and would shrink and remain open with about 400 stores.


            I guess reports of its demise are exaggerated. we will get to see it slowly wither away.
            Loring in Katy, TX USA
            If your only tool is a hammer, you tend to treat all problems as if they were nails.
            BT3 FAQ - https://www.sawdustzone.org/forum/di...sked-questions

            Comment

            • tjoosk
              Banned
              • Aug 2019
              • 10

              #51
              Ace has been carrying Craftsman tools for quite some time, several years now, I tink they were the first of the non Sears stores.

              You could always try the Sears Hardware and Appliance Stores, they are independently owned but franchised dealers.

              Comment

              • Carlos
                Veteran Member
                • Jan 2004
                • 1893
                • Phoenix, AZ, USA.

                #52
                Ace is the worst of everything when it comes to Craftsman. Both stores I checked had super high prices on them. They do NOT do the no-questions guarantee, you have to have your receipt from that same store. They don't do over the counter replacements on some tools, they get sent out or you get a repair kit. Etc. Awful. Ace is on my short list of retailers to watch die too.

                Comment

                • Pappy
                  The Full Monte
                  • Dec 2002
                  • 10453
                  • San Marcos, TX, USA.
                  • BT3000 (x2)

                  #53
                  Interesting thread. The wife mentioned last night in Lowes that she wanted to outfit a house tool box with better tools. I told her we would look at tools next time we were at Home Depot. The have been carrying, and own, Husky tools as long as I have been shopping there and warranty them lifetime.

                  I have a lot invested in Craftsman hand tools and the warranty has turned into a real hassle. Lowes says they will replace them on site IF they carry the tool as an individual item. My most frequent replacement has been on screwdrivers and those are only sold in sets. Nearest Sears is 35 miles away. I started buying Kobalt tools for the same reason I have Craftsman, warranty convenience. Now Lowes has switched to Craftsman and Kobalt has to be warrantied by mail.

                  At my age 'lifetime' warranty isn't as important in tools. I find myself doing less and less DIY, especially on vehicles.
                  Don, aka Pappy,

                  Wise men talk because they have something to say,
                  Fools because they have to say something.
                  Plato

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