Exactly right. Sears tried to do that with their Shop Your Way rewards, but that failed miserably.
A) Eddie Lampert is a real estate guy - not a retail guy
B) Sears/Kmart own 90%+ of their properties
I said this in 2006 as a kid in my 20s: "This is set up for failure. Lampert wants this to fail to sell the properties." I was right.
You could see the intentional failure from the get-go: reducing inventory, (we had maybe 2 items in stock of each item vs 8-10 before....stock rooms were empty.) Skeleton crews, (removing cash wraps, only 1 sales person when there used to be 3-4, employees getting 6-12 hrs a week vs when they were getting 30,) removing lightbulbs to save on energy, reducing the air and having the temps 80 in the summer and 60 in the winter (no exaggeration.)
We had some rusty shelves in my home improvement department and they looked awful. I clamored for years to get new ones and to have them buy it. Nope. Its a capital expenditure and had to be approved at a corporate level.....we were told to PAINT them. Yep. Painted our shelves.