Essay about Sears Company Analysis

Sears and Wal-Mart are both nationwide retailers, but their similarities are only skin deep. Sears started to lose its dominance in the early 1980s. In an attempt to boost the dwindling market share, Sears started to issue proprietary Sears Card, which gave customers payment flexibilities. A new slogan focusing on the "softer side of Sears", and a revised product mix, were created to appeal to the middle-class female shoppers.

One threat to SHLD is its competition with many retailers because it is not very differentiated from its competitors and lacks brand loyalty, thus nothing is stopping the customer from overlooking Sears and visiting a rival retailer. Another threat is a downturn in the economy which could wreck havoc on SHLD’s financial position.

This reflects the three groups into which Wal-Mart groups its 200 million consumers: "People with low incomes love name brands, richer shoppers who love good deals, and people who like low prices.” They’ve also making steps to attract more liberal consumers.

Over the last few years, it has been predominantly evident that Sears Canada has been not performing relevant to the standards present within the competitive industry. The market of retail department stores has dramatically changed since the time the corporate entity first began. To stay relevant within today’s retail industry, Sears Canada has to change their current operations. In today's market, the power of value-driven consumer products has been dominating the industry due to their affordable prices and emphasized popularity. Sears Canada has failed to distinguish themselves within the industry as either an affordable or a high quality department store. With emerging high-end retailers like Nordstrom, Holt Renfrew, the Hudson's Bay Company, and the rise of online discount retailers like Amazon and eBay, Sears can not afford to flood both market segments. This has become a major issue that Sears Canada is facing, as the company will need to differentiate themselves from their competitors by focusing their resources in the home improvement industry.

Since 1992 when Arthur C. Martinez was brought on board to head Sears’s retailing operations, credit sales, especially through the use of the company’s own proprietary credit card, boost the sales of the company greatly from 1993 to 1997. The new card accounts between 1993 and 1996 were increasing by roughly a 50% rate every year. Besides the company’s own credit cards, the third

Lowe’s Companies, Inc. is the fourteenth largest retailer in America, and overall the world’s second largest home improvement retailer. They are the 108th ranked corporation on the Fortune 500 top corporations list. With an impressive in store stock of 40,000 home improvement items on hand, ranging from lumber to Home décor items, plus an additional 400,000 home improvement items available through a special order program. Lowe’s provides a onetime stop for all home improvement needs, for both the Do-It-Yourselfer, and the ever-expanding market of the Commercial Business Customer.

The following pages focus on providing a strategic analysis of Sears Holding Corporation. The introduction reveals the issues that the paper addresses. The Company Presentation section reveals important facts in Sears' evolution. The Strategy Debates Section discusses theoretical issues applied to the situation of Sears. This is followed by the Strategic Decisions section that provides a series of recommendations that can help Sears improve its situation. The Implementation Challenges section provides important issues that can be considered challenges of strategic implementation.

According the Fortune 500, 2013 list Wal-Mart holds the number ranking. In 2012, Wal-Mart was ranking number 2.

Wal-Mart operates fewer stores than Sears but is ahead in terms of total selling area by a ratio of 3.4:1. Between 1995 and 1997, Sears’ retail store revenue per selling square foot was not only lower than that of Wal-Mart but in decline.

Sears Holdings is a relatively new company, having only been created in November of 2004 (Barbash & Barbaro, 2004). At that time, Kmart Holdings purchased Sears, Roebuck, and Co. The corporation decided it would operate stores under both names, and the merger was officially completed in March of 2005. The shareholders voted to close the deal, or it would not have been able to take place. Now the company is called Sears Holdings, and it operates both Sears and Kmart stores (Barbash & Barbaro, 2004). The company also markets both brands without blending them or favoring one over the other. There were several reasons why the companies chose to combine.

The retailer will continue to see aggressive competition from Target, Wal-Mart, JCPenney, Kohl’s, Macy’s, Home Depot and Lowes. These companies are some of the national retailers that Sears will have to contend with in order to survive. According to Sears Holding 2011, annual 10K Report with the Securities and Exchange Commission, Home Depot and Lowes are the company’s most fierce rivals of the major appliance category in which Sears accounts for nearly “16% of its entire revenue” (p.5). This fierce market positioning battle between its competitors will be a major obstacle for Sears to overcome. Sears continues to try to move forward as the company’s efficiencies in fixed assets continued

Due to slow sales and less traffic at both Sears and Kmart, the two have decided to merge creating one entity named Sears Holdings. Kmart has agreed to buy Sears for $11 Billion. This puts Sears Holdings at the third largest retailer behind Wal-Mart and Home Depot. Although Wal-Mart is a direct competitor with Kmart, Sears Holdings goal is not to compete with Wal-Mart directly, but find areas that have been overlooked by other retailers, and take advantage of the expanded line of products the new company has to offer. Sears has had higher sales than Kmart, so hundreds of Kmart’s will be transformed into Sears stores. As of now, most of Sears 870 stores are only found in malls. The new strategy would be to open Sears stores in current

The organization that I have chosen for the purpose of this corporate finance analysis is Wal-Mart. As is well known, Wal-Mart is the global market leader of

Sears Holdings Corporation is a company that came from two very well known organizations, Sears and Kmart. Both companies go back even farther than the 1900s and unfortunately both companies experienced financial difficulty at one point. With the merger Sears Holdings Corporation has the experience of both organizations as well as their different style of operating. Along with an improved customer base and a new outlook Sears Holdings Corporation is experiencing financial growth.

Sears grew up to the world’s largest retailer by expanding annual sales through diversifying sale products, such as apparel, cosmetics, jewelry, electronics, household appliances, cookware, bedding and hand-tools. This article shows that Sears suffered from a cost increase in 1997, including lawsuits, credit collectibles and sales in Mexico. Besides, the flexible payment facility that Sears offered is also a reason for cost increase. These problems brought Sears with bad debt and hence decreased the cash flow. The problems of the company came from the liquid market security, so I emphasize the flowing concepts: