Kmart's Time Is Running Out

[Super S]

The pictures of the Sparks Kmart remind me of that bad one in Beaverton, OR. I find it funny that they have adult diapers right below where the ceiling is leaking and next to the buckets...

[reymann]

the clovis kmart is starting to look bare too, i think a total liquidation is gonna be announced by the summer once sears is forced to file for chapter 11 bankruptcy!!

[rwsandiego]

...The pictures of the Sparks Kmart remind me of that bad one in Beaverton, OR. I find it funny that they have adult diapers right below where the ceiling is leaking and next to the buckets...

Visual merchandising at its finest.

[storewanderer]

Fortunately they had a bucket on top of the adult diapers to attempt to collect any water.

What a joke.

I cannot even believe how bad the conditions of this store were, shutting the lights off really pushed it over the edge...

At this rate I cannot see them continuing much more than another month or two.

[Jeff]

It has been confirmed today by one of my co-workers (who knows someone who works there) that the Kmart in Carson is definitely closing in March. It was not on any of the lists at all. This is the last former Super Kmart store in Southern California that was still operating.

[Super S]

I went to the Kmart in Chehalis, WA today. This store is one of the nicer looking ones near me, partially due to the fact that it was flooded a few years back and received a remodel before reopening. This means it has nice looking floor tiles, conveyor belt checkstands, nicer than average restrooms, and even a drive thru pharmacy was added at that point. It is typically very clean inside. It is also the only one in the region that I am aware of with the current logo signage.

With that said, I did see a couple issues. The electronics department had a total of FOUR TVs to choose from. Much of the TV area had other products stacked there. There were also a few items that were out of stock here and there, but they appeared to be doing a good job overall of at least making this one look presentable.

And I did notice the ceiling, which I think was not replaced during the flood. Yes, since this is a typical 1970s store, it has the typical big air vents and strip lighting, but for some reason was not painted during the Big K conversion like so many others. Some of the tiles have developed a yellowing color with age, and some of those air vents are not flush with the ceiling.

This one only had one cashier open but the volume did not justify needing more cashiers. It was not as busy as the Walmart up the road. But the employees seemed better than average at this one.

I could see this one hanging on until the very end. Despite the Walmart nearby, there is no Fred Meyer or Target in Chehalis so this one does not have as much competition.

[Super S]

I stopped in the Kmart at 122nd and Sandy in Portland today. I noticed some areas are looking bare such as electronics and furniture. I also noted that it was rather cold in the store, as if the heat was turned way down. It also had every other row of lights turned off, and many of the ones that were on had a noticeable flicker likely due to the cold. This one looked even worse than Beaverton inside. The stores no longer feel like a national chain but feel more like a low budget thrift store which happens to sell new merchandise. Except that Goodwill in Portland has actually invested in new stores which actually look nicer than most Kmarts....

[storewanderer]

How did the grocery/pet area look? The Sparks location has almost no pet food in stock and grocery is extremely thin earlier this week. Also all checkstands closed again and all transactions being handled at customer service. It appears vendors are not shipping goods.

There were two employees at customer service (one was the store manager) and there was a third employee sitting at a folding table directly in front of customer service trying to get people to apply for a Sears Credit Card. The employees did not wear any kind of uniforms or name badges and were not identifiable as store employees at all by their clothing or appearance.

This is really sad. Talk about struggling for air...

[Super S]

How did the grocery/pet area look? The Sparks location has almost no pet food in stock and grocery is extremely thin earlier this week. Also all checkstands closed again and all transactions being handled at customer service. It appears vendors are not shipping goods.

There were two employees at customer service (one was the store manager) and there was a third employee sitting at a folding table directly in front of customer service trying to get people to apply for a Sears Credit Card. The employees did not wear any kind of uniforms or name badges and were not identifiable as store employees at all by their clothing or appearance.

This is really sad. Talk about struggling for air...

I didn't look at that area, I will readily admit that it's not an area of the store I usually visit. But the rest of the store looked as if they could announce they are going to close down at any moment. There was one checkstand open though.

[kr.abs.swy]

I visited this Kmart again today to see if conditions had changed. Things felt fairly stable compared to when I visited in January. Selection in the electronics department remained sparse (certainly no better). There were only five TVs on display and there were lots of empty spaces on the shelves. The paperback selection was still very picked over; presumably this vendor still refuses to do business with SHLD. There was an entire aisle with nothing but one kind of toilet paper and one kind of bottled water, placed there as filler. There were signs on this aisle saying "Pardon our dust as we transition to a new look." The automotive, tool, school supplies, and small appliance departments were all picked over. Lots of one- and two-deeps in food and health and beauty. Low stock on some types of pet food, beer and refrigerated groceries. The Valentine's Day section was surprisingly small and not attractively presented (truly unbelievable contrast with what I have seen at Albertsons with fresh flowers, baskets, etc., acknowledging that Albertsons vs. Kmart is not an apples-to-apples comparison). Some racks in clothing with only a few items on them. There were hundreds -- probably thousands -- of out-of-stock SKUs across the store. It was a Saturday afternoon and there were either one or two open registers, plus customer service. My checker wasn't wearing a Kmart uniform or T-shirt, just a name tag. I only bought a box of candy; she didn't even ask for a SYW number.

Based solely on the number of out-of-stocks I saw, I can't imagine that first quarter same-store sales are going to be anything but dismal. If it's not on the shelves, people can't buy it ...

Only five TVs on display.

Slim pickings in automotive

An entire aisle (a long aisle) in electronics that was nothing but cellphone accessories, prepaid cellphone cards, and prepaid phones, loosely spaced.

More slim pickings

Lots of empty shelves in electronics

"Please pardon our dust while we transition to a new look."

I visited a Kmart today, purely out of curiosity to see the store conditions (I seriously drove 35 minutes to see Kmart store conditions -- who does this??). As has been discussed previously, there are material inventory issues. The electronics department was particularly bare (on one aisle, there was at least 10 feet of shelving with absolutely nothing on it, on all levels), many of the displays in the rest of the department were quite sparse, and there were lots of empty spots on the TV wall. There were some empty shelves in the food department (I would say more than usual). It was pretty clear that the paperback section hadn't been replenished in several weeks (I would assume that this vendor is one of those that has chosen to stop doing business with Sears Holdings, but that is purely speculation). There was a large section outside of the pharmacy that was lightly (and unimaginatively) stocked with some pallets (this probably was part of the Christmas area previously). Some empty shelves in toys. Health and beauty felt reasonably normal. The Valentine's Department had lots of plush toys but not very much candy (surprisingly little). The snow shovel and snow melt aisle had been picked clean (this was due to a series of storms that had finally tapered off a week prior, although they should have had enough time to get some more on the shelves). The men's department was reasonably fully stocked but definitely did not give the impression of being packed. At the same time, there was a surprising amount of Christmas stuff remaining. Some of it was fairly ridiculous -- there was one $49 artificial tree that they had probably about 50 of sitting on a pallet. Did someone just overestimate by a factor of about five how many of those trees they would sell?

To what extent the shortages are due to internal inventory allocation vs. vendors refusing to ship, I couldn't say.

This was the store in Nampa, Idaho. I went in the Shopko across the street next. I seriously would guess that there was close to double the amount of inventory in the Shopko store. It was kind of jarring to go from the Kmart to the Shopko, actually. The Shopko certainly wasn't aging exceptionally well, but it felt posh compared to the Kmart.

There were several promos throughout the store where you would get 100% back in Shop Your Way points if you bought certain items (SmartSense, Duracell cellphone accessories). That seems like a very desperate promotion to me.

From a financial standpoint, I remember reading that Kmart same-store sales were down materially in the most recent quarter (I'm thinking 11%, but could be remembering wrong). While I have no doubt that this partially reflects shoppers speaking with their wallets (why anyone would shop in the store I was in today when there is a Shopko across the street, a Target across the freeway and a Walmart and Fred Meyer within 10 minutes is absolutely beyond me), it also reflects that the stores are starting to simply not have the merchandise that people are trying to buy. If you had an electronics purchase in mind, there is a good chance that this store would not have had what you were looking for or would only have one or two items to choose from.

From a physical conditions standpoint, this is an older store and was exactly what you would expect (about a dozen generations of floor tiles scattered throughout the store, low ceiling, unfortunate lighting, no unnecessary capex for probably about 15 years, walled off auto center, etc.).

I bought a box of Raisinets. The cashier asked for my phone number for "rewards" but didn't push back when I didn't want to give her one.

In the 90s Southern Idaho had nine Kmart stores (Rexburg, Idaho Falls/Ammon, Pocatello, Burley, Twin Falls, Mountain Home, two in Boise, Nampa) (plus one more in Ontario, Oregon). By my count, this is one of three (Ammon, Twin Falls, Nampa) that remain.