Sears Roebuck and Company

I made a fairly large purchase at Sears Appliance Center and was given a delivery date. From the day before the delivery date I received a telephone call telling me the delivery was to be delayed one day. I received the same telephone call for the next consecutive 5 days. Consequently I went to Home Depot and bought my appliances where they were delivered on time.
Apparently Sears cannot keep their promises. I will never go back to Sears again

People who shop at the Sears store in Briarwood (or any other brick and mortar Sears location) are going to be asked at the register whether they are «shop your way» members.
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY: Don’t do it!
You will have to jump through a lot of hoops to get your 1% rebate.
How the program is supposed to work: You buy stuff from Sears. You accumulate points. You need thousands of points to get a significant discount. It’s just like «Whose Line is it Anyway,» where it’s all made up and the points don’t matter. We bought some major appliances, so we were able to get some items for free. But it wasn’t easy. More on why later.
Redeem your points in a Sears store, or online. Just don’t try to use them on an item being sold by a third party in the Sears «marketplace,» which misleadingly is part of the shop your way website. It’s not exactly transparent, so watch carefully.
Here’s my big gripe with the program, other than having to agree to being spammed in order to be able to redeem the points: THE DATABASE HAS SERIOUS ISSUES.
I cannot possibly list all the odd database behavior that I have noticed. It took multiple phone calls + every last bit of my tech savvy to trick the database into letting me redeem $ 86 worth of points (after $ 8,600 worth of purchases) to get three items, which were delivered via three different routes and required me to go to the store to pick up two of the items as two separate trips.
Not worth it.
We still like the Sears credit card. After accumulating points for another three or four years, we were able to receive a second $ 1,000 Sears gift card.
WORTH IT.
Read my previous review for what I *do* like about Sears.

Another fine experience picking out stuff for my house at Sears. This time it was an outdoor wet/​dry vac with a leaf blower, a power drill, and a propane tank for my new grill. In addition I also perused the lawnmowers but did not pull the trigger on one.
The gentleman in the power tools area was incredibly helpful and didn’t treat me like an idiot just because I was a girl buying power tools for the first time. He helped me investigate some lawnmowers, gave me some options for my wet/​dry vac, rang me up quickly and made cheerful small talk with me. The interaction wasn’t overbearing or creepy in the slightest. Sometimes you get that with sales people.
Yes, the store is still badly in need of an upgrade and they don’t have a TON of stock (only about 3 electric mowers to choose from and they were all fairly large. I don’t have a lot of grass so I was looking for something smaller) but they also have additional options online that you can look for if you don’t see it the store. The big draw here, though? The clerks here are helpful, friendly and they make shopping for appliances, power tools, electronics and more really easy. So an added star to Sears for employing stand up dudes and dudettes.
As for my new purchases? I sucked up all the old leaves and twigs around my deck with my new vacum and it was hands down one of the most exciting days of home ownership I had. So nice to tidy up after a long winter!

I hate the mall. But Sears isn’t really a mall store, it has a weird tainted image. Anyway it’s the only store in the mall I go to and I don’t even have to go through the mall to get there. I get most of my basic clothes from Sears… from the softer side of Sears. Levi’s Jeans can be had for only $ 20-​$ 30 per pair and they reliably have my size. Their selection is a little weak, but better than any other place I’ve found in the village of Ann Arbor. Also they sell Structure T-​shirts, nice! And Land’s End Chino shirts, though they rarely have my size. Listen to this craziness; Land’s End sells their Chino shirts through their catalog and website, but YOU CAN ONLY GET SIZE SMALL FROM SEARS. And Sears, like every other store, always sells out of size small first.
Other things… the people who work in the clothing section often seem to be lazy and rude, but the tool people are great. I’ve looked around at other parts of the store, but I rarely find anything that I want that is price competitive with other places and the Internet. And if I shop online it’s just as personal an experience without having to listen to that horrible, mind dissolving music they play there most of the time. Argh!
Most Sears that I’ve been to are better (cleaner, better organized, better stocked, etc.) than this one, but what do you expect… It’s in Ann Arbor. It seems that Ann Arbor’s version of everything is worse.

A review of Sears? Arguably the longest-​running retail outfit where any of us shop? What am I, nuts?
Well, maybe I’m nuts, but what I wanted to comment about was the marriage of Sears and Lands End. I’m getting suspicious that my worst fears upon hearing of this misalliance are being fulfilled. Namely, that Lands End stuff is indisputably more tasteful and upscale than Sears, but that slowly, it’s luster* is eroding.
*Yes, luster is one of my favorite words.
Lands End catalogues for years on end have told us that seamless turtle necks were vastly superior to any other. But in the Lands End dept at Sears one finds only turtlenecks with seams — and the color/​size selection is just as picked-​over as the selection of stuff in other Sears depts. This is one of many examples.
Well, Consumer Reports told me to buy a Sears stove and dishwasher recently. I obeyed. The jury is still out.