Sears Starts Black Friday Early, On Wrong Day

This Saturday, on Halloween, Sears is launching a campaign called “Black Friday Now,” with “doorbuster” deals on Christmas trees, work boots, diamond-stud earrings and other select items. The deals will take place every Saturday until Christmas.

The retailer is saying that the move is a response to customers wanting deep-discount deals before the traditional Black Friday, which falls on the day after Thanksgiving. But we’re thinking it’s more of a move to combat Sears’ dismal sales results.

The Top 100 Retailers

Stores magazine just put out its list of top 100 retailers by revenue. Wal-Mart of course, is on top, followed by Kroger, Costco, Home Depot, Target, Walgreen, CVS, Lowe’s, Sears Holdings and Best Buy in descending order.

Though it’s by no means a new phenomenon, we still get blown away by Wal-Mart’s Shaq-like size. Its nearly $406 billion in revenue last year exceeds that of the next five retailers on the list COMBINED.

Wal-Mart is also making news for its support of employer-mandated health care, which is facing opposition from the National Retail Federation, which puts out Stores. We’re not going to weigh in on the health care debate (you readers are welcome to do that), but we admire that the NRF isn’t afraid to stand up to what must be one of its largest members.

Could Kmarts Become Drive-Thru Warehouses?

Sears Holdings Chairman Edward Lampert revealed a plan at the company’s annual meeting that would convert Kmart stores into warehouses where consumers would order products online and then pick them up at the facility. Called MyGofer, the first pilot store has opened in Joliet, IL, where shoppers can even get their items at a drive-thru.

Lampert didn’t give a timeline for rolling out more MyGofer’s across the portfolio. “But if it works, it could give Lampert a way to convert a lot of high-cost stores into low-cost warehouses that still generate a good deal of revenue,” a Chicago Tribune article says.

Sears’ Lampert Talks Recession, Not Real Estate

In his annual letter to shareholders yesterday, Sears Chairman Ed Lampert has a lot to say. In a Chicago Tribune article about it today, one reporter bothered to check the behemoth note’s word count, and it clocked in at 8,500.

We’ve looked it over with the intention of saving Counter Culture readers some time, trying to find what would be of most interest the retail real estate community, and we found the future of Sears’ real estate summed up in one unsatisfying sentence: “We will be closely monitoring stores throughout 2009.”

Sears Holdings Is Shutting Stores

This isn’t big news…yet. Sears Holdings is closing 12 underperforming stores – eight of them Kmart units and four of them Sears location.

We know, this is an extremely small number in comparison to the 3,800 the company owns across the country. But how long will it take before we see mass closures?

Will Sears Go Exclusively Online?

We were a little late running across this snippet (scroll to bottom of link) in the New York Post that poses this blind-item question:

“Which executive of a top ten national retailing chain is thinking about separating his ailing company from its real estate and putting the entire operation online as a rival to Amazon.com?”

Retailers Line Up For Rebate Checks

So it’s really starting now. Sears, Kroger and others are vying for the rebate checks the government will issue consumers next month as part of a $168 billion economic stimulus plan to get the economy back on track.

The Kroger plan would allow customers to exchange their rebate checks for gift cards valued higher than the government-issued money. A $300 check would turn into a $330 gift card, $600 would bring in $660 and $1,200 gets the shopper $1,320.

Sears Pumps Up Lands’ End

We found this article yesterday in the Baltimore Sun interesting. Apparently Sears, the owner of clothier Lands’ End since 2002, is stepping up its display of that apparel line by opening large ministores.

At one Sears department store, in a Maryland mall, Lands’ End already as a 24,000-sf ministore. There are currently seven of these larger Lands’ End stores across the country, according to the article, which says versions half the size started rolling out three years ago.

What’s the Future at Sears?

Sears Holdings Corp. made big news yesterday, with management announcing that CEO Aylwin Lewis is leaving the company early next month. Lewis’ interim replacement is W. Bruce Johnson, executive vice president of supply chain and operations.

The move comes just a few days after a company announcement saying that it was switching up its “internal management and organizational structure.” Part of that change includes focusing more on individual business units, including “operating businesses, support, brands, online and real estate,” according to the statement.