We still have a couple Sears within 30 mins North or South of us and also a little “hometown” store about 10 minutes away. And up until 2-3 years ago we had a Sears Hardware, which sucked overall, but had the BEST Craftsman selection I’d ever seen. I have mostly Craftsman tools, about 10 years ago the local store had a $700+ Craftsman Professional set on sale and then had additional mark downs on top of that and I walked out of there with it for around $350-375 if I remember correctly. So I have a lot of the full polished combo wrenches and ratchets, easy-read sockets in all 3 sizes, both metric and standard. And a lot of other hand tools were included. The set has served me well. It seems like Craftsman is moving away from the “professional” line and its a shame because that line, especially the chrome hand tools, were a really nice value and I thought worth the extra $. I’ve recently been buying GearWrench to supplement my existing tools off of Amazon and find the brand comparable and very nice for the $. It’s not Snap-On but it doesn’t cost anywhere near as much either. All that said, I’m happy to hear that Craftsman is coming to Lowe’s. I don’t really look at the Kobalt stuff unless I need something for one time use on the cheap, which is pretty rare. Same goes for Husky. So maybe Craftsman can win back a little of my business by bringing back some quality tools and this new easy access.
As far as Sears goes, they just don’t do any one thing well enough to thrive in the age of the internet and online shopping. And they try to do too many things as well. So to me it’s no surprise they’re struggling and most likely will continue to. They’re not the best at anything anymore. And when you’re trying to be a Kohl’s, Lowe’s, Sherwin-Williams, Famous Footwear, Toys R Us, all under one roof carrying a fraction of what any of those stores do in today’s world, it’s just not a good business model any more. If they have any assets left, they better sell them too and close up shop.