You're being given an extraordinary gift,

There's a lot of redundancy in these stores. If the idea of this merger is to make these department stores more similar to each other, that won't add value to consumers, ... Consumers want differentiation and variety in products. Price isn't their only consideration.

It's not so much that Sears and Kmart did anything wrong, it's just that they didn't change while the rest of the industry was changing around them.

My personal feeling is if the complexity becomes difficult for me, I frequently will pass off part of my decision to some trusted adviser or rely on an expert recommendation, ... My husband is more into this than I am. When the decision gets into making trade-offs, I want to make the decision but I may not want to spend the time (learning about the product enhancements). When we were buying PCs in the beginning in the 1980s, it was the same situation: People wanted computers but didn't know what to buy. Everybody in the neighborhood would go to the person who was the expert.

It's not so much that Sears and Kmart did anything wrong, it's just that they didn't change while the rest of the industry was changing around them,

My personal feeling is if the complexity becomes difficult for me, I frequently will pass off part of my decision to some trusted adviser or rely on an expert recommendation.