The demise of Kmart

[leahgoogle]

I feel you. They're all already gone Canada wide - no Kmart, no Sears, no Target. The state of Canadian bricks-and-mortar retailing is in shambles.

No Target?!? That's sad!

 

[PollyannaMom]

The one nearest me currently is kind of dirty and disorganized, so I don't go there anyway. But Kmart was the only discount store in my town as a kid, too. - I wonder what will go in there now?

 

[bcla]

This is the one we went to when I was a kid. It's on San Pablo Ave near the corner of San Pablo Dam Rd, in the city of San Pablo - so it hit the San Pablo trifecta. I think it was the only one in the area for some time. Not exactly sure why the only photo is in black in white. It may be from a newspaper clipping.

I thought that Kmart was coming back in the 90s when they built a 24 hour Super Kmart in Oakland, California. That was a massive store with everything, including a full food section with produce and scales at checkout. It also had a Wells Fargo Bank in-store branch. This was all rather remarkable given the neighborhood was mostly serviced by liquor, convenience, dollar, and Hispanic grocery stores. Lines were very long, and even when they closed, Kmart was claiming that the store was still quite profitable. The loss of the bank was probably the biggest blow for the neighborhood. It was actually run fairly well, but I think they had issues with shoplifting.

The other place we would go to was Sears, where the closest location to us was a store in Oakland. That place sat empty for a while but was turned into loft apartments.

 

[bcla]

No Target?!? That's sad!

Target opened in Canada with a lot of fanfare. A lot of Canadians living near the border would shop at ones nearby in US. I heard the problem was that they didn't necessarily have all the same products sold in US Target stores because they had to deal with Canadian distribution agreements. Also - the prices were typically higher. Some indications were that it was rushed and that they took over locations that were from a lower end retailer and not always in the best locations.

https://slate.com/business/2015/01/target-closing-in-canada-these-pictures-show-why-it-failed.html​

By all accounts, the adventure has been an unmitigated disaster—a story of a company trying to accomplish too much, too fast, with too little thought. Target opened 124 stores at once in 2013. Rather than build its own real estate, it purchased leases on buildings that had belonged to Zellers, a “dying low-end retailer,” as Fortune puts it, whose locations were “dumpy, poorly configured for Target’s big-box layout, and were in areas not frequented by the middle class customers Target covets.”​

​

But that wasn’t the real killer. Because it revved up so quickly, the company never had time to develop a working supply chain in Canada, which left its stores short on merchandise and full of empty shelves.​

When I visited BC in 2015, that was after Target Canada closed. We went to the Target in Bellingham, WA to load up on supplies and snacks before crossing the border. When we got into BC, we saw a few of the closed Target stores. They had all the signage stripped, but they clearly looked like they used to be Target stores.

 

[spiders]

I drove by one that was still open about 2-3 years ago. I had to go in just to check it out. It was disgusting. Dirty, filthy, mostly empty shelves, completely disorganized, and half the lights were out. It was one of those kinds of places where you feel like you need to shower after you leave. I still don't understand how any "investor" thought it was a good idea to merge Sears & KMart. Let's take two companies that have found fantastic ways at failing and merge them together to form the most phenomenal fireball in retail history.

 

[Starport Seven-Five]

Good video on this subject. Couple years old now but it's just been a further decline since then:

 

[mrodgers]

I haven't even shopped a Kmart in forever. I did not even think there was any left.

Same. Ours closed down years ago. Sears even before that. We had a Sears at another mall (lived in the middle of 4 shopping areas all 40 minutes away) but it's now gone. Penny's at that mall has been gone for a while and right before the pandemic hit, my Penny's local to where I am now closed.

There is literally no where for a guy to shop for clothes in a store any more. I liked Arizona Jeans from Penny's (or was it Sears?) I tried to go online but they have 18 different cuts and you can't tell by the pictures which is which. They all look like women's hip jeans.

And to top it off, Walmart stopped carrying my boxer briefs and no longer have cotton socks. Literally not a single item of clothing can I purchase without seeing it first any more. I'm not into buying clothes online as it would probably be 95% return rate and I'm not going through all that trouble to return clothes.

 

[RedAngie]

I thought Target failed in Canada because they didn’t sell fruitcake.

 

[mrodgers]

I've shopped at the one in South Lake Tahoe many times. Like other Kmart stores I've seen, it always seemed to be stuck in the 70s. The floors and fixtures are old and dingy looking. Shelves are not regularly restocked. Merchandise is all over the place, like no one goes through and neatens up after a busy day. Several years ago, we went there looking for bathroom rugs and there were like two choices and a bunch of empty shelves. We found a much larger selection at the TJ Maxx down the street.

It's sad that the chain is going away. But if they all look like the Tahoe store, I'm not surprised that people are no longer wanted to shop there.

So, it's like my local Walmart then. I've been back in town over 5 years and they still have not just 1 but 2 slots for Speedstick deodorant yet it hasn't been stocked in over 5 years.

 

[mrodgers]

Count me in as another person who had no idea they were still around.

Gotta be honest, I am soooo over malls and the big box shaped stores and am uggh with mail order. I hope the post-Covid world brings back the little mom and pops scattered everywhere where ya get to know the owners and clerks. I want to go into little shops on the bottom floors of homes with neighborhood business owners. I want to know what is offered is based on the taste of the business owner who will tell you why by way of friendly chit-chat... sigh.

I feel the same except "Covid" killed any mom and pop stores left and let Walmart, HD, and Lowes set record breaking revenues.

 

[RedAngie]

I have a friend who is a retail historian. Earlier this year he reported that there were 19 K-marts left nationwide. I forgot how many Sears.

I liked my local K-mart. It closed early in 2019. It had been remodeled and updated about three years prior to that.

 

[MillauFr]

I think having Wall St. investors buy K-Mart and Sears was the beginning of the end for both of them. That mentality thinks they can manage a retail operation by an Excel Spreadsheet. Everything is just boiled down to dollars and cents.. Nothing else matters. No innovation. No creative thinking. They are just interested in squeezing blood from a turnip.

 

[JaxDad]

The building for the last Kmart near me is now a Amazon Prime distribution center…

 

[RedAngie]

The last new K-mart opened in 2003 and closed in 2019 and is being transformed into a Target. (The building was originally a Jamesway.)

 

[Yoshi]

I used to really like the clearance deals at Kmart, especially the video games that were $2-$5. Once those went away, I didn’t shop there often until ShopYourWay sweepstakes started.

The amount of points you could win was ridiculous and combined with Free Cash points and coupons for free items, they were giving away a lot of free merchandise. I don’t know how they could afford to offer it. If it wasn’t for that program, I would have never shopped there at that point because prices were very high (sometimes twice as much as Walmart) and it was rare to see more than 1 or 2 registers open.

 

[Kittyblue]

The building for the last Kmart near me is now a Amazon Prime distribution center…

That’s funny, same here.

 

[Dan Murphy]

this small town girl

 

[Dan Murphy]

The last K-Mart in Illinois, which closed about a year or two ago is a county COVID mass vaccination center now.

Who remembers the Blue Light Specials?

 

[FlightlessDuck]

There are two Kmarts in all of Pennsylvania. We have probably 3 or 4 in my area close about 4 or 5 years ago (maybe a little longer than that).

 

[FlightlessDuck]

The last K-Mart in Illinois, which closed about a year or two ago is a county COVID mass vaccination center now.

This is true of one of the Sears around here.