They are a small brand. They are not a monster brand. The name of the game for them is to build brand awareness and market share.

They had a free lunch and now they have to buy dinner.

Also, most big retail chains placed their Christmas orders months ago and the Christmas inventory was already in the pipeline before (the) SARS (outbreak),

This deal is a classic Wall Street creation, ... Sears' store sales are down for 22 consecutive months. The company is in a crisis. It had to find a way to pump up its stock and reward its shareholders. Wait until the smoke clears.

This is specially true of the specialty stores. Retailers have to become more creative if they want to keep customers longer in their stores and if they want them to keep coming back.

This is an era in which corporations want to be lily white because corporate governance is on the front burner.

You see the guy out on the street selling coffee, donuts, fruit - his business is destroyed. There are a lot of small businesses that will close or that won't be able to pay their bills next year because of the strike.

Back-to-school has been very soft and therefore prices are coming down. The discount signs are already being made. Both Wal-Mart and Target have had anemic growth over the summer. The only sector that has done well is luxury.

The business is getting smaller -- the advertising, the TV, the magazine -- everything is going down. This company is not going to go away tomorrow. However, the losses are getting scary.

The brand as we know it is dead. Any brand that's built exclusively around a single personality can't survive something like this.