Posted on 09/23/2024 12:35:36 PM PDT by Red Badger
The doors to the last full-size Kmart store in the United States will close forever on October 20.
WJAR reported on Sunday that an employee confirmed the location in Bridgehampton, New York, will close up shop on that date.
“Kmart has been slowly closing stores for years since merging with Sears in 2005 under the management of hedge-fund CEO Eddie Lampert. Sears Holdings, the parent company of Kmart and Sears, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in 2018,” the report said.
According to Fox Business, the department store chain ran about 2,300 locations in the 1990s. Transformco, which owns the smaller location in Miami, also owns a few stores in the U.S. Virgin Islands.
“Transformco says on its website that the first Kmart discount department store opened in 1962 in Garden City, Michigan,” the Fox article stated.
“The Miami Herald reports that the Kmart store there leased out nearly all of its former space to home goods store At Home. That Kmart location has now been reduced to what used to be the garden department of the original store,” the outlet added.
In August 2023, Fox 5 reported the last Kmart in New Jersey was shutting down, and residents shared their thoughts on the move:
VIDEO AT LINK..........
“It’s the end of an era. It’s yet another franchise that is gone. The whole world is changing, stores are disappearing,” one woman told the outlet.
(Excerpt) Read more at breitbart.com ...
“Shop smart. Shop S-Mart!”
~Ash, housewares
When I think of Kmart, I am immediately reminded of a few of Johnny Carson’s monologues. The ones where the monologue is bombing and he grabs the overhead boom mic and says into the mic “Attention Kmart shoppers! ...”
“I’ve been kidnapped by K-Mart!”
The biggest mistake Sears Kmart made was not staying current. IOW they should have adopted the Amazon model of online sales.
Just like Blockbuster Video stores.
Sears could have been Amazon. They had the warehouses and distribution system. But not the vision.
Story does get one detail wrong. KMart bought Sears, and then adopted the name. Lampert bought the stores as a real estate play, but kept the operations going longer than people thought he would.
This is what happened to one of our Kmarts here in Mesa. In this case, it was the reverse: the bulk of the store became At Home and they turned the garden center into a pretty good Mexican restaurant and cantina. If I'm not mistaken, the store itself was built, but never actually opened.
When I was in SoCal in the 80s the running joke was Mexico is changing its National Anthem to “Welcome Kmart Shoppers.”
Another was “Why Does Michael Jackson shop at KMart? He heard little boys pants were half off.”
There was a KMart in San Ysidro that was filled daily with Mexicans who legally crossed the border. They loved KMart. Even then things were starting to leak out about Michael Jackson.
I probably haven’t been into a store in 10 years I purchase EVERYTHING on line, I started doing curbside pick up at Walmart for groceries also they do an EXCELLENT JOB!! I have never had an error in my order, and I save a hell of a lot of money by not going into the store and throwing stuff into my cart that is not needed!! Some people just LOVE to shop I am not one of them!!
I don’t know where there are any Sears stores either.
Sears was pretty far gone before there was such a thing as online sales. I thought ending their catalog business and going to retail outlets only was a huge mistake. If Sears had kept its catalog business going until the internet came along, there might never have been an Amazon. They'd have been positioned to just move catalog sales to the internet.
Back in middle school, “blue light special” was a slang term for a slutty girl.
Didn’t KMart go woke? I remember my mom boycotting Kmart long ago because of some perversity they espoused.
Sears had the Wishbook, a massive catalog. It was going online but mismanagement ended it in the 1990’s.
You are right, SEARS was the original Amazon. At least 2/3 of my school clothes were bought annually out of the SEARS catalog. JC Penny, SEARS and one other store I cannot recall the name were big in catalog sales. I have two rifles that say JC Penny on them. One is actually made by Savage, I believe the other was made by Marlin.
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