For the year, Sears earned $133 million, or $1.19 per share. This was off 43 percent from $235 million, or $1.99 per share, in the prior year.
Adjusted earnings fell to $2.07 per share from $3.19 per share.
Annual revenue declined 2 percent to $43.33 billion from $44.04 billion.
Full-year revenue at stores open at least a year fell 1.6 percent, with Kmart posting a 0.7 percent increase and Sears reporting a 3.6 percent decline.
For the 4th quarter, revenue at stores open at least a year rose 2.5 percent for Kmart. The chain reported strong sales of jewelry, clothing, toys, footwear and sporting goods but experienced weakness in its foods, consumables and pharmacy categories. Surprise - an increase in sales! Granted, not very much, but better than continual decreases in comps...
and a new CEO! The revolving door of poor leadership... is it going to continue with Lou D'Ambrosio? He's known as an information technology guy, having been at Avaya and IBM previously. Sure, Sears could improve with online shopping and mobile apps, but how it is going to fight a war on both price and innovation against Wal-Mart site to store or Amazon's powerful warehouse system, I don't know. Analysts again don't seem impressed with his lack of retail credentials and by Edward Lampert's (largest share-holder and Sears chairman) annual speech, which did not mention store remodelings, an investment that most analysts think is necessary given the company's aging stores. "Getting the customer in the door and servicing them is the basic problem for this large chain," Credit Suisse's Balter said, "a problem where the gap with its competitors seems to widen each year."
Also, Fremont Super Kmart is to become de-grocerized and become a mere Big Kmart, and cut store hours from 24 hours to 8am-10pm. Some job cuts are expected. Guess the Wal-mart supercenter proves superior! More on our comprehensive Super Kmart Center analysis, coming soon!
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I would like to thank you for teaming up with coke and offering $10. gift cards with coke reward program
ReplyDeleteI work in the Longview, Texas, Kmart. I am a part-time employee. I am a cashier. I would like to offer a few suggestions that may help our striving store.
ReplyDeleteTo become a rewards member an email address should not be required. I say this because I have several elderly customers who would like to sign up but can't because they have no email.
Invest in new cash registers. The ones we gave don't provide a display for clients and most including myself would like to be able to see the price of what we are purchasing. This ensures that the correct sale prices are given. Also, the computers we have are from the 80's and they constantly lock up quite frequently. Most of the time we have to "restart" the computer which irritates customers because it takes so long for customers to get service. I have seen more than a few potential customers leave the store and go somewhere else to buy their products because of this.
Since we are striving and trying to compete with Walmart and Target, I feel it wouldn't hurt to extend store hours.
Offer an immediate discount for credit applications instead of "saving $10 on your first statement". People are looking for and needing the discount right then. Give the people something to look forward to.
Have a new sign (display) method, and make sure the discounts are in the computers so thaty when people check out we don't have to call for a price verification. This can up 10 minutes are more in time and no customer wants to stand in line that long.
Don't make it mandatory for cashiers to push the "REWARDS, MARCH OF DIMES, CREDIT APPLICATIONS" on every transaction. This irritates some repeat customers. We sound like robots.
I hope that I am sending these requests to the correct department, if I haven't can you forward the information for me. I could not find another address.
Kmart management should be ashamed. Would they allow their own primary school age children wear the outfits they are pushing for customers
ReplyDelete