Where’d You Shop for Holiday Gifts?

There’s a better than 50% chance you shopped at least once in WalMart.  Five years ago, there was an equally large chance you shopped in KMart or Sears.  But this year, did you shop at Sears?  Or Sears Essentials (the replacement concept for KMart)?

Sears is still trying to figure out what to do with Martha Stewart.  Months after we heard that KMart + Sears was going to be a big competitor to Target, Kohls and WalMart the fact is that Sears missed this 2005 holiday season.  Imagine that.  Do you think the execs at Sears needed someone to provide a calendar so they new when shopping season would start?

Sears remains hopelessly Locked-in to its old Success Formula.  Eddie Lampert might be rich and smart, but he has no clue how to deal with a large, Locked-in organization.  He hasn’t Disrupted the Success Formula, despite much hoopla and personal press coverage regarding his supposed genius.  Lacking that Disruption, we haven’t seen a new Sears emerge – just an even weaker verson of the old, failing Success Formula.

If you avoided Sears this Christmas (without even trying) I think you can probably avoid the stock as an investor.  If you’re a supplier, be sure to watch your receivables line.  And here’s hoping that the talented folks working at Sears are lookng at Dick’s Sporting Goods, and other emerging retailers, for new opportunities to compete more effectively.

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