I recently scouted out the holiday tool deals at my local Sears, and what I found confused me.
Surprisingly, the tool displays were up for a couple of days at most, but many were at least half empty. Others were full to the brim. Maybe the local Sears saw unusually high levels of foot traffic and tool interest in the couple of days the promo displays were up before my visit?
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Are they saving some stock for later on in the holiday season? Did a very generous gift-giver or reseller snatch a whole lot of tools the day the promos hit the sales floor? What else could explain this?
I know how much foot traffic the local Sears store gets on a weekday, and just cannot imagine that this is the work of multiple individual shoppers.
The same thing happened last year!
Sorry, let’s get on with the focus of this post.
A lot of Sears’ higher priced Craftsman tool deals give you an option. They’re offering this for their holiday sales, and they offered it during last year’s Black Friday promotions.
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Option 1: You get the instant discount.
Option 2: You get a gift card for the amount of the discount, plus 10%, but must pay full price.
You have to “ask an associate for details,” but I’m thinking that the gift card is in the form of “points,” which wouldn’t be good as Shop Your Way points do expire.
Sears has offered similar deal options in the past, and I thought it was ridiculous before. It’s still ridiculous, if you ask me. But maybe that’s just me, which is why I’m asking for your opinion.
Would you rather spend $150 on a new drill and save $50 upfront, or spend $200 and get a gift card for $55?
I guess if I were buying more tools right away, then the extra gift card amount might be appealing.
But what if I had to return something? Let’s say I spent $200 on the drill and used the $55 on a socket set. If I return that socket set, part of the value would continue to be tied up in a gift card.
An extra $5 in this case doesn’t really seem worth it to me, what about you?
Would you take the instant discount or the higher value gift card?
I suppose that if the added gift card value was high enough, then I might consider it. But that would also mean that I would have to plunk down more money right away.
Let’s say there’s a $400 socket set or tool storage cabinet that’s on sale for half off. So that’s a $200 discount. Would you rather pay $200, or $400 and get a $220 gift card? even with an extra $20 hanging out with the gift card option, I think I’d be much happier with the instant discount.
Jerry
If it were a true gift card, especially one that doesn’t expire, I’d be all for it. As for the points thing, I’m not the biggest fan because not only do points expire, they often have confusing or even conflicting rules on how to redeem them.
Chris
Sears’ complete lack of customer service and failure to resolve issues of their own making mean I will never give them another cent. Too many other places to shop to be treated poorly.
Seth
It is in the form of a gift card, and the gift card (as of a year ago) doesn’t expire.
Sears runs this ‘Your Choice’ promotion year-round on select items, mostly in the Lawn&Garden department and sometimes on the big ticket items in Tools.
As a former sales associate, the promotion was the most frustrating thing to try and explain to curious customers – because nobody gets the point. Yes, a buyer would ‘earn’ 10% of their overall purchase in further spending power, but it involves tossing away the sale price on an item which is frequently the sole reason the buyer was interested in the first place.
I think in my three-year stint at Sears I had all of two customers choose this option – and one of them did it only because he was already committed to spending well in excess of the gift card value on attachments for his new riding mower and requested the transaction be split to earn the extra 10%.
What’s really sad is the POS that Sears uses has a really annoying nag screen for the Your Choice option, and it’s a big training hassle for newer associates because the language was terribly confusing the way it was worded. If you’ve ever shopped at Sears for tools and had a new cashier sit and stare at their POS one or two items in, and then hit a button and continue on without saying anything – that nag screen was why.
Worthless marketing junk, honestly. Sears could do well to get rid of this nonsense on their signs and use the saved space for more product information, like a feature list or a description.
ToolBoxHero
The Your Choice option makes perfect sense to the VP who came up with the idea over 10 years ago. “We can get the customer to come in twice!”
It has to be a VP who thought this up because even though it’s the most confusing promotion ever invented, it won’t go away ……
Tom
My worry is with Sears is that they will file for bankruptcy any day. At that point, your gift cards would be useless. I am nervous holding a lot of points or gift cards for that reason.
I think it happened a couple of years ago with the Sharper Image, who filed for bankruptcy a few months after Christmas.
tim
Not about the deal per se, my local sears also looks like this as far as stocking goes and did last year as well. Makes me think they’re putting up the displays and only minimally stocking them because they know they wont sell alot.
Or maybe its a trick to look busy. Half empty racks that scream “everyone wanted this its almost gone” with full shelves in the stock room.
mizzourob
This only makes sense if you are committed to buying several items and the clerk lets you break up the sale into two or more transactions. The most likely case is buying parts for tool storage then. a quick run on the calculator may have you better off, especially because you would also be earning points on transaction #1 that then get used immediately on transaction #2. Add up the two transactions and you might be better off, but you’ll likely annoy the clerk and any customers behind you in line.
max
It would have to be a lot more than a 10% bonus to be worth the hassle. Maybe for a 50% bonus.
max
I stopped by my local store tonight. None of the displays were packed to the brim, but there was a decent amount in all of them.
My guess is that you either have a lower traffic store or there is a person (or three) who loads up for presents. It could even be something like a trade school instructor stocking up on basics to sell to students.
Toolfreak
The sale price is the better option.
You only get the gift card with 10% extra if you pay using certain methods, and can’t use any other discounts. If you use any points, coupons, gift cards, etc. then you don’t get the promo.
Of course, that’s dumb because you CAN get the same price PLUS an extra 10% off the sale price during Friends and Family night and other similar online promos.
Just another way Sears is wasting its dwindling resources on stupid, stupid, overcomplicated “promotions” that it would probably save money on if it stopped and just stuck with straightforward sales and discounts.
Seth
“Surprisingly, the tool displays were up for a couple of days at most, but many were at least half empty. Others were full to the brim. ”
“What else could explain this?”
Stuart – the reason for this behavior last year and the probable reason you’re seeing it again this year is that the stock was late arriving through customs. A large amount of what you see displayed in those red corrugated displays are seasonal-only stock, ordered JIT for the holiday rush – if they were empty the supply chain just hadn’t got the product to the stores. I know the direction is to get the product on the floor on the same day as it arrives at the store, and I can’t imagine the logistics centers sitting on product before loading up the trucks. The delay, supposedly, was it was still on a boat from China (and Taiwan) or hung up waiting to clear customs at the border.
I would not be surprised if the logistics folks didn’t learn (or care) about empty displays last year and kept the onshore arrival date the same. As bad or confusing as it might look to consumers, I’m fairly sure corporate’s opinion is that the local management should suck it up and re-merchandise the shippers to look presentable until stock has actually flowed into the stores. That they have an early christmas set, low seasonal wages, fixed seasonal signing, and a recurring problem hiring seasonal staff makes that re-merchandising strategy a huge burden on the poor salaried managers. They can’t keep up, the stock isn’t at the stores on time (and has a staggered arrival) and you walk into a seasonal display straight out of bizzaro land.
Stuart
I guess this makes sense – thanks! I don’t think I would have ever guessed customs and international shipping delays as a potential explanation.
Rick
I saw the same thing a my local Sears last night. The other confusing thing was dozens of empty boxes lying in the aisles and in between larger floor items like table saws. There were lots of empty places on the walls and shelves. Products listed on sale were missing. One was a set of deep offset wrenches. I’ve been looking at those in this store hoping they would go on sale. They never stocked more than two sets of these. This night they were on sale and only one set was there. I was there for quite a while waiting on my wife in the mall. During that time they went from not many buyers to being swamped and calling for help(to no avail) then back to just a few people. I overheard one of their employees tell about huge lines outside waiting on the doors to open on Black Friday. My guess is they are very understaffed and the ones they have are frustrated with their situation. Most of the time I see very few people in the store. Years ago when KMart bought Sears I told my wife that Sears was doomed. My last few visits to the tool department and observing some of their products and tool designs still make me feel they are going under. It’s taking longer than I thought and I truly hate to see it but looks like it’s getting close.