What is Sears Missing?

For in the store:

Charcoal for the charcoal grills...

High-wheel trimmers for California.

An electric chipper/shredder (mostly for leaves and pine needles).

Small generators.

A composting kit.

Collapsible leaf bins (springy trashcan-type containers that flatten down to a disk) would be a nice addition.

Have composters of any kind been tried in-store? Bins or spinning barrels might be worthwhile.

A simplified glove selection wouldn't hurt. As it stands, there are approximately 30 gloves in L&G, along with about 30 in HI, many of which overlap (like split-grain leather gloves). Reducing the glove assortment to avoid unnecessary redundancy should make this accessory more profitable long-term.

It appears hoses have undergone some long-needed culling, but hose attachments have exploded with the introduction of the Chinese-made Craftsman attachments. Meanwhile, the Companion products still appear on shelves. Is there a plan to phase Companion out of the L&G line-up? If we need a non-warranteed product to provide a lower price-point versus the Craftsman forever guaranteed products, couldn't we use a cheap national brand rather than diluting the Sears brand with lower quality products? This same point could apply to stick tools and pruning tools, too, though if they switched over to evolv, and added ergonomic dual-material grips like the evolv hand tools have, that might make even better sense.

And, of course, we need to find a permanent solution to rakes. For the past three years, the large fiberglass handled Craftsman rakes have had shipping and quality issues. For such a critical autumn clean-up tool, Sears has been dropping the ball. If we need to start shipping rakes earlier to detect shipping-based issues, or if it's a vendor-driven problem, it needs to be sorted out to avoid losing customers unnecessarily.

You want our charcoal? It's CLRX for around $2 a bag!

I'll go along with the small generators. Some people do come in looking for 1500-2500 kW generators.

your al;lowed to burn charcoal in california? heck are you allowed to burn anything in CA any more?

I think you're allowed to burn rubber getting the heck out of CA. ;)

You are right on target with many of your suggestions and we are working to execute many of them now. Thanks for your feedback and stay tuned!

Sorry. To clarify, my post was specific to BlueCrewGuyInMA.

You don't have to direct your responses manually; by hitting the Reply button, it automatically says who your reply is directed to. Pretty slick, eh? :)

One of those battery-powered, motion sensing, animal squirting things.

A Customer came in looking for one.

They sell them over to Ace Hardware.

Sears should sell them, too - to generate more garden hose sales...

Free delivery - or discounted delivery.  Sears has the highest cost of delivery of all the major power equipment stores in Wisconsin.  $65 is absurd when I can get $20 at Menards, Home Depot, and Fleet Farm and Free Delivery from Lowes and True Value Hardware

In almost every case, a comparable Craftsman product, even with delivery added, comes out costing less than products at other retailers. If we're already beating the competition on price by a wide margin, and enough that delivery doesn't affect which retailer costs less for comparable products...

Well...you know. :)

When the other retailers have the free delivery...are they offering via mail in rebate or instant?  Our local Lowe's store doesn't offer free delivery at this time...only appliances.  Also, keep the product ideas coming...

Yes, you need to put tracks back on the snowblowers like Sears used too. You get more traction and can go without chains to clean snow. I have the older model Sears Snow Thrower with Tracks instead of wheels which iliminates the need for cahins on the wheels. Why did Sear change that? 

I agree.

It's not that Sears changed it; it's a system that no manufacturers use for their consumer snowthrowers anymore, most likely because it's far more part/labor intensive in manufacture and more expensive to repair when/if it's necessary.

And, of course, we need to find a permanent solution to rakes.

The problem with rakes is educating the customer to use metal rakes in Spring and plastic sweep rakes or the 30" drag rakes in Fall. Sturdy metal is better for dethatching their lawns in Spring and the plastic rakes are only intended for dry leaves and won't damage shrubs or hedges.

Small, 1500 Watt campground-quiet generators would sell year-round. 

Troybuilt's 2690XP should still be available elsewhere but frankly the track machines are not big volume sellers at Sears. There have been 2 steerable track Craftsman models in the past 10 years and the demand just isn't there. I've run one of the earlier models without steering and it was impossible to manuever. These new lug style or snowhog tires work fine without chains.

The free shipping on the store to home orders are great.

Free shipping on store parts direct to home orders would be awesome, to.

For some of the higher quality items that you sell especially chippers and log splitters, it would be advantageous to have samples of these in your bigger stores especially those that are not the craftsman name

There was a Craftsman Shredder/Chipper on floor display, for a number of years.

None of the Customers new what it was!

It finally went on clearance sale and I picked it up (knowing what it is) and it's up to my property a shredding and a chipping, now.