Sears Canada | GTAMotorcycle.com

Sears Canada

Clem

Well-known member
http://www.ctvnews.ca/business/sears-canada-liquidation-approved-1.3630972

Too bad.

I've bought a lot of household appliances and items from them over the years.

I have "made in the US" sockets, wrenches and screwdrivers that I bought from them 20 years ago and that are still like new - not sure if you will be able to say the same about today's disposable Chinese tools.

The really sad part is those 12,000 employees that lose their jobs. A friend of my mother in laws has worked at Sears for 32 years
 
http://www.ctvnews.ca/business/sears-canada-liquidation-approved-1.3630972

Too bad.

I've bought a lot of household appliances and items from them over the years.

I have "made in the US" sockets, wrenches and screwdrivers that I bought from them 20 years ago and that are still like new - not sure if you will be able to say the same about today's disposable Chinese tools.

The really sad part is those 12,000 employees that lose their jobs. A friend of my mother in laws has worked at Sears for 32 years

The ones who have been there a long time and also have a pension may get super screwed via the bankruptcy. My guess is they may have been better off quitting six months ago and shifting their pension (lump sum) into a LIRA. We will see how it flushes out.
 
99% of my wardrobe is from Sears. I have like two Walmart shirts. I have no idea where I'll buy clothes from after my local Sears shuts down. Loblaws? Walmart? They don't have the selection as far as I can tell, which is important for my height. Never understood why everyone avoids Sears.
 
I bought a stove and a dishwasher from them. They're both garbage. Sears took over Simpsons and destroyed them and all that is left is a glorified Kmart. So long Sears, don't come back.
 
They can keep their bankruptcy sale. I would not buy anything from them no matter the discount .
 
I have a 23 piece set of 1/2 inch Craftsman Professional Sockets I bought in 1989. I've used them as impact sockets, I've used a hammer on the ratchet to break loose bolts, and they have lay in damp tool boxes and still function like new.

I bought a 3/8 set from Stanley about 2 years ago. I just had to go and buy a replacement set from Snap-on as both ratchets fail to grip.
 
First company to give me credit when I moved to Canada. They wanted my money when no one else did. Will always remember that .
 
The pension issue may be a kick in the teeth for some. I used to think the money was somehow vested and would always be there. The ones that have worked there the longest may get hit the hardest.
 
Here's the thing, everything is made in China now. And aside from a couple brands, and brands that nobody knows or cares about, anything you can get at Sears could be had at Walmart for much less, this is what killed Target here too. The electronics department at Sears was always a laughing stock, with companies like FS and BB beating their prices on identical brands and models handily. Tools? Who needs craftsman when I could get the same quality and warranty from mastercraft? Appliances? Yeah you could only get Kenmore from sears, but all modern appliances are junk these days, they all have the same warranties too, so you might aswell just get GE or whatever else you can find at a good price(just stay tf away from samsung those are truly garbage). Sears CA was terrible at business, just like Target CA, and they suffered the same fate. The only difference is that Sears had a stronger foothold and thus took a lot longer to bleed out after walmart sliced through them.

It is sad about the jobs, nobody likes to hear about things like that. Hopefully they handle pensions and such as well as Westinghouse did when they left. It did hurt Hamilton when WH left us, but I do know that alot of workers made out like bandits, and the ones who knew how to handle the check that they got, are doing quite well now.

If the so-called "liquidation sale" is handled anything like Target, don't get your hopes up. With items marked for clearance yet still priced higher than a boxing week or black friday sale, and in some cases still higher than Walmart's every day prices. You'll be better off to wait until the stock hits the shelves at liquidation world. Also, don't bother buying Craftsman tools on clearance, they'll be final sale with nobody around to cover the warranty.
 
Tools? Who needs craftsman when I could get the same quality and warranty from mastercraft?

its not very often that you see "Mastercraft" and "Quality" in the same sentence, LOL. My neighbour bought a set of Mastercraft Allen bits to remove the calipers on his car in order to replace the pads, and the 8mm bit rounded off on the first socket head.

If you only need to do an oil change once a year maybe they will work ok. But I use my Wrenches and Sockets at least 50 hours a week and they have to be reliable. I've only bought Snap On and Matco since I enlisted and I'll be passing them down to my son's. I still have Britool wrenches that belonged to my Grandfather.

IMHO, Quality tools are an investment for life. You may pay more up front but, it's cheaper and they work better in the long run
 
Seems to be a big difference to old Mastercraft and newer Mastercraft. Old stuff had a lifetime warranty, newer only a year or so. Have to go into their Maximum range to get the longer warranty.
 
99% of my wardrobe is from Sears. I have like two Walmart shirts. I have no idea where I'll buy clothes from after my local Sears shuts down. Loblaws? Walmart? They don't have the selection as far as I can tell, which is important for my height. Never understood why everyone avoids Sears.
Bay days are on now or soon. Thinking of getting me a new CK suit.

sent from my Purple LGG4 on the GTAM app
 
Of course! I even have a Bay store just down the street. Thanks for the tip.
 
My MIL has been / is a Sears warehouse worker for 25+ years. Not sure how long that will last. Apparently Sears will try to continue with the online shopping, but their web shopping experience is way behind the curve, so I'm pretty sure that will end soon too. At nearly 60 years old, my MIL won't have many other job prospects, and there's nearly 0% chance the employees will see their pensions. I mean, that's basically her life savings... gone. It's certainly not the way she envisioned approaching retirement. Sears has really fcuked a lot of people. Losing your job is one thing, but no severance and losing the pension you paid into for nearly half your life is another.
 
My MIL has been / is a Sears warehouse worker for 25+ years. Not sure how long that will last. Apparently Sears will try to continue with the online shopping, but their web shopping experience is way behind the curve, so I'm pretty sure that will end soon too. At nearly 60 years old, my MIL won't have many other job prospects, and there's nearly 0% chance the employees will see their pensions. I mean, that's basically her life savings... gone. It's certainly not the way she envisioned approaching retirement. Sears has really fcuked a lot of people. Losing your job is one thing, but no severance and losing the pension you paid into for nearly half your life is another.

That's the issue I'm seeing. Where is legislation saying the employer can't use employee pension funds to pay company bills.

If the pension funds were invested soley in the company I can see where they would disappear. 10,000 shares times $zero = $zero.

That happened with Nortel. People with million dollar pensions ended up having to live on CPP.

Didn't someone see that it could happen again and legislate diversification?

Something stinks.
 
Didn't someone see that it could happen again and legislate diversification?

Something stinks.

NDP wants an emergency meeting of parliament to discuss Sears. That ship has sailed for Sears. If government actually wanted to effect change and not just get sound bites for votes, this would have been addressed properly in the past.

One suggestion I liked (although upon further review, it may or may not work) was putting obligations to normal employees ahead of obligations to management. Basically like the inverse of the venture capital model. The company must pay all obligations to regular employees (such as salary, pension funding etc) before any money can be distributed to management employees (eg. C suites are last in line, then head office, then store managers). This would make the retention bonuses that everyone gets so angry about disappear. I understand the idea of keeping continuity if you are restructuring, but when you are in full liquidation mode with courts and liquidators taking control of everthing, it would seem that retention bonuses would have little useful effect.

Another measure that would be great to implement would be pushing non-arms length creditors to the bottom of the pile. When Target bailed, something like 90% of the secured credit was issued by another Target subsidiary (basically the leases were held by one company who then sub-leased to the operating company that failed). Whatever payments happen(ed?), they get to keep 90% of it. It would be interesting to see if the amounts extended were reasonable, or if they were just exhorbitant amounts to dilute true creditors. I haven't looked to see if Sears has played the same game.
 
That's the issue I'm seeing. Where is legislation saying the employer can't use employee pension funds to pay company bills.

If the pension funds were invested soley in the company I can see where they would disappear. 10,000 shares times $zero = $zero.

That happened with Nortel. People with million dollar pensions ended up having to live on CPP.

Didn't someone see that it could happen again and legislate diversification?

Something stinks.
Rather than put new legislation in place to protect company pension funds, the Ontario Liberals will start using this as the poster-child to really start pumping their Ontario Pension Plan initiative. Then we can watch how poorly the Ontario government manages peoples pension money.
 
It sucks for Sears employees but hits home the concept of managing your money - so you are not relying on a pension.

Even with a secure job one change of management ( or mismanagement) can mean the pension is gone. It shouldn't but we've all learned this lesson before.

My advice is start investing (RESPs, gics, mutual funds - whatever) as soon as you start earning. I like property. 8 years away from retirement and I still don't trust my pension will be there
 
unless your in a 'bullit proof' pension, which may not be so forever, balancing some personal management with the hopefully solid company deal should be on every young adults radar.
How many times does history need to repeat itself before that starts to sink in.

I'm in favor of Federally mandated management of pension funds ie; no poaching. IMO its stealing from your employees , once a company goes down that rabbit hole it never seems to bounce back, its management by desperation, its 'look I found a pile of money and we can borrow and pretend to pay interest, but its sort of already ours so...'
 

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