Yesterday The Wall Street Journal reported that a toy vendor, Jakks Pacific Inc., during its quarterly earnings call made a comment that its latest quarterly revenues were negatively impacted because it made a decision to halt shipments to a national retailer. It was subsequently reported that this retailer was Kmart.
We can tell you that we have had a longstanding relationship with Jakks as we do with our tens of thousands of other suppliers and vendors. Despite the speculation and rush to report the negative, we have always paid our vendors for orders we have placed and as part of the normal negotiations between retailers and vendors, there are occasionally disputes over prices, allocations of product and other terms.
We will continue to source products by working with our vendor partners with an eye towards meeting the expectations of our tens of millions of Shop Your Way members. We are focused on returning the company to profitability and recognize that mutually beneficial relationships with our partners are critical to our success. At the same time, we will continue to make decisions and take actions that protect the company.
Jason Hollar is Sears Holdings’ chief financial officer.
