Today I Learned That Sears Is Still Selling Craftsman Tools(toolguyd.com)
toolguyd.com
Today I Learned That Sears Is Still Selling Craftsman Tools
https://toolguyd.com/sears-craftsman-tools-2025/
7 comments
Interesting, but who cares? The whole point of buying Craftsman Tools, and not just Sears tools (branded as Sears, not Craftsman) was the lifetime warranty. If the tool broke, they replaced it. There were several times where I needed that. I was in the middle of fixing something on the car when a ratchet wrench would break. I only lived a couple of miles away from a Sears store and I knew which outside entrance to use to get me straight into the tool department - which was useful because I wasn't cleaning up or changing clothes to get a wrench replaced! I'd walk in, go to the counter, present the wrench, they'd see it was busted and they'd go grab me another wrench and I'd be on my way. Customers witnessing that were amazed. But with the Sears stores gone, why buy Craftsman?
The quality was legendary too, they were serious about the lifetime warranty.
After 1990 though I had repeated experiences that "the lights were on and nobody was home" at Sears. When I showed up for grad school they had people tabling in front of Willard Straight Hall to get sign-ups for the Sears credit card. I signed up and a few weeks later got a letter that said I'd be declined because I lived in student housing. Why canvas students if you won't give credit to students? This was the only time in my life that I've been denied credit.
Maybe 15 years later I bought 4 tires from Sears and walked 1.5 miles back in the dark and in the snow after work to pick up my car. The salesman insisted on charging me for only one tire after quite a bit of arguing. You might think less of me for this but, no, I wasn't about to call the store manager (who knows how long I'd wait?) to pay another $300 and I wasn't going to call the 1-800 number to make a complaint. I just drove home. Even though it was clear Sears was running a lottery where you might get a "buy 1 tire get 3 free" on a good day, it also made me think about whether I wanted to go back in case the actual mechanic shop was as disorganized as the front end (e.g. "buy 5 quarts of oil, get 0") They went out of business within two years of that though.
After 1990 though I had repeated experiences that "the lights were on and nobody was home" at Sears. When I showed up for grad school they had people tabling in front of Willard Straight Hall to get sign-ups for the Sears credit card. I signed up and a few weeks later got a letter that said I'd be declined because I lived in student housing. Why canvas students if you won't give credit to students? This was the only time in my life that I've been denied credit.
Maybe 15 years later I bought 4 tires from Sears and walked 1.5 miles back in the dark and in the snow after work to pick up my car. The salesman insisted on charging me for only one tire after quite a bit of arguing. You might think less of me for this but, no, I wasn't about to call the store manager (who knows how long I'd wait?) to pay another $300 and I wasn't going to call the 1-800 number to make a complaint. I just drove home. Even though it was clear Sears was running a lottery where you might get a "buy 1 tire get 3 free" on a good day, it also made me think about whether I wanted to go back in case the actual mechanic shop was as disorganized as the front end (e.g. "buy 5 quarts of oil, get 0") They went out of business within two years of that though.
In Ye Olde Dayes, people bought Sears-branded stuff (Craftsman, Kenmore, etc.) because they actually provided pretty good value for what you paid. Those days, of course are long, long gone.
This is what dying companies do, they quite literally cannot afford to deliver a shopping experience of any kind. They don’t actually have enough employees to populate a store page, so they’ve probably outsourced it to a sweat shop that did some AI work ans slapped it on there.
They also resort to weird sales tricks like these financial schemes because:
1. They’re so desperate for sales they’ll try anything
2. Their only remaining customer base is generally uninformed laggards. Nobody with half a brain would shop at Sears for tools anymore.
They also resort to weird sales tricks like these financial schemes because:
1. They’re so desperate for sales they’ll try anything
2. Their only remaining customer base is generally uninformed laggards. Nobody with half a brain would shop at Sears for tools anymore.
Today I learned that Sears still exists. I thought they went out of business years ago, but apparently not. Five stores are still operating.