Here is the current affidavit that we have received from SEARS pertaining to the class action lawsuit.
We welcome private comments from dealers across the country regarding the arguments and statements put forth in the document below. Just click on the link...
SEARS Corporate Affidavit
This is a Sears smokesreen to persuade a court that Sears is trying to help the dealer channel, suddenly after years of asking for help, there is a bonus scheme, what the writer fails to highlight is that to be even elligible for the bonus the dealer has to meet stringent requirements set by Sears and only gets a bonus if they make a better sales increase than the increase of the proceeding year, this is yet another project doomed to failure as eventually the sales in any given area will flatten out as saturation is reached.
ReplyDeleteMy wife and i actually are dealers for sears and we have put all our effort, money and business skills into this and are near bankrupt, we have begged sears for some assistance and been told there is no money to go around.
I cant get the statement from the sears hiring brouchure out of my head when it mentions " BETTER THAN A FRANCHISE", I don't know many tim hortans owners having to go and get a second job to subsidise thier coffee shop.so to say that sears has never misled anyone into becoming a dealer is wrong.
We have increased sales at our store in the region of 20 percent over the last 3 years and cut costs till there is nothing left to cut and the only ones to benefit is sears, they have limited stock to every store preventing owners from having enough stock to be successful and the commission rates haven't kept up or inline with rising costs.
The affidavit is what i would term deflective and doesn't defend numerous allegations made against sears as usual sears misses the point and does there own thing, trying to impress the court that they have done everything to be supportive to the dealers, when in actual dollars and cents they have done very little.
When they say they are giving dealers a percentage towards advertising costs this is another smokesreen as it amounts to nearly nothing over a year, actually $2000 to the average dealer or $38 a week.
the affidavit says Sears Roebuck is unrelated to Sears canada so maybe Eddie Lampert should put back the 50 million dollars he recently got paid from sears canada, he should be ashamed, while the people on the front line that make him money are almost bankrupt
ReplyDeleteI run a dealer store and I think more dealers need to voice their opinion and show solidarity against these con artists, I have no compaasion for them and they deserve all thats coming in court, they have shown no compassion for us
ReplyDeleteSears has admitted in all the cluster meetings that the dealer model doesn't work and also admitted that we are under payed.
As usual Sears has to always come up with lies and still continue to succeed.
ReplyDeleteThere is a saying- He who has the most money wins!! Guess who has the most money? So far Sears has prevailed but hopefully they sure get what they deserve soon. We r from the united states-We was a Sears hometown store dealer- We had to walk away and we are bankrupt:( not fair. Its time that we stop being scared of the corporate bulling, lies&greed. Wondering why the judges are scared too??? The more sears hometown store dealers stick together and fight for what we deserve!!! They need to be stopped now!!!
my wife and I too are dealers and have invested heavily in our store. We have lost money, partly due to recession and mostly due to sears corp activity. We are in the position of walking away and paying for the next ten years or stand firm and pray that someone in Toronto gets the idea that a happy, healthy, and rested dealer with a few dollars in his pocket will benefit the corp sears pockets as well. trust me I am not holding my breath. The new bonus plan will fail like the gold badge bonus structure failed (remember). These failed attempts at showing how much they care and want us to succeed, "if only we would make them a better profit margin they could share more". Get rid of all the wages in middle management of this division and let the dealers do what they need to do in order to pay the bills. My DSM knows nothing about selling appliances and he comes in the store and proceeds to tell us what we are doing is wrong! As a business person I find it prudent to take advice from someone who has never sold retail items, after all, we have only survived 10+ years because of the brilliant DSM's and Corporate management teams.
ReplyDeleteAs for this affidavit, I have never heard of this person Greg, he has never been in my store, never attended a cluster meeting or been on the new weekly conference call to my knowledge, yet he states he has spent "significant time working with hometown dealers and visiting hometown stores" I guess he is a secret shopper!
The smokescreens are never ending.
I was with Sears Canada for 24 years (Worked my way to management) before leaving and buying a Hometown Store, it took me 2 months to see that Sears was very dishonest and held back commissions because they stated I didn't have the right procedures.. I was never given the training they say they give, I asked for it 3 times before I gave up and put the store up for sale, I sold the store 6 months later for I saw everything I worked for ($$) slipping away.. I ended up getting some of the commissions back after selling the store because I kept a lot of the E Mails while owning it, I sent them to Calvin Macdonald and within 2 weeks I received a cheque in the mail. I had all the proof about them not wanting to give me what they owed me. Good luck to all you Hometown owners!!! I hope Sears gets what they deserve!!
ReplyDeleteI live in u.s. had retail dealer store. Sears manipulated numbers and stoked my buyout..$150,000
ReplyDeleteWhen are the U.S. hometown owners going to wake up and file a class action suit as well?
ReplyDeleteThe us stores need to do the same.
ReplyDeleteCome on us stores let's do the same
ReplyDelete