Sears Identifies 80 of 120 Stores Slated for Closure

Sears Holdings has announced 80 of the 100 to 120 stores the company plans to close as part of cost-cutting measures announced late last month. The closings will affect both Sears and Kmart stores in 25 states, with Florida taking the biggest hit, losing 11 units. The company did not release information about when the closures would take place.

Other states that will lose a large number of stores include Georgia, Michigan and Ohio, with six planned closures each, and Indiana, Minnesota, North Carolina and Tennessee each losing four stores.

Sears' plans to reverse its fortunes are not focused solely on shutting doors and making cuts. The retailer's CEO, Lou D'Ambrosio, said in a recent Bloomberg News interview that the company's turnaround will require combining technology with increased investment in its stores. D'Ambrosio, a former Avaya and IBM executive who joined Sears in February 2011, wants his managers to gather additional information about customers' buying patterns and product preferences and to ramp up the retailer's online operations.

Sears, which operates nearly 2,700 stores in the U.S. and Canada, has already provided its store associates with a total of 5,000 Apple iPads and 11,000 iPod Touch mobile devices to track inventory and customer orders, according to published reports.

The company has also recently named Ron Boire as its chief merchandising officer and president for Sears and Kmart formats. Boire was formerly president and CEO of Brookstone and had served as president U.S. Toys, North America for Toys "R" Us.

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