Sears/Kmart Death Watch 2018

Predicting the demise of Sears & Kmart since 2017!
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MSSportsGuy
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Re: Sears/Kmart Death Watch 2018

Post by MSSportsGuy »

The latest list includes the last store in Memphis at Southland Mall. The Wolfchase Galleria store is in the process of closing but I've not been out there to see what's going on with it. I wondered a couple of years ago why Sears didn't just pull the plug. My family actually wasn't a "Sears" family so we didn't buy much from them when I was growing up, sticking to a local appliance dealer and my mom was a JCP shopper so lots of the clothes came from there. I do recall looking at the Sears Christmas book and picking out toys and games but think she picked up most of those from WalMart, Gibsons or Service Merchandise (remember them? lol).

I actually had a KMart I visited several times as a younger adult and liked the store overall. It was just down the street from my apartment. This was before the merger with Sears but even then it wasn't a busy store. I think it closed even before the two companies merged.
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Re: Sears/Kmart Death Watch 2018

Post by trainman »

It still doesn't appear on the closing lists, but the Sears at West Shore Plaza in Tampa is having its lease terminated early and could be closed by the end of the year.
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Re: Sears/Kmart Death Watch 2018

Post by storewanderer »

trainman wrote: November 12th, 2018, 9:43 am It still doesn't appear on the closing lists, but the Sears at West Shore Plaza in Tampa is having its lease terminated early and could be closed by the end of the year.
When you have landlords making statements like this:
Washington Prime Group, which owns the Westshore store (the last Sears remaining in Tampa), negotiated to terminate Sears’ lease early and has taken ownership of the space with plans for something new.

"Tenants which have failed to evolve in order to satisfy an increasingly savvy consumer do not belong in our assets," Washington Prime CEO Lou Conforti said in a statement.

Time to just pull the plug 100%.
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Re: Sears/Kmart Death Watch 2018

Post by submariner »

storewanderer wrote: November 12th, 2018, 10:47 am
"Tenants which have failed to evolve in order to satisfy an increasingly savvy consumer do not belong in our assets," Washington Prime CEO Lou Conforti said in a statement.
Savage.
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Re: Sears/Kmart Death Watch 2018

Post by Super S »

submariner wrote: November 12th, 2018, 4:05 pm
storewanderer wrote: November 12th, 2018, 10:47 am
"Tenants which have failed to evolve in order to satisfy an increasingly savvy consumer do not belong in our assets," Washington Prime CEO Lou Conforti said in a statement.
Savage.
Sears and Kmart stopped evolving around the time the two chains merged.
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Re: Sears/Kmart Death Watch 2018

Post by storewanderer »

Super S wrote: November 12th, 2018, 6:04 pm
submariner wrote: November 12th, 2018, 4:05 pm
storewanderer wrote: November 12th, 2018, 10:47 am
"Tenants which have failed to evolve in order to satisfy an increasingly savvy consumer do not belong in our assets," Washington Prime CEO Lou Conforti said in a statement.
Savage.
Sears and Kmart stopped evolving around the time the two chains merged.
The merger was definitely bad news. Kmart just coming off of bankruptcy, and Sears striking out like crazy with every initiative they tried. Kmart did come out of bankruptcy posting slight profits, though.
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Re: Sears/Kmart Death Watch 2018

Post by pseudo3d »

storewanderer wrote: November 12th, 2018, 11:38 pm
Super S wrote: November 12th, 2018, 6:04 pm
submariner wrote: November 12th, 2018, 4:05 pm

Savage.
Sears and Kmart stopped evolving around the time the two chains merged.
The merger was definitely bad news. Kmart just coming off of bankruptcy, and Sears striking out like crazy with every initiative they tried. Kmart did come out of bankruptcy posting slight profits, though.
I don't know if the long-range Kmart survival would've been gone even in 2003. They had lost a lot of ground in markets against Target and Wal-Mart (if not pulled out entirely) with too many stores that weren't getting any newer and too few Super Kmarts. Sears wasn't in the best positions either but it had a lot of cash (cash that Lampert completely blew through) that it could've re-invented itself in theory. We really don't know if Sears Grand would've been a success as it was very soon after that they were bought. Maybe if Sears had bought or was heavily associated with a grocery chain in the mid-2000s (even SHLD was rumored to buy Safeway in the mid-2000s) the future may have turned out very different.
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Re: Sears/Kmart Death Watch 2018

Post by storewanderer »

pseudo3d wrote: November 14th, 2018, 9:02 pm
storewanderer wrote: November 12th, 2018, 11:38 pm
Super S wrote: November 12th, 2018, 6:04 pm

Sears and Kmart stopped evolving around the time the two chains merged.
The merger was definitely bad news. Kmart just coming off of bankruptcy, and Sears striking out like crazy with every initiative they tried. Kmart did come out of bankruptcy posting slight profits, though.
I don't know if the long-range Kmart survival would've been gone even in 2003. They had lost a lot of ground in markets against Target and Wal-Mart (if not pulled out entirely) with too many stores that weren't getting any newer and too few Super Kmarts. Sears wasn't in the best positions either but it had a lot of cash (cash that Lampert completely blew through) that it could've re-invented itself in theory. We really don't know if Sears Grand would've been a success as it was very soon after that they were bought. Maybe if Sears had bought or was heavily associated with a grocery chain in the mid-2000s (even SHLD was rumored to buy Safeway in the mid-2000s) the future may have turned out very different.
Given what happened to the economy a few years after bankruptcy exit, I doubt Kmart was in too good of a position to weather that. Texas and Alaska were the only two markets Kmart exited during the bankruptcy. They still had a decent national coverage beyond those two markets. But the Kmart of 2003 was certainly stronger than the current (or even 5 years ago) Kmart. The current Kmart is a zombie and has been a zombie since about 2003. Merchandising, private label, systems, nothing has been updated properly. They gave up on the consumables category long ago but that is what drives traffic.

Sears has been an arrogant bloated pig for quite some time, and that attitude carried right into the Kmart merger. From the time in the 80's when they thought they could do no wrong, their demise was starting. But I agree with you, Sears definitely was a more productive retailer in 2003, than Kmart was. Sears at that time was still innovating with new store formats (all of which were failures, but Sears believed otherwise) and still did have a lot of high volume stores.
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Re: Sears/Kmart Death Watch 2018

Post by Super S »

storewanderer wrote: November 14th, 2018, 9:28 pm
pseudo3d wrote: November 14th, 2018, 9:02 pm
storewanderer wrote: November 12th, 2018, 11:38 pm

The merger was definitely bad news. Kmart just coming off of bankruptcy, and Sears striking out like crazy with every initiative they tried. Kmart did come out of bankruptcy posting slight profits, though.
I don't know if the long-range Kmart survival would've been gone even in 2003. They had lost a lot of ground in markets against Target and Wal-Mart (if not pulled out entirely) with too many stores that weren't getting any newer and too few Super Kmarts. Sears wasn't in the best positions either but it had a lot of cash (cash that Lampert completely blew through) that it could've re-invented itself in theory. We really don't know if Sears Grand would've been a success as it was very soon after that they were bought. Maybe if Sears had bought or was heavily associated with a grocery chain in the mid-2000s (even SHLD was rumored to buy Safeway in the mid-2000s) the future may have turned out very different.
Given what happened to the economy a few years after bankruptcy exit, I doubt Kmart was in too good of a position to weather that. Texas and Alaska were the only two markets Kmart exited during the bankruptcy. They still had a decent national coverage beyond those two markets. But the Kmart of 2003 was certainly stronger than the current (or even 5 years ago) Kmart. The current Kmart is a zombie and has been a zombie since about 2003. Merchandising, private label, systems, nothing has been updated properly. They gave up on the consumables category long ago but that is what drives traffic.

Sears has been an arrogant bloated pig for quite some time, and that attitude carried right into the Kmart merger. From the time in the 80's when they thought they could do no wrong, their demise was starting. But I agree with you, Sears definitely was a more productive retailer in 2003, than Kmart was. Sears at that time was still innovating with new store formats (all of which were failures, but Sears believed otherwise) and still did have a lot of high volume stores.
While Kmart had been plagued by old looking stores for years, in 2003 they were not in as bad of shape as they are in 2018. In 2003, many Kmarts had recently converted to the Big K format, and while that was a mixed bag, those remodels at least incorporated new paint and signage. Kmart had also invested in many new stores/remodels in the early 1990s which were still in good shape. The same can be said about Sears, which had remodeled many stores throughout the 1990s and 2000s, and while they did struggle at times to keep up with competition, the stores actually looked up to date. Sears did have a slightly more upscale appearance at that point.

But as soon as the two chains became one, the remodels stopped, and the cuts crept their way into everything from not maintaining their buildings, to reducing staffing, to eliminating things such as auto centers and restaurants from some locations, and reducing inventory to levels that made it not worthwhile to even have a department such as electronics. Many of the newer 1990s locations were among the first to close, some which barely made it ten years.
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Re: Sears/Kmart Death Watch 2018

Post by wyoretailman »

Super S wrote: November 15th, 2018, 10:24 am
storewanderer wrote: November 14th, 2018, 9:28 pm
pseudo3d wrote: November 14th, 2018, 9:02 pm

I don't know if the long-range Kmart survival would've been gone even in 2003. They had lost a lot of ground in markets against Target and Wal-Mart (if not pulled out entirely) with too many stores that weren't getting any newer and too few Super Kmarts. Sears wasn't in the best positions either but it had a lot of cash (cash that Lampert completely blew through) that it could've re-invented itself in theory. We really don't know if Sears Grand would've been a success as it was very soon after that they were bought. Maybe if Sears had bought or was heavily associated with a grocery chain in the mid-2000s (even SHLD was rumored to buy Safeway in the mid-2000s) the future may have turned out very different.
Given what happened to the economy a few years after bankruptcy exit, I doubt Kmart was in too good of a position to weather that. Texas and Alaska were the only two markets Kmart exited during the bankruptcy. They still had a decent national coverage beyond those two markets. But the Kmart of 2003 was certainly stronger than the current (or even 5 years ago) Kmart. The current Kmart is a zombie and has been a zombie since about 2003. Merchandising, private label, systems, nothing has been updated properly. They gave up on the consumables category long ago but that is what drives traffic.

Sears has been an arrogant bloated pig for quite some time, and that attitude carried right into the Kmart merger. From the time in the 80's when they thought they could do no wrong, their demise was starting. But I agree with you, Sears definitely was a more productive retailer in 2003, than Kmart was. Sears at that time was still innovating with new store formats (all of which were failures, but Sears believed otherwise) and still did have a lot of high volume stores.
While Kmart had been plagued by old looking stores for years, in 2003 they were not in as bad of shape as they are in 2018. In 2003, many Kmarts had recently converted to the Big K format, and while that was a mixed bag, those remodels at least incorporated new paint and signage. Kmart had also invested in many new stores/remodels in the early 1990s which were still in good shape. The same can be said about Sears, which had remodeled many stores throughout the 1990s and 2000s, and while they did struggle at times to keep up with competition, the stores actually looked up to date. Sears did have a slightly more upscale appearance at that point.

But as soon as the two chains became one, the remodels stopped, and the cuts crept their way into everything from not maintaining their buildings, to reducing staffing, to eliminating things such as auto centers and restaurants from some locations, and reducing inventory to levels that made it not worthwhile to even have a department such as electronics. Many of the newer 1990s locations were among the first to close, some which barely made it ten years.
Speaking of electronics departments, I was told by a previous Kmart employee (I interviewed him for a job when I worked for Kmart's competition) that they got rid of much of the electronics department, as they lost more money then they made. I also had customers tell me that they often would go to Kmart to look at such items like cameras only to find that is all they could do, as these items often did not have a charged battery. The electronics departments, especially at Kmart in the latter years seemed like a poor after thought. Needless to say both the Sears and the Kmart in my city (Casper, WY) are finally closing. Both "thank you for not shopping at our store too often sales" are a joke. Kmart still has Pepsi and Coke, but are only discounted 10%, when the grocery store I work for sells it for far less everyday. Also saw some things on clearance (60% off) before the sale that were higher priced after the start of the sale (only 30% off). Many times at Sears it seemed like there were more people working than shopping and at Kmart you often only found an employee or two at the front lanes and the pharmacy. A number of times I found used clothing in their dressing rooms, which meant some other shopper swapped out items without paying. Finally just wanted to laugh at lady that thought the 60% discounts on mattresses at Sears were a good deal, especially after hearing a customer just tell a manager that he was delivered a queen mattress and king foundation. He then said I know all purchases are supposed to be final, but.......
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