Quote:
Originally Posted by lippy
The choice is either (1) improve margin in the short term but lose customers (who knows how many) and completely eliminate your differentiation from Home Depot and Lowe's, possibly significantly damaging the brand, or (2) lower margin or raise prices in the near term to maintain the brand and differentiation. I'd choose (2). Sears stock is largely a real estate play anyway.
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Sears (& K-Mart) have a third option: Remove ALL imported goods from their stores & begin filling them with USA & Canada-made items - in EVERY department. Want to differentiate yourself from all the other stores? You have to do something radical like this - something nobody expects. Think suppliers & manufacturers would want a piece of this action? Think shoppers would want a piece of this action? You bet your a$$. Competition among suppliers would start driving the prices down before long, & voids in the products would start filling-in. I would keep returning to their stores looking for new items. Pretty soon, they'd be kicking a$$ on Target, Kohls, JC Penny, etc. Nah, this is too easy to work........