Posted on 02/23/2022 3:16:59 PM PST by algore
Kmart, a once-popular discount chain with more than 2,000 stores throughout the United States, has become the latest victim of the retail apocalypse, with just four stores still in operation.
The once retail giant recently announced that it is closing two more of its locations - leaving just two in New Jersey, one on Long Island, New York, and one in Miami, Florida, according to the Oregonian.
The announcement came after decades of the discount retail chain failing to keep up with Walmart and Target's low prices, a problem that was only exacerbated by the rise of the Internet and the store's inability to properly brand itself.
It was supposed to be 'so bland that it nobody felt it was uninviting,' said Ben Schultz, a graduate student in public history at the University of Wisconsin in Milwaukee who has been studying the decline of the retail chain. 'It was a place that could be common to everyone.'
But 'when they tried to change their image, they didn't have an image
Kmart has filed for bankruptcy twice since the turn of the century, as its global profit margins fell from $49 billion in 2005 to just $3.26 billion in 2020. It continues to do well in Australia.
And shares for Kmart - which merged with the now defunct Sears department store in 2005 under the conglomerate Sears Holdings - have stagnated since October 2021 at less than one cent.
Target's stock price, meanwhile, was at $194 on Wednesday, and Walmart's was at $136.
(Excerpt) Read more at dailymail.co.uk ...
What about Kwik-E-Marts?
Yep. The last time I set foot in a Kmart was about a decade ago and it looked like it hadn't been upgraded since 1970s. You could still see the nicotine stains on the ceiling tiles.
I hadn't been inside one in years but there was a Kmart in the neighborhood I just moved to so the wife and I stopped in to see what was up.
A most depressing site. More employees than shoppers, all standing around looking glum. And nothing was cheap. Milk was a dollar more than the grocery store. We bought some Halloween candy, left, and never went back.
no clue re drugstores. Doubt it. Keep thinking.
No it was KMart back in the 90s.
They sell boom sticks.
I loved shopping at K-Mart (1970’s), but at a certain point I noticed the cheap gadgets that got me in started disappeared from the shelves (1990’s). I tough the company wanted to concentrate on high profit items! So, I decreased by trips there.
I wont step foot in a Target because of that bathroom thing. To me it just seems like an Amerincan version of Ikea. I never got the appeal.
And yes, dimestores.
The last time I ever went to a Radio Shack, I waited for 20 minutes to purchase a resistor and a terminal block while the sales clerk showed someone how to use their cell phone.
Never set foot in the place again.
Bad leadership in the executive suite and in the board of directors as well, took a company that had the financial where withal, the supply chain, the massive catalog, the retail footprint and not well exploited understanding of where Internet retail was going, such that they could have remained competitive both with the likes of Amazon as well as their bricks and mortar competitors. Instead, they stumbled from bad decisions to further bad decisions.
For instance, the board kept disallowing the level of investment in the Internet that the CEO kept seeking. Then, in the bricks and mortars front they had merger discussions that could have joined Sears with Home Depot and another set that would have merged them with Best Buy. Both possibilities were rejected by the Sears Board and in both cases their reasoning defied what that had already admitted was necessary changes they needed to make and defied the positives the merger partners would have brought to the combined company. In the end, it was entrenched internal institutional interests inside Sears that could not and would not change that held the company back.
Ah yes - was KMarts name before KMart -
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S._S._Kresge
I have not been to an Ikea in along time,
Do they still sell flat pack houses, and meatballs?
There was an SS Kresge store in the town I grew up in. I guess Kresge was the first incarnation of K-Mart. I remember it as being your typical 1960s five and dime. This one had a fantastic fountain service. As a kid it was a great place to shop with a grandparent.
Yes. Kresgee stores were common and popular in Detroit where I grew up. This was back in 60’s thru 80’s.
A huge Kresgee’s was downtown on Woodward Ave. across the street from another retail icon, Hudson’s department store.
Both stores had sit down cafeterias. I used to visit Kresegees and have a special pancake breakfast with my Dad.
Honestly, if I were an employee in any of them, I’d be on the lookout for another job opening in another store.
When I was young, teens into twenties, we had a Zayres on one corner and a Kmart on the other. Seminole County Florida
Yeah, now I remember them, too. Lunch counter like Woolworth’s - great times going there back in the 60s! Had almost forgotten.
I preferred CompUSA to Computer City.
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