Just go and check back on how things happened with them - it's going to sound eerily familiar.
If the similarities continue, what we have to look forward to are several years of constant layoffs, reorganizations and store closings before we finally reach bankruptcy (which comes with "no severance for anybody" bonus.)
There is no good outcome here.
It doesn't take an investor or a financial guru to see that Lowe's is on the downside and is running the same downward patterns as Sears did. Yes Sears has been on a very very slow sink. Lowes on the other hand will sink much faster over a shorter period of time. Lowe's has been good at patching up with the same band-aids as Sears. However the holes at Lowe's are getting too big for upper Lowe's management to understand and or fix. Predictions for Lowe's 2019 4th quarter earnings may show a greater loss compared to 2018. Lowe's employee turnover and retainment of store front talent is pale as there is not not enough staffing while forcing experienced and knowledgeable staff out the door. SKUs keep changing and throwing customers off. Lastly, Lowe's has been desperately chasing the Home Depots contractor base which is cares less than its DIY base customers. The Home Depot will continue to surge ahead of Lowes because Lowe's lack of marketing and fails to understand whats really happening on the store front level.
the only reason lowes garden center is head and shoulders above other big retailers is because they maintain their own plants! i have worked for a plant vendor. in the course of a few years it went from being a full time seasonal job to part time. when i would ask how are we suppose to maintain the plants, discount down the spent plants, keep them watered etc. the company had no answer for it other than just to throw out plants if we could no longer get full price for them. they eventually just wanted us unloading racks of plants onto the garden center shelves.....started out getting like 12 hours per week per store and if i would have worked one more year that spring they told us it would be 3 hours per store. we would go in 3-4 times per week to each store.....they still wanted us to do that on 3 hours per week so i quit. be nothing but a waste of time and gas.
and yeah.....for the area my district leader covered....she would routinely complain to me that i was about the only person she could trust to do the work. it was constant turnover and people not actually going in to do their jobs. 3rd party outsourcing is not the answer and never will be. sure you could end up getting a few good vendor reps that need the money and take pride in their work...but the majority of them will only bring down your stores
oy! you forgot to mention the part where the execs award themselves bonuses and extra compensation right before the ship runs aground.... bah haa haaaa haaaaa
I have heard on message boards that Outside lawn and Garden is going to the same pay per scan system Home Depot has. This means there won't be any LNS's or people maintaining plants.... More layoffs if this is true.
We are SEARS 2.0!!!!!
To anon 7, goody for you, a Lowes investor that knows and sees all. As I worked at all three (and who have you worked for), I see a real strong comparison, and if you, who knows all, can open your eyes maybe you will see the same issues. If marv continues on this path (backed by activist investors, are you one of those vultures?) it will be a long slow company failure.
After 15 years I’ve come to terms with Lowe’s. Eventually I will have to look for another job these issues aren’t gonna change anytime soon.
Prior to working for Lowe's I worked for both Kmart and then Sears, and I hate to say this but Lowes is headed down the same path, but I will take a long time, as Lowes is a large ship that won't sink fast.
Oh please.....there’s absolutely no comparison. Sears has been in a steep decline for many years, with a broken business model and failure to adapt to the needs and wants of present day consumers—as a result they are dying a slow death. Lowe’s has its problems for sure but as a whole it is still a very profitable company and has a pretty amazing record of producing better than average returns for investors. I know because I’m one of them.
wherein i think some of the bad decision making is the same. im not convinced. HD makes up far less of the overall market than marvin and his vendetta buddies would have anyone believe. kind of like how they focus on the pro customer all day long but they make up, in actuality, a small piece of the pie. sure, more dollars per transaction, but theyre a small group. its a lazy, cost cutting approach to try and go after the small group of pros than it is to put real effort into revolutionizing your business so that you can obtain a loyal following of millions of every day customers.
i still believe lowes can live in #2 mediocrity for decades to come because of the type of retailer that they are. Sears vast business, today, was anchored down by clothing....wherein older generations remember sears as being a seller of houses, their vast catalog that was an amazon of its day and a hardware/appliance store.....current generations saw sears as being a seller of outdated clothing. they exited everything that made them great. sears lost money for nearly a decade before declaring bankruptcy. lowes still nets billions a year. as much as i dislike marvin and most of how lowes treats people, from a business standpoint you can still say lowes is taking steps to not suffer the same fate. theres still obviously some shady dealings between marvin, his buybacks, and the activist investors. but there are still moves being made to pull lowes out of the 90s.
I was told by a reliable source that they won't be any more layoffs. It supposed to have come from corporate. I hope it's true.
Slide started when they stopped installs and cut all spiffs. 1991. Just took some time to go over the edge.