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 ...
There was a FReeper on here at one time called Names Ash Housewares. Maybe he’s still here.
And I think Bruce Campbell’s Chin.
Me neither. I just remember all this cheesy budget furniture.
We stopped going to K-mart when they had the gun grabber, Rosie O’Donnell became the spokesman. We probably spent $100 a month, so not a big customer. Multiply that by millions of people and bye-bye.
Yes, that one, too!
I wish somebody would do a detailed “corporate autopsy” to determine the *bad* corporate decisions they made again and again. Maybe even identifying what corporate leaders were responsible for the bad decision making.
To do this with business that failed in the past would be to lay the foundation for those businesses that fail in the the future, such as the “get woke, go broke” class.
Also, “corporate cancers”, such as when one corporation buys enough shares of another corporation to insert someone on their executive board who is a puppet for the first corporation, and does not have the second corporations well being in mind.
Some Ivy League schools have been accused of doing this and things like this with their graduates, only hiring graduates of their school as executives, making decisions as stepping stones for their own advancement, and worse. And some corporations have a permanent blacklist of Ivy League graduates.
K-mart always sold junk and for not much better prices than you could get elsewhere.
Yup, Tandy Leather, as it was first called, owned Radioshack.
I miss Neisner’s, Woolworth’s and S.S. Kresge’s too.
We had a big one Mrs. Flash used to like, but the checkout lines were insanely slow. One time I got out of line after three minutes went by and they were trying to price a watermelon a customer in front of me had.
We went to another line, and fifteen minutes later when we got out, they were still screwing around with the watermelon.
At some point, LONG before we got out of there, they should have told the customer “would you like it for two bucks?”, and just moved on.
I have loved K-Mart for most of my life. Worked there all through college, and lived right close to a different one for years that met most all of my needs.
Even after they started declining, I still gave their stores most of my business to try to keep them afloat.
The last one here had the most beautiful Christmas cards every year that I have pretty much ever seen anywhere, especially so many different types. I bought so many boxes I am still using them, keeping track of who I sent what from which box.
Yep. I mentioned them in a reply here before I saw your comment. I grew up in the 50's in Rochester, New York. The main department stores there were Sibley's, McCurdy's, Edwards, along with W.T. Grant's, Lerner's, The National (higher priced clothing), and others. We also had Western Auto, and Noah's Ark stores.
I had pretty good luck with the Realistic products. RS was such a great resource for elec hobbyists and tinkerers. Toward the end they pretty much became just another cell phone dealer with teenaged “sales associates”. Sad ending,
I’m sure that Eddie has plans for them, as well as the vacant stores that he still owns. The stockholders on the other hand are out of luck.
K-mart was an offshoot of SS Kresge. I remember one in Boston.
I am assuming they are the Kresge of Kresge Auditorium at MIT, designed by Aero Saarinen, the same architect as the TWA building at JFK Airport.
From Alice Cooper’s “Generation Landslide”
The over-indulgent machines were their children
There wasn’t a way down on Earth here to cool them
‘Cause they looked just like humans
At Kresge’s and Woolworth’s
Kroger took over the defunct K-mart in our town, demolished the building, and built a new Kroger grocery store.
Smart and Final took over our empty K-Mart but is was an eyesore for YEARS!!!
I live in central NY State. The only store you mentioned that is here is Aldi's, and I don't go there. The grocery stores we have are Tops (aka P&C), and Price Chopper (Market 32). Then of course there is a Walmart, and within a half-hour drive is Hannaford, and B.J.'s Wholesale Club. About 45 minutes away is Wegman's.
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