Sears, I remember, in 1988 closed their stores for one day, to lower all their prices as they were in trouble then and by lowering their prices they were trying to get volume sales in hope to make up for the deficit.
Also to know many department stores besides Sears and Kmart are operating in the red instead of the black. Macy's for one is paying most sales staff draw verses commission for a salary. That means that the sales person's base wage, that is the minimum by law, is covered by the commission they receive. In other words, you must make more in commission per day than you make in hourly wage or else you owe the house the difference. If it goes on long enough, the store will start paying 5 bucks an hour to that said employee who was not selling more than his wages until the draw is covered.
That is how Macy's justifies their sales department's wages on the books. They can hire as many sales people without effecting the intake costs as their salary comes directly from purchases. Considering that I only made 1 percent of the merchandise price, that one percent went on the books as labor cost. If an employee quit or gotten fired, I am guessing it would be written off come April 15 and the books could still look good.
