ERICOPOLY

Somebody pointed out that SYW is scalable to any brands/retailers that want to join the network. Somebody pointed out that the other stores in the mall may want to leverage the Sears platform for online fulfillment, in-store returns The big box anchor stores might be a good size to serve as online fulfillment, return at mall centers So the Sears department store at the mall might get nuked, but SHLD might retain the asset and use it as "fullment center as a service" I've been wondering what the REIT executive is doing sitting on the SHLD board of directors. Maybe he is there to help with the "Mall Strikes Back" strategy. It serves his company's interests to strengthen the rents at malls, which is what would happen if brands/retailers located in malls could have this big online fulfillment center that processes free in-store returns. There is a benefit to getting the customer to return the item to the store -- not just return charges, but a chance for a salesperson to engage the customer and sell them more stuff. You could imagine a store like "The Gap" perhaps moving some of it's inventory into a fulfillment warehouse that is now the Sears department store. Suppose somebody then orders a pair of Jeans online from the Gap -- it get shipped out of the nearest "former-Sears" location. But what if they want to pick it up in the store for a lower price to save on shipping -- oh, how convenient... a runner can walk 3 minutes to go deliver it to the Gap storefront. So the customer drives to the mall and goes to the Gap showroom/storefront to pick it up. While there, they make other spontaneous purchases at the Gap and other mall stores. Perhaps by keeping less inventory in the stores themselves, the mall retailers can have more expansive showrooms (smaller stockrooms as it gets outsourced to the prior Sears department store mall anchor). The mall retailers may find this useful and great, and might not. I'm just brainstorming, trying on different ideas to see what sticks.

That is a very important thing to think about. What makes the retail stores compelling? We keep talking about how women like to go shopping in malls for the experience -- do they want to go to Sears for the experience? IMO by neglecting stores it made his metrics look better for a while, but the damage takes a while to show up. By neglecting stores he is not winning the hearts and minds of mall shoppers (back to McNamara again).

Did you do a fast trade, or you will hold it for a bit longer? I think when the short selling ban is lifted tomorrow, SHLD may drop a lot. I have written some puts, I have written some calls (covered by common), and I have purchased some calls. Some are in taxable accounts, some in the RothIRA. They are different strikes and durations. None of that should really be interesting. Plus, I consider it to be speculative.

Did he step down from CEO role? Maybe your point is that he is not traditionally an executive, but he is in that role today and he is not keeping the job for the salary.

fairly easy while the short selling ban is in effect too. Tomorrow may be different. 10 million shares traded on Friday. Already 2 million today. The stock is holding up well because there isn't much selling pressure?

Curious to know why you went the call route -- the cost of leverage seems quite high, no? I don't really think it's high. Is $700,000 expensive for a studio apartment in Manhattan? You can get one for much less in Texas. You have to look at the volatility of the stock, and consider which strikes you are talking about.

Executives would rather keep on getting paid their handsome salaries perhaps, rather than shut down for the benefit of others (shareholders). Plus, it feels bad to fire all those people -- so if you still get paid to keep it running, then why be the unpopular guy who fires everyone including himself?

Yes, it is a speculation.

I bought a few hundred calls this morning when stock was around $36.80 and the stock took off really fast into the $37.20 range. Fairly easy to move the price up despite the avalanche of bad press.

valueInv, This will teach you how it's done: http://www.ehow.com/video_4405070_trying-jeans-before-buying-online.html (I'm not posting this to be snarky, but rather to show that they even have an EHow article on this -- it's not something I'm imagining, it's a trend and a lot of people do it. The cost of returns won't show up in Amazon's numbers until all the brick and mortar "showrooms" go bust) The point being, Amazon is convenient if you don't have to go through the hassle&cost of returning all the items that don't fit you. I wouldn't use Amazon for that kind of shopping if I had to keep boxing things back up and returning. At that point, it becomes more convenient to just go down to the "Brand X" showroom/store at the mall -- so I see it making sense if the brands pay for the showroom space, that way they don't care if you buy it right there on the spot in the show room, or if Amazon fulfills the order online.

Do you have data that proves nobody does? Some retailers are charging customers up to $25 to try on items in a bid to combat 'showrooming'. The phenomenon, which sees shoppers research items in-store and buy them cheaper online, is said to be having a toxic effect on brick-and-mortar businesses and leading them to come up with new sales strategies. Indeed, on WeddingWire, a bride-to-be called Jen reveals how she was recently charged $25 at one unnamed New York boutique as she tried on bridal gowns. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-2339125/The-stores-charging-shoppers-25-TRY-ON-clothes-backlash-time-wasting-trend-showrooming.html#ixzz2qHwPsUz4

Well, retailers are trying to change the problem of clothing. I can't find a link off the top of my head, but there are services here in NYC that will take a 3-D image of your body shape and have clothing fitted to you. So for a one time appointment you get fitted clothes at a reasonable price. I agree though, the physical world of retail won't die. People like to go and shop. We've been doing it since the early days of civilization. What else, are we all just going to sit home all day? Work from home, shop from home, watch movies at home, watch sports at home, interact with your friends at home, etc. etc.? At some point, human nature wants to go out and be social. And no, by social I don't mean facebook and twitter! :D That helps dramatically to quickly sort which brands/size will fit you -- less time in the dressing room. However I still think you want to try them on to see how the fabric feels. It is soft? Scratchy? Does it stretch? I don't know, the tactile thing. Well anyhow, aside from the 3d modeling thing look at it like this... if I'm wrong then people don't currently go to the malls to demo products and then buy them online. Online is here today, yet people still go to the "showroom" at the mall. It is unproven that Amazon can survive without a showroom -- for some products at least. Or perhaps it is unproven that some brands can maintain an edge without a showroom. The showroom reduces the number of online orders that get returned. That's one of it's advantages to today's Amazon model. Costs aside, it's also a hassle for the customer to return things that don't fit or work as expected. So some of the convenience of Amazon goes away if you can't try on or demo the product at a physical store before ordering it from Amazon. Take a look at Zappos. Why? I think he is saying Zappos is selling shoes without physical stores. Sure they are. I try on the shoes at the mall, I like them, then I whip out my phone and buy them for less from Zappos. Zappos gets the sale. I don't return the shoes to Zappos because I tried them on first at the mall. But then the mall goes bust. Next time, I have nowhere to try shoes on first. So I order them from Zappos -- whoops, those ones were too narrow. So I return them AT THEIR COST. Then I order another shoe -- oops, don't like those ones. So I return them to Zappos AT THEIR COST. Uh ohh... this is now getting expensive for Zappos. Profits aren't as good as they were before.

Well, retailers are trying to change the problem of clothing. I can't find a link off the top of my head, but there are services here in NYC that will take a 3-D image of your body shape and have clothing fitted to you. So for a one time appointment you get fitted clothes at a reasonable price. I agree though, the physical world of retail won't die. People like to go and shop. We've been doing it since the early days of civilization. What else, are we all just going to sit home all day? Work from home, shop from home, watch movies at home, watch sports at home, interact with your friends at home, etc. etc.? At some point, human nature wants to go out and be social. And no, by social I don't mean facebook and twitter! :D That helps dramatically to quickly sort which brands/size will fit you -- less time in the dressing room. However I still think you want to try them on to see how the fabric feels. It is soft? Scratchy? Does it stretch? I don't know, the tactile thing. Well anyhow, aside from the 3d modeling thing look at it like this... if I'm wrong then people don't currently go to the malls to demo products and then buy them online. Online is here today, yet people still go to the "showroom" at the mall. It is unproven that Amazon can survive without a showroom -- for some products at least. Or perhaps it is unproven that some brands can maintain an edge without a showroom. The showroom reduces the number of online orders that get returned. That's one of it's advantages to today's Amazon model. Costs aside, it's also a hassle for the customer to return things that don't fit or work as expected. So some of the convenience of Amazon goes away if you can't try on or demo the product at a physical store before ordering it from Amazon. Take a look at Zappos. Why?

Amazon doesn't force you to pick it up in the store. You are comparing Apples to Oranges. The low price you see on SYW is only if you pick it up in the store. It is not available for online only shopping and home delivery. It's just a gimmick to get you into a physical store. Which is funny because in the physical store they probably tell you to use SYW more.

I wonder whether foreign investors were encouraged into US equities by the rising dollar -- could explain the market that only goes up. Might reverse if trend on dollar weakens.

I suspect they are having trouble with scalability of traffic to their site. It would obviously be simpler to the user to NOT have to click on the link for such basic information, but it takes pressure off the database if they put as little information as possible onto the page. That might be why the product also has no description -- however I may be getting too charitable here. Remember last August when they had the same item multiple times in the database at different prices? You would get an offer on the page, then when you put it in your cart they would change the price on you. It was bait and switch. But I think the problem there is they tried to do static page caching in order to improve site performance (take pressure off the database). So they seem to be dealing with growing pains -- their databases can't keep up and since static caching was a disaster, they've had to strip the pages of lots of information that seem obviously helpful to just put on the page without extra clicks. Hopefully it's not an "asset light" server farm -- because it's noticeably worse and less user-friendly than Amazon.

Anyway, if I enter my location for that item is says that store pickup is unavailable within 50 miles of my location. I entered a bunch of other city names and it all said the same thing. I can't find it in any city. Weird. Maybe it was just targeted to Shop Your Way members who live within range of one particular store that wanted to reduce inventory for that item. It's pretty funny -- if you type in "Sacramento" as your location, it will then say "Did you mean Sacramento, CA, or Sacramento, KY, or Sacramento, PA" Huh? That's really funny because they don't have any stores within 50 miles of Sacramento, KY or Sacramento, PA. If you select those cities, it won't even give you an error message telling you of this. It just acts like you didn't even make a request.

I see your point. However I didn't see it that way as a casual observer of the advertisement -- instead, I just read that page as telling me that Sears (as well as one other partner) would each offer it for nearly twice as much. It's a different message from the "Low Prices Everyday" advertising that Walmart does. Instead of seeing the Sears name associated with "low prices everyday", I see it associated with high prices. So I start developing the association. Somehow they should stop advertising to SYW members that Sears prices are really high. Amazon will tell you who the real seller is that is offering it at a high price -- so it's clearly not Amazon. They just tell you it's "fulfilled by Amazon" and then tell you who the real seller is. Instead, SYW seems to say there are two other sellers with high prices... "sold by Sears and one seller partner". Rather, they could instead say "sold by a trusted partner of Sears online marketplace". Notice the wording? Not just Sears alone, but also sold by one seller partner. So they both sell it at high prices? Or is it just the seller partner that is charging a ripoff price, but not also Sears? Huh... Why not just say it's available from "one seller partner" and leave the Sears name out of it -- it's bad to suggest to the customer that Sears is one of the sellers at such a high price, if it isn't that very seller. The whole point of this offering is to get a customer into a Sears store to pick up the item -- don't seed him with high price expectations.

So it's a bizarre thing. The promotion seems intended to drive more foot traffic in a Sears store in order to pick up more sales (they decide to buy workout clothes at the same time). However, the promotion is also educating you that things at Sears are REALLY EXPENSIVE. Perhaps this is the "Warring Tribes" model. The online tribe is screwing the mall store tribe.

Still on that Pocket Bottle topic... It says it is available from Sears for $18.48. But then it says the regular price is $9.99. Is this site a psycho split personality? Why is Sears selling it for wayyyy higher than the "regular price". Is Sears some place that massively overcharges people? What kind of place is Sears, sounds like no place I want to go. I don't want to pay a massive percentage above "regular price" for anything. SYW is basically telling you that Sears massively overcharges above regular price -- so don't go there.

Notice how it's not available for shipping? This is a bribe to get you into a Sears store. Unfortunately, the stores are ugly and about as devoid of character as that SYW listing that has no description and no comments. So paying you money to get you into a Sears store -- it's not like you are going to come back after noticing that it's a store without personality. Sort of like how the stores seem understaffed when you have a question, the SYW listing seems understaffed in that they didn't pay anyone to fill out a description.

So why is that posted on the internet for all to see if it is real? Look at how the "confidentiality statement" at the bottom of the first slide reads. Supposedly we are all "strictly prohibited" from even reading it. Looks like a pitch deck. He probably pitched the idea at some point and put it on his slideshare account as personal marketing. Sounds most likely.

So why is that posted on the internet for all to see if it is real? Look at how the "confidentiality statement" at the bottom of the first slide reads. Supposedly we are all "strictly prohibited" from even reading it. Looks real to me. Not sure why someone would go through all that work to create a fake presentation...just so he can trick the CofBF SHLD message board? Seems like some decent ideas in there. Sure, but are they (the ideas in the slides) really the strategy adopted by Sears (in which case he is posting corporate strategy here, presumably illegally) or did it get rejected so that he is now free to post it? What's it doing posted without a secure login if it's really the corporate strategy?

So why is that posted on the internet for all to see if it is real? Look at how the "confidentiality statement" at the bottom of the first slide reads. Supposedly we are all "strictly prohibited" from even reading it.

I think Lands' End is sort of like the example. Post spinoff, they will rent space from SHLD. So they are renting showroom space. Therefore, it doesn't matter if people try things on and order online. Sears just cares if the rent is paid. The brand only cares that they sold a product under their label. The success will happen if Lands' End isn't the only one doing that. Will others come? It might be the ultimate destiny, but we aren't there yet. If brands can still find space on JC Penney stores today, then why rent showroom space from Sears? I guess there is some sort of lag time before the freeloading brands are forced to either rent space in malls (from Sears perhaps) or cease to have any showrooms at all. I think it is speculative. I like Buffett's philosophy here on startups. He has made plenty of money on just buying temporarily discounted businesses that don't need to solve any major transformative hurdles.