Sears launches first Kenmore-branded TVs

[mvcg66b3r]

Kenmore has left the kitchen.

Sears’ venerable appliance badge is now appearing on a two-line series of aggressively priced HD and 4K Ultra HD LED TVs as part of an effort to squeeze further mileage from the company’s Kenmore, Craftsman and DieHard house brands.

Following the nomenclature of its private-label majaps, the HD sets carry the Kenmore name while the step-up 4K/UHD models are labeled Kenmore Elite.

The 4K sets, which were quietly rolled out online last month and in stores last week, are available in 50-, 55- and 65-inch screen sizes at a retail step of $750, $900 and $1,500, respectively.

The HDTVs, also introduced in May, are available in 32-, 40- and 50-inch screen sizes for $200, $300 and $400.

http://www.twice.com/news/retail/sears-quietly-launches-first-kenmore-branded-tvs/61947

 

[LKellerIII]

http://www.twice.com/news/retail/sears-quietly-launches-first-kenmore-branded-tvs/61947

The only other thing Sears is likely to be launching this year is bankruptcy. It's a company that's mismanaged their business so badly these last few years that they deserve to be buried in the retail graveyard next to Montgomery Ward and Woolworth.

Not to be cynical, but this is an attempt to wring a few bucks out of what remaining cachet the Kenmore brand still has. But no doubt the TVs will be made by somebody else. I have a Maytag refrigerator, but I've noticed that the owner's manual includes identical refrigerators marketed as Kenmore and Whirlpool. In my case, the refrigerators are manufactured by Whirlpool.

So the "Kenmore" TVs are just another example of "badge-engineering." To make a car analogy - a Scion TC is really just a 2 door Toyota Corolla.

 

[joebtsflk1]

Maytags haven't been Maytags since Whirlpool bought them out and shut down operations in Newton IA. To be fair, Maytag dug their own grave with some crappy front-loaders back some 10 plus years ago.

Sears missed the boat some 20 years ago by not reinventing itself as a hard goods only retailer, or by not seeking a merger with a Lowes or a Home Depot, then shuttering the mall (boat) anchor stores.

 

[nathannah]

I still have an LXI (Sears's 90's private label electronics brand) boombox that works pretty good. The remote that came with it was terrible though.

At this point though, Sears Holdings is basically a real estate company waiting out the leases on their Sears and KMart stores before selling off the land beneath the stores for a killing without any improvements to any of the stores. They basically operated a KMart in Green Bay for years to lease their parking lot to Lambeau Field on game day which made more than the store itself, and made out well when the Packers bought the land for their Titletown development. Same in Sheboygan, where they sold to Meijer when the dead mall they were in got purchased by them; at this point we're all just waiting on the leases on the stores to run out so Meijer can start tearing it down and put up a hypermarket.

They're also beginning to lease out their brand names; it was disconcerting seeing all the 'get Craftsman for dad on Father's Day at Ace' ads a week ago, and pretty soon Sears will pretty much be a name licensed by appliance and hardware stores, pretty much analogous to the Radio Shack franchise system.

 

[Corky Marlowe]

People are gonna be lining up to buy Kenmore TVs...Riiiiight. The Sears in our town's mall is in the middle of its closing sale. Its auto center has been shuttered for well over a year. Sad that Sears is done, but it is what it is. I can see them keeping the Craftsman brand going somehow, though. A lot of people still like Craftsman tools.

 

[TheBigA]

My friend is a technical writer who tells me that there are two TV manufacturers in the world. So a Kenmore TV might have the same screen and guts as a Sony TV, for all we know. You're mainly buying a brand.

 

[anotherguyTN]

Kenmore appliances have been manufactured by major companies like Whirlpool or Maytag for decades, and Sears TVs were made by the major TV companies of the time like GE, RCA, Panasonic, etc. So that's really nothing new.

There are several older brands that the original companies that no longer exist but the name is licensed to other companies, along with companies that have gotten out of a particular field but license their name. I recently found these articles online about older TV brands that are made by other companies:

http://www.consumerreports.org/cro/news/2012/11/tv-brands-aren-t-always-what-they-seem/index.htm
http://www.consumerreports.org/cro/news/2015/01/toshiba-gives-up-selling-tvs-in-the-u-s/index.htm
http://www.techhive.com/article/2877974/the-next-toshiba-tv-you-buy-wont-be-made-by-toshiba.html

As for store closings, the Jackson, TN Sears and K Mart stores have managed to hang on, but I won't be surprised to see them close when their leases come up as well.

 

[KeithE4]

People are gonna be lining up to buy Kenmore TVs...Riiiiight. The Sears in our town's mall is in the middle of its closing sale. Its auto center has been shuttered for well over a year. Sad that Sears is done, but it is what it is. I can see them keeping the Craftsman brand going somehow, though. A lot of people still like Craftsman tools.

Unless their intent is to eventually sell them via Amazon and/or Walmart, this is just another waste of money by the soon-to-be-gone Sears/KMart company. No wonder they're going out of business.

 

[TheBigA]

Unless their intent is to eventually sell them via Amazon and/or Walmart, this is just another waste of money by the soon-to-be-gone Sears/KMart company. No wonder they're going out of business.

Actually Sears.com ranks #132 in the world, ahead of Target, Staples, or other national chains. The thing that's dragging Sears down is brick & mortar stores in expensive locations. They lop off more of them, and they'll do fine. Of course that means more unemployment, but who cares?

 

[only1moore]

I guarantee you that in Hawaii the Kenmore TVs will be on sale at the NEX/AAFES/MCX, all low price and tax-free, and somehow for some reason they have a delivery to home deal with the Sears/K-Mart folks.

 

[LKellerIII]

People are gonna be lining up to buy Kenmore TVs...Riiiiight. The Sears in our town's mall is in the middle of its closing sale. Its auto center has been shuttered for well over a year. Sad that Sears is done, but it is what it is. I can see them keeping the Craftsman brand going somehow, though. A lot of people still like Craftsman tools.

Sears has been on a downhill slide for decades. There's an old building in my neighborhood that older residents still refer to as the "Sears building," but there was no Sears store there when I moved to the neighborhood in 1978. More recently, they've closed hundreds of other stores. The decrepit and depressing Sears store in downtown Oakland finally closed a few years ago, and it's soon to become the world headquarters for Uber. Now there's a sign of the times.

Not to pile on to a barely breathing corpse - but my dislike of Sears goes back at least a couple of decades - to the arrogant attitude they displayed about their place in the retail world - like they were somehow immune from changing market forces. I don't consider myself a fashion maven by any means, but anytime I shopped at Sears for clothes, I found their offerings to be mostly ugly, not particularly fashionable, and much more expensive than clothes at Target and elsewhere. For me, about the only reason to shop at Sears after about 1990 was for Craftsman tools, and they lost their edge to the tool-making competition (DeWalt, Skil, etc.) much as other Sears brands did.

Somebody mentioned that they should have worked on a merger with Lowes or Home Depot. I'm not sure why that never happened - but I can tell you that in Northern California, Sears owned a medium sized chain of similar stores called "Orchard Supply Hardware." They were (and are) nice stores, but a bit lacking - about half the size of a Lowes or Home Depot, and the prices were considerably higher. If you lived anywhere near a Lowes or Home Depot, there was no need to go to OSH.

Predictably, Sears neglected OSH, which re-organized under Chapter 11 and were sold off to...ready for it?...Lowes.

 

[anotherguyTN]

Sears had a chain of Sears Hardware stores in some areas. I know Memphis had at least one. There are also the franchised stores that sell appliances and electronics and were also pickup stores for catalog orders. There are still a few of those in West TN. I would guess that those stores could be used for picking up online orders now as well, but I don't know how much they do with that.

 

[ChocoMingo]

Sears ain't closing where I live. Besides, the Tyrone Square Sears is the first store that opened there, even before the mall opened! If the Countryside Sears closes and all the remodeling was for nothing, then Whole Foods will take over where Sears has left them, since they control the second floor and W.F. controls the first, and may take both if Sears goes away.

 

[Groove1670]

I know of two hometown stores in our area (one is a client) and they do well.

 

[nomadcowatbk]

I know of two hometown stores in our area (one is a client) and they do well.

those are franchised, like many small town Radio Shacks

 

[davideduardo]

those are franchised, like many small town Radio Shacks

AFAIK, the only Sears stores that are franchised are the small (5,000 ti 6,000 sq. ft.) "Sears Hometown" outlets that operate in smaller markets where a full line company store would not work. The bulk of sales is in white goods and "home and garden" (tools, lawn mowers, etc.)-

 

[Groove1670]

AFAIK, the only Sears stores that are franchised are the small (5,000 ti 6,000 sq. ft.) "Sears Hometown" outlets that operate in smaller markets where a full line company store would not work. The bulk of sales is in white goods and "home and garden" (tools, lawn mowers, etc.)-

Very familiar with their structure. I almost purchased one a few years back. It was right after the great recession and I declined. The margins are small. You need to sell a fair amount of product to be successful. One of the stores I talked about in a previous post is the only game in town. They do extremely well.

 

[umfan]

Sears Hometown stores can thrive in small t medium sized towns. Forget it in even larger medium and big towns.

As for Kenmore TVs, I might give one a try. I'd give Element a try first since they are at least assembled in the US, but at least with a Kenmore you don't have to look at a foreign name when watching it!

 

[vchimpanzee]

I thought those small Sears stores had closed. The one where I live is still empty. I used to pay my credit card bill there. I can do that at KMart, which is about ten miles farther away, and I go to that town half as often. There is a full Sears in a town the same distance away as the KMart but I don't go there as often. I liked having the convenience of the closer store. But there are a lot of empty stores in that section of town, which is another reason that the closing was not a good thing.

 

[Mr Tony]

I thought those small Sears stores had closed. T

nope. There are more "hometown" stores than actual Sears stores in MN as example
http://www.sears.com/stores/minnesota.html