Sears Offers Up To 25% Off For Cyber Monday

By Douglas A. McIntyre Updated Jan 13, 4:42PM EST · Published Nov 29, 8:53AM EST

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Sears Offers Up To 25% Off For Cyber Monday — © Jim Henderson, via Wikimedia Commons

Most data showed that store traffic was slow and e-commerce was fast. This new normal in retail pushed Sears (NASDAQ: SHLD) into Cyber-Monday with large discounts, some as high as 25%, as it began clearance sales. There is no explanation for discounts this large except that Sears has to sell off inventory which it assumes will not sell later in the holiday season.

Sears in particular needs to clear inventory. Its lackluster results and forecast drove its stock down. Many investors view it and sister company KMart as little more than a collection of real estate holdings strung together by CEO Eddie Lampert. Sears Holding’s shares are off 34% this year. Wall St. blamed bad management, warm weather, Amazon (NASDAQ: AMZN), other competition from troubled retailers like J.C. Penney (NYSE: JCP), which are also in a position in which they have to have a good season to maintain their claim to retailer relevancy.

Sear’s Cyber Monday plans offers “free shipping” for orders over $35, which is not distinct since every other retailer has aggressive free shipping deals. What Sears may fairly say “North Pole approved appliances” will catch shopper eyes, the phrase may not trigger many sales. The best deals among those Sears offers are 20% off clothing, shoes and jewelry. In some cases the discounts are greater than that. The prices on fake Christmas trees are are high as 50%. Discounted inventory at Sears.com is dominated by appliances, sports, and consumer electronics.

Sears used to own the demographic middle of department stores, wedged between Walmart (NYSE: WMT) on the one side, and Macy’s (NYSE: M) and Nordstrom (NYSE: JWN) on the other. People walked or drove from store to store, based to some extent on their income. Amazon and e-commerce in general has made selecting items democratic. Voyeurs can look at items too upscale for them to buy, and shop “store to store” without leaving their homes. Glued in front of their PC or smartphone screens, the shopping experience becomes endless and easy.

“Clearance” cannot take away from Sears what it has already lost. Retail store brands mean less and less. Cyber Monday is for winners; and this time, the consumer wins.

About the Author Douglas A. McIntyre →

Douglas A. McIntyre is the co-founder, chief executive officer and editor in chief of 24/7 Wall St. and 24/7 Tempo. He has held these jobs since 2006.

McIntyre has written thousands of articles for 24/7 Wall St. He is an expert on corporate finance, the automotive industry, media companies and international finance. He has edited articles on national demographics, sports, personal income and travel.

His work has been quoted or mentioned in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, NBC News, Time, The New Yorker, HuffPost USA Today, Business Insider, Yahoo, AOL, MarketWatch, The Atlantic, Bloomberg, New York Post, Chicago Tribune, Forbes, The Guardian and many other major publications. McIntyre has been a guest on CNBC, the BBC and television and radio stations across the country.

A magna cum laude graduate of Harvard College, McIntyre also was president of The Harvard Advocate. Founded in 1866, the Advocate is the oldest college publication in the United States.

TheStreet.com, Comps.com and Edgar Online are some of the public companies for which McIntyre served on the board of directors. He was a Vicinity Corporation board member when the company was sold to Microsoft in 2002. He served on the audit committees of some of these companies.

McIntyre has been the CEO of FutureSource, a provider of trading terminals and news to commodities and futures traders. He was president of Switchboard, the online phone directory company. He served as chairman and CEO of On2 Technologies, the video compression company that provided video compression software for Adobe’s Flash. Google bought On2 in 2009.