Chances are good your dishwasher, washing machine, drier, refrigerator, or stove is preparing to self destruct at any moment. You will search the yellow pages for appliance repair, make a phone call or two, and discover the cost of a service call is too expensive for that heap of aluminum you would just as soon trash. So will you go to Sears to purchase a new appliance? Well, according to
Advertising Age, you probably
will not. Sears has dominated retail appliance sales since 1927, but their market share is steadily eroding to newcomers Lowes and Home Depot. In fact, only 6 points of market share with give the leadership title to Lowes which entered the category in 1994. Home Depot, which only added appliances within the last five years is already the nation’s fourth largest appliance retailer. Sears booked a solid $ 6.9 billion in appliance sales in 2005, but George Whalin, an analyst with Retail Management Consults believes their appliance future is bleak. Sears is no longer opening new stores or a serious contender for remodeling contracts.
Marketing Blurb believes that all appliances are secretly made by a single company in a single factory somewhere in Indiana. The final step in manufacturing is setting the random self-destruct timer and affixing a brand label for shipment to retail distributors.
Photo Credit: Sears
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