The death of Sears

[rennigade]

Today many people are accessing that information on their own and are walking into the stores equally and in many cases more informed than the sales associates working at those stores.

That should go without saying. If you're walking into a store and have one specific product in mind...you should know everything about said product. How can a sales associate know everything about the 150 different appliances they sell? If anyone is still relying on a sales associate for advice they've missed the boat.

The problem in many stores is there are no sales people walking around. You have to hunt someone down. Good times.

[disneysteve]

If anyone is still relying on a sales associate for advice they've missed the boat.

The problem in many stores is there are no sales people walking around. You have to hunt someone down.

There's the problem, though. If customers shouldn't be relying on salespeople for information (which I totally agree with) then they also don't need to employ nearly as many salespeople.

When I walk into a store and there are 3 or 4 salespeople hanging around the register, that tells me the store is overstaffed, and probably overpriced to justify all of those salaries. Most of the time, I'd be perfectly happy to have no salespeople. Just have a showroom for me to check out the merchandise and then a kiosk to place my order. I'd be okay with that.

[james.hendrickson]

Eddie Lampert had no idea how to run Sears and has run it into the ground. It really is a shame.

You hit the nail on the head here - a lot of the time the rot starts from the head down. Sears probably lacks a compelling purpose and the behavior of their sales staff suggests they lack a sense of core values and beliefs.

[rennigade]

When I walk into a store and there are 3 or 4 salespeople hanging around the register, that tells me the store is overstaffed, and probably overpriced to justify all of those salaries. Most of the time, I'd be perfectly happy to have no salespeople. Just have a showroom for me to check out the merchandise and then a kiosk to place my order. I'd be okay with that.

That actually raises an interesting point...and one I never thought of before.

What if there was some sort of store where you could go to...they only had 1 item of each product in the store/on display. You could touch/feel...see how the item worked...then you could have something like a scan gun to scan the item you want to buy. Then at the end you could pay...and there would be a storage area where employees behind the scenes fetches your items and brings them to you. Or you could have the items shipped to you...either way really.

That would be kind of interesting...especially if all items were shipped to you. A lot of people like to see the product before they buy it. The stores would have much less overhead...no inventory on site...fewer employees. Not sure if we'll ever see something like this...would be interesting.

[disneysteve]

What if there was some sort of store where you could go to...they only had 1 item of each product in the store/on display. You could touch/feel...see how the item worked...then you could have something like a scan gun to scan the item you want to buy. Then at the end you could pay...and there would be a storage area where employees behind the scenes fetches your items and brings them to you. Or you could have the items shipped to you...either way really.

Sounds good to me. We all use the bricks and mortar stores for "showrooming" now anyway. Rather than fight that practice, why not just give in to it? Turn the Best Buy store into a showroom with items shipped to the customer's homes from a distribution center. Cuts down overhead as less space is needed. Cuts down on inventory costs. Cuts down on staffing costs.

As I said, that's really what we did when we bought our fridge. We checked it out in the store and then ordered at their website.