Sears

Disclaimer — I am a regular Sears online customer, but I have not shopped in store for a few years.
I visited when the spring inventories just came out for the year. The store was very clean, brightly lighted and nicely decorated. There was a lot of new inventories from bedding to fashion to exercise equipment, all of them neatly organized and displayed. I was impressed by all these. I didn’t remember Sears looking like this before, with styles like this before. The value, as defined as quality versus price, was quite good, too. Absolutely 5 stars out of 5 for reviving the shopping experience.
The services was, as mentioned by another reviewer, a bit lacking. I couldn’t find assistance in at least 2 departments I shopped at. There was no one manning the fitting room (don’t they worry about shop lifting?). Only the centralized cashier counter had people working. I am okay with the last issue, though, because many stores only have one big cashier counter in front or in middle of the store nowadays. I would suggest Sears to eliminate most of the smaller cashier stations, as they serve to confuse rather than help currently.

Sears Canada’s Best Down-​Filled Coat — This coat is so warm and keeps the elements away. Way to go Sears and glad to see that we don’t have to pay the Canada Goose prices to get a coat that gives us the same warmth. Love my Red full-​length coat and never cold again.

The store is very lightly staffed — a single shoes employee for men and women section combined, lines at every checkout.
Bought a pair of shoes, on coming home realized one of them was missing an insert. Came back to the store; they did not have another insert in that size, told me to return the shoes and order from the catalog. Ok, back into the line, after a while shoes have been returned.
Took me a while to find the catalog section (it’s a small nook at the entrance to the store), no one is there. After five minutes, an employee shows up and lo and behold, those shoes cannot be ordered from the catalog. Sends me back to the main store to check other nearby stores.
Found another service counter, asked them to look up the inventory in nearby stores. The clerk says no, can’t do that and the information is out of date anyway. Scribbles a number of the other store on a piece of paper and hands it over, telling me to call them myself.
At this point I gave up, it wasn’t worth the effort to hunt down a pair of shoes, comfy as they seemed. Too bad, as the price was right, but no one on the floor was willing to own the situation and make the sale. Compare to another chain where the first employee I talked to tracked down an item over the phone and arranged for it to be shipped over for me in two days, and that without any obligation to buy. Extremely unprofessional service and I doubt I will be going back to Sears anytime soon.