Sears CEO posts lengthy explanation for store closings
A blog post by Eddie Lampert explained in no uncertain terms why the chain closed 200 stores in the past year.
The Sears holiday catalog was once one of the most important documents of the holiday season. Family members would take turns flipping through hundreds of pages and earmarking the buying bible.
Compare that to today, where instead of a much-anticipated catalog, Sears Holdings Corp. CEO Eddie Lampert has issued a 1,000-word manifesto on why the company chose to close 200 Sears and Kmart stores in 2014, along with some high hopes for an “online and mobile” future.
He writes:
Most of these stores were losing money, some for a long time. Because of the impact on our dedicated associates and our Shop Your Way members, these decisions were not taken lightly, or without our working to improve the performance of these stores over many years. Going into 2015, we will have approximately 1,700 Sears and Kmart big box stores in operation, representing about 200 million square feet of space.
The bold foray into corporate transparency was published Monday on the Sears Holdings blog.
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