Sears, Roebuck, And Company

Sears, Roebuck and Co began in the 19th century and sold farm supplies and consumer items as a small mail order company. The first Sears retail store opened up in Chicago on the 2nd February 1925 in the building named the Merchandise. This store had included a soda fountain and an optical shop. The first detached and separate retail store opened up on the 5th October 1925 in a city called Evansville in Indiana. During the summer season in 1928 3 more Chicago department stores opened newly, one on the 63rd and Western a second on the south side at Kenwood and 77th, and the third at north side at Lawrence and Winchester Street. In 1929

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.

By 1895, Sears’s mail order business was gaining market acceptance and the Sears catalog expanded to 532 items consisting of ‘soup to nuts’ products for their customers (Sears Archive, 2012), supporting the theory that early innovators do not have a restriction on what they bring to market (Innovation Zen, 2006). Sears’s core competencies are innovation, selling, advertising, and merchandising (Sears Archive, 2012).

On July 27, 1981, Adam Walsh who was only six years old and his mother, Reve Walsh, went shopping to a Sears Department Store located in a shopping mall in Hollywood, Florida, where he disappeared on that same day. His mother left him unattended for about eight minutes at a video game display inside the Sears Department Store and warned him not to wander around, but when she had returned from inquiring to purchase a lamp, Adam was not there anymore. Mrs. Walsh was only about 150 feet away from him when Adam was kidnapped in front of a lot of customers and employees of the Sears store. The movie focuses on the hopelessness of the John and Reve Walsh as they discover that the authorities and the own police department were not being helpful to

The 2 firms had a similar profit margin, major difference exists in COGS and SG&A, while Sears had a higher gross profit margin, high expense (21.17%) is driving the total cost and expense of the two firms to the same level-about 95%.

The Hudson’s Bay and Sears offer similar products such as clothing, footwear, bedding furniture, jewellery, beauty products, electronics and housewares. The two retailers have different target market and customer service. Currently, Sears closed some stores in Toronto and they only have a few stores for pick up or outlet’s stores.

Sears Holdings Corporation, parent of Kmart and Sears, Roebuck and Co., is the third largest broad line retailer in the US. Sears Holdings is a leading supplier of tools, lawn and garden, home electronics, and automotive repair and maintenance. It supplies the Craftsman range of garage door openers.

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.

The Fortune 500 was established in 1955. Fortune 500 is a list of the 500 largest companies in the United States as compiled by FORTUNE Magazine. This list is compiled by using recent figures for revenue and includes both public and private companies with publicly available revenue data. (investopia.com) The Fortune 500 companies are ranked by the amount of revenue that they are bringing in on a yearly basis. While many feel that many of those businesses are operated by men, the Fortune 500 currently released and let it be known that there are 21 women CEO’s in the Fortune 500 category. (Management.Fortune)

Don Edwards, a recent MBA graduate has been asked to analyze the financial performance of Sears and Wal-Mart. Although Wal-Mart is the industry powerhouse, its 20% return on equity (ROE) lags behind that of Sears’ 22%.

Sears Holding Corporation is the fourth largest retailer in the United States and Canada. Its subsidiaries include Sears, Roebuck and Co. as well as K-Mart. The closing of the merger between Sears and K-Mart took place on March 24, 2005. Sears has more than 4,000 retail stores across the United States, Canada, Puerto Rico, and Guam. Sears offers products and services through over 2,700 branded and affiliated stores. Sears operates 894 broad-line stores and 1,354 specialty stores. Sears’ broad-line stores are mall-based locations. The specialty stores include Sears Hometown Stores that are mostly independently owned, Sears Home Appliance Showrooms, Sears Hardware Stores, Sears Auto Centers,

The first Lowe's store, Lowe's North Wilkesboro Hardware, was first opened in North Wilkesboro, North Carolina in 1921 by Lucius Smith Lowe (1879 - 1940).[7][8][9] After Lowe died in 1940, the business was inherited by his daughter Ruth, who sold the company to her brother Jim that same year. Jim took on Carl Buchan as a partner in 1943.[10]

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.

1. What ratios are MOST important in assessing current and predicting future value creation for Sears? For Wal-Mart?

The Home Depot bought more than 18 stores and Sears bought 45 for about $524 million. In that same year, Kmart Holding Corporation completed transactions to become a part of Sears, Roebuck and Company now known as Sears Holdings Corporation. Sears Holdings is listed on the NASDAQ under the ticker symbol SHLD. As of 2004 Kmart had 1,422 discount stores, 58 Kmart Supercenters totaling 1,480 stores. 1,323 of those stores were leased and 157 are company owned. Following the takeover, about 400 of Kmart's nearly 1,500 stores will be converted to Sears's outlets over the next three years.