Stanley bought Black & Decker a couple of years ago to become Stanley Black & Decker

They also own Proto, Porter Cable, Vidmar, CribMaster, DeWalt, Bostitch, Mac Tools, Irwin, and some others.

3 days ago Stanley Black & Decker made a deal to pay $525 million when the transaction closes, which is expected to occur by year-end, and an additional $250 million at the end of the third year after closing. Sears will also collect a percentage of new Craftsman sales for 15 years after the deal closes. The transaction is now valued at $900 million.

Just watching the 10 o'clock news, Macy's downtown is having their clearance sale now. They still have the Mall of America, Southdale, and Ridgedale stores.

Haven't thought about Pamida in years. googled my home town of Detroit Lakes... Closed. Alexandria MN, where I proprosed to my first wife when she worked there, Open.. lol

Still go to the Minneapolis Kmart for their Pharmacy. Still cheaper than Target/CVS and Walmart and Walgreens and the Regular CVS stores.

KMART screwed up with Antonini back in 89 90. He stopped doing whatever KMART was successful at doing for better stocks. Some of their best money makers were the deli and the cafeterias. After 1992? Gone. They lost the war with Walmart regarding American made. Walmart had that SMILEY faced wrapped in the red white and blue, proclaiming American made only. KMART couldn't keep up with exported goods and their stock plummeted. They then were bought out by Sears. That has only extended the death of both entities. Once internet purchasing became reliable the death knell for KMART SEARS was rung.

Sadly, even Walmart stopped selling American made only.

I really miss the old days, eating at Woolworths and Walgreens

Definitely not Apple stores. At least not yet.

I think that's a perfectly normal visceral reaction. The irony is that many of these retailers have gone under not because of globalization but because other US-based retailers ate their lunch. Walmart and Target are really wiping the floor of the competition.

And of course you can't discount e-commerce. There's no doubt that many consumers have largely stopped shopping at brick and mortar stores because of the convenience of online shopping. I'm one of those consumers.

Lately I've been buying from Amazon. Amazon prime membership - the boys order books from them for their studies and i order things plus stream whatever movies look interesting from their selection.

Sure beats the crowds & traffic at the mall around Christmas time

2 hour Amazon delivery on some items. Amazing

Sears was killed by its stupid CEO

The man has sold off one of the most important brands sears held, the craftsman tool brand. Those tools don't cost a lot of money to make yet they have huge brand power and recognition, they could have kept it in the "consumer monopoly" zone. The CEO is an idiot.

Perhaps he is not an idiot, but just evil, as it is likely that he is driving it into the ground for his own personal gain - I wouldn't be surprised if he is shorting or will short his stock just before the company goes under, or some other kind of scheme that will profit only him and a few cronies.

Not a good guy

It's all about the stock value now and not enough about what it will be in a few years.

Nowadays about the only thing made in America at Walmart is the food, and even there it's only about half. Grapes from Chile, bananas from Mexico, and so on and so on...

The reason why is easy...people valued cheap prices over quality. The stores that sold the items for less got the business, forcing the competition to either lower their prices (by getting cheaper goods) or fold.

Although Target and Walmart are the two busiest stores in my area, they're still not what they were. Both opened about 15 years ago to much fanfare with like 2 dozen checkout lines each. Not counting holiday sales, on average when you go in there now it's amazing to see more than 6 lines open, even on "busy" days. The massive parking lots are usually about 3/4 empty.

Now there are some mitigating circumstances. People can order stuff online very easily now, even from Target and Walmart (if you didn't know, both stores sell items online you can't get in their stores because of low volume). Also, while on the one hand people lament stuff being cheaper and not made to last, that doesn't really apply to everything.

How often do you buy furniture? How long do you keep it? How often are you buying a TV or computer or refrigerator or lamp or clothing? There isn't a lot of new features to drive us to keep buying these things if we have one that works.
True, repairmen are a dying breed as stuff is often tossed instead of fixed, but usually that stuff lasts longer before it breaks. Instead of getting your TV fixed every 3 or so years, you keep it 10 and then toss it.



The Jedi Master

Just look at what you can order from Walmart online. They use a re-seller.

https://www.walmart.com/ip/Ford-Performa...=aff#about-item

The advent of e-commerce is no doubt the number one factor behind the decline of the brick and mortar stores. That's why the brick & mortar retailers were pushing so hard for States to start levying sales tax on online sales so that they would have a better chance of competing.

there are plenty of american companies which did not whore themselves out or ship off their entire labor division overseas.

look at some of the big companies in warren buffett's portfolio

bad leadership kills companies

Here we don't have many e-shops, not even Amazon
The two main ones we have are Cool Blue and the other is Bol.com, Cool Blue has just started advertising physical retail shops as well as their online retail.

Most banks here do not have the bank debit cards enabled for online transactions, and we have to go through an online bank transfer system based on the paper system, these have been standardised across all banks and the forms are identical.

We are not allowed to make a cash transaction for more than �999 once you get to �1000 it has to be done with the bank card, this is to eliminate "black market" transactions

Yep, people may go to the brick and mortar store to look at an item but they will then go online to buy it for the cheaper price.


Wheels

They call that the "Best Buy Effect".

If it's something that has to be delivered anyway, why not?

If it's something I can carry home from the store with me, I won't bother unless the online price is significantly lower. By that I mean it has to be at least $10 on cheap items and $100+ on expensive stuff.
I've had too many instances of poor packaging/shipping resulting in something in less than stellar condition being delivered while I can see in the store the condition it's in.



The Jedi Master

Thanks for that! Wow, Stanley was always the crappiest tools so they just went out and bought all of the good tool companies...lol.

Yep, it's the American way. If you can't beat them, buy them, then liquidate them.


Wheels

Bill Gates became one of the world's richest men doing that.



The Jedi Master