Kardashian Touch Turns To Coal For Sears
It seems like everything that the Kardashian family touches turns to gold. Well, almost.
Sears bet a large portion of their Black Friday and holiday shopping sales on the Kardashian-clans new line of clothes and accessories. From initial sales reports, that might not have been a good thing.
The products hardly brought in the gushing crowds that celebrity products usually attract.
But "these initiatives have not been effective," said Marija Dabovic, a retail industry analyst investment research firm Value Line. The Kardashian Kollection consists of almost every product that women would want in the world of celebrity fashion, complete with winsome dresses, fashionable shoes and jewelry, and trendy handbags, intimates, belts and sunglasses.
Alas, the electric Kardashian name failed to deliver. There are no signs of a turnaround at Sears. "Sears Holdings has yet to see meaningful improvement," says Dabovic, as the company continues to be in the red, posting losses in every quarter so far this year.
The Kardashian backlash at Sears flies in the face of a sales upswing, when comparing similar stores Black Friday sales numbers.
Practically all major retail stores, including Macy’s and Target, were swamped by tens of thousands of eager shoppers.
The gamble with the Kardashian Kollection was supposed to post positive numbers for the nations venerable department store.
A widely known name with 2,201 locations, Sears is among the largest broad-line retailers in the U.S., operating 884 full-line stores and 1,370 specialty shops, as well as 1,304 branded Kmart discount stores. Sears Holdings' 94%-owned Canadian subsidiary operated 122 Sears-branded full-line stores and 373 specialty stores in Canada.
Given near-term headwinds, S&P's Asaeda also sees Sears continuing to be in the red at least over the next two years. Considering that the retail store industry as a whole has outperformed the broader market by about 3% since September, the outlook is indeed bleak for Sears Holdings as signs of a turnaround continue to elude the giant retailer.
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