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| March 1984 |
"There's more for your life at Sears." Not any longer. Sears died hard. Yesterday was the last day for all of their stores in Canada.
Although the writing was on the wall for a very long time, it's still a sad end to a once great company. I own loads of Craftsman hand and power tools which were quality items at one time, backed by a fantastic guarantee. Then they started having them made off-shore. I pointed this out to the guy in the tool section who just shrugged and actually said, "Expect less from Sears." Now the Craftsman brand name has been sold to Stanley Black & Decker. Same name, same or similar off-shore source, different corporate ownership.
Although the writing was on the wall for a very long time, it's still a sad end to a once great company. I own loads of Craftsman hand and power tools which were quality items at one time, backed by a fantastic guarantee. Then they started having them made off-shore. I pointed this out to the guy in the tool section who just shrugged and actually said, "Expect less from Sears." Now the Craftsman brand name has been sold to Stanley Black & Decker. Same name, same or similar off-shore source, different corporate ownership.
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| 1977 |
2 comments:
Sad indeed. Sears occupied the middle ground between the cheap crap at Wal-Mart and the needlessly expensive Hudson's Bay. Sears paycheques put me through college. I met my wife when we worked there together. Her mother and grandmother worked in the same store. Craftsman tools fill my toolboxes. Many of them were used professionaly without issue. In 30-something years I've returned one broken Craftsman tool. A lot of my furniture & appliances are from there. I was a die-hard Die-Hard car battery user until they sold off that brand.
Yup, for this middle class shmoe, Sears filled a need. Think Wal-Mart will try to fill the gap by selling some quality goods? HA! Not a chance. It's plastic Chinese junk for you all!
I was also a Sears fan, as a kid, the catalogs were a window to the world. I got a job there, deluxing lawnmowers in some spring of the mid-late 70s, which led to a 10 year career in the service department. We took company correspondence upgrading courses and were regularly sent for courses in Toronto. Truly a great company back in the day- when I was there they claimed 66% of the appliance business in Canada.
Of course we techs all had toolboxes full of Craftsman tools, the 15% employee discount plus the frequent 25% tool discount guaranteed that. Most of them are still in my toolboxes. The tool warranty was abused by us all, seeing the pained expression on the salesman's face as he replaced the 4-foot-pipe bent and heat-discoloured 2/8" ratchet with a new one. But it bred loyal customers, I've continued to buy my tools there, up till recently.
It was sad to see a new owner sell off the credit business some years ago, you knew the rest of the company was going to be starved into history. Very sad.
But as the line goes, "Hey! It ain't personal, it's just business".
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