Maryville Sears store not closing

SKYE POURNAZARI/DAILY FORUM
Sears Hometown is shown Monday afternoon in Maryville, Missouri. Owner Ryan Gessert wants to let Maryville residents know his store is not part of the Sears Holding Corp. and does not experience the same issue it does.

Ryan Gessert, owner of the Sears Hometown store in Maryville, Missouri, would like to let Maryville residents know his store is not closing and explain why.

“Sears Holding (Corp.) sold us in 2012,” he said. “It’s a large difference in the world today and nobody understands it.

In 2012 Sears Holding sold off the smaller stores as well as outlet stores as an individual entity, they’re publicly traded as SHOS on the stock market.

“It’s completely separate,” Gessert said. “So, all the negativity you hear about stores closing, that’s the big stores, like St. Joe’s mall store. I would assume there’s a lot more that’s going to be happening,”

He said the big format stores are struggling and when they close, SHOS will usually go in and place a Sears Hometown or an outlet store in their market.

“These are all individually owned,” Gessert said. “There are 700 hometown stores, just like what I own here. Then there are roughly 300 or 400 outlet stores, which is where they sell damaged and dinged stuff. They’re spread all over the nation.”

There’s a lot of difference, he said. The large stores will no longer sell Whirlpool, Maytag and Kitchenaid brands.

“We’re not in that same situation,” Gessert said. “We have our own relationship with Whirlpool where we buy direct. So, we don’t have that issue.”

He said many of his customers ask if the local store is going to weather the storm, but didn’t really understand that his local store is not even in the storm.

According to the Associated Press, Sears is closing 63 more stores in January, however, only 18 of them are Sears stores. Forty-five of them are Kmart stores.

Upon the announcement of the closings Friday, Sears shares fell nearly 4 percent or 20 cents, to $5.23 in trading.

The move comes in addition to the closing of about 250 stores already announced this year.

Sears has been selling off some its real estate and brands as it tries to raise cash.

Gessert said the Sears Hometown stores are not in the closings as they are not owned by Sears anymore.

“We tell everybody, we’re not going anywhere,” he said. “We’re pretty well-decorated. We’re a Top-50 store in the nation almost month-to-month. We couldn’t do it without Maryville. It’s a pretty darn good community.”

He said his customers are, “pretty loyal,” and since they can buy anything anywhere, to have a store like his, it’s important to really stand out with customer service.

“That’s what we pride ourselves on,” Gessert said. “We service our own stuff. The service is done by Sears. … Anywhere else you call the manufacturer to get it fixed. You don’t get to call the store back. Here you call us, we send somebody out. … You can call the guy you bought it from. It just enables us to fix it for people when things happen.”

He said it’s interesting year for them, because they will be closed Thanksgiving. In lieu of not being open that day, the store’s Black Friday sales started Monday.

“This is a weird year,” he Gessert said. “Nobody really knows what to expect.”

He said he thinks the sales this year will be spread out through the entire month, instead of just held on Black Friday.

“It’s already started,” Gessert said. “We price-match everybody. Just because you’re shopping locally doesn’t mean it has to be more expensive. You’d sure get better service.”