Sears/Kmart Death Watch 2018

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

Post by storewanderer »

mbz321 wrote: January 23rd, 2018, 9:00 am
storewanderer wrote: January 17th, 2018, 10:17 pm

Along with my purchase came $8 of "free cash" (good starting in a couple days) and a couple other coupons that escape my mind, in addition to "1,000 bonus points" ($1 good starting tomorrow).

I don't really understand their promotional strategy but
Less assets for the bankruptcy court take when they do go belly up? I really don't understand it either, but that's the only reason I can think of as to why they are basically giving away merchandise at this point. The stock of merchandise in my local Kmart and Sears store are noticeably thinning out.
Private label keeps disappearing also. When I tried to find items to spend the "free cash" on, I spent time in the home department with kitchen items, plastics, ready to assemble laundry racks, etc. Many shelf tags in these items say "EH" which stands for Essential Home which was the Kmart private label replacement for the old Martha Stewart Everyday line way back when. But many items in front of those shelf tags are other brands, such as Homez or similar instead so it appears they continue to cut back on their own private label items. Also no more private label in bath towels, mostly Canon items. Not exactly a sign of a continuing operation but the store count probably makes it hard to do many private labels. But Shopko and Fred Meyer have a lot of private labels in those categories with a still smaller store count...
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Re: Sears/Kmart Death Watch 2018

Post by mbz321 »

storewanderer wrote: January 23rd, 2018, 8:30 pm

Private label keeps disappearing also. When I tried to find items to spend the "free cash" on, I spent time in the home department with kitchen items, plastics, ready to assemble laundry racks, etc. Many shelf tags in these items say "EH" which stands for Essential Home which was the Kmart private label replacement for the old Martha Stewart Everyday line way back when. But many items in front of those shelf tags are other brands, such as Homez or similar instead so it appears they continue to cut back on their own private label items. Also no more private label in bath towels, mostly Canon items. Not exactly a sign of a continuing operation but the store count probably makes it hard to do many private labels. But Shopko and Fred Meyer have a lot of private labels in those categories with a still smaller store count...
Funny you bring that up...I did order an Essential Home laundry basket some time back and ended up receiving a Homez one (pretty sure It's the same exact thing anyway, just found it odd).

I bought a ream of printer paper at Kmart last week and it is the most generic thing I have ever seen....it has some made up company name on it and a barcode and that is it. Typing the barcode in Google gave back one result from a strange looking importer. Who knows where their merchandise is coming from these days?

And given their promo going on now of get $50 in Pts. when you spend $50 in Smart Sense items, it looks like they are trying to scale back their inventory of that sort of merchandise as well.
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Re: Sears/Kmart Death Watch 2018

Post by mbz321 »

The end is getting nearer and nearer...also a huge round of layoffs in Sears stores today...lots of full time positions reduced or eliminated.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/20 ... 070240001/
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Re: Sears/Kmart Death Watch 2018

Post by Super S »

Something occurred to me today...I wonder if what is left of Kmart could end up merging with the Australian Kmart chain. While I don't know how those stores currently compare to the U.S. version, I do know that the Australian chain was at one point tied to the U.S. chain early on. The recent pictures of those stores I have seen strike me as more modern, and in all honesty their influence would be better than the way the U.S. stores have been left to rot. I don't think it would hurt the U.S. stores at this point....
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Re: Sears/Kmart Death Watch 2018

Post by jamcool »

The Tolleson AZ Kmart has closing signs posted... that use the Kmart logo that is currently used in Australia(?)
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Re: Sears/Kmart Death Watch 2018

Post by BillyGr »

jamcool wrote: January 31st, 2018, 9:29 am The Tolleson AZ Kmart has closing signs posted... that use the Kmart logo that is currently used in Australia(?)
Seems that has been seen several times with closing stores. Must be someone (or a few people) in the liquidation companies that just go grab a logo from online without checking to see that it's from a different chain (or just not really caring).
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Re: Sears/Kmart Death Watch 2018

Post by babs »

Super S wrote: January 26th, 2018, 10:21 pm Something occurred to me today...I wonder if what is left of Kmart could end up merging with the Australian Kmart chain. While I don't know how those stores currently compare to the U.S. version, I do know that the Australian chain was at one point tied to the U.S. chain early on. The recent pictures of those stores I have seen strike me as more modern, and in all honesty their influence would be better than the way the U.S. stores have been left to rot. I don't think it would hurt the U.S. stores at this point....
Why would they do that? Kmart has deteriorated to the point where there's little value in the brand and the physical stores are in lousy shape.
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Re: Sears/Kmart Death Watch 2018

Post by Super S »

babs wrote: January 31st, 2018, 1:53 pm
Super S wrote: January 26th, 2018, 10:21 pm Something occurred to me today...I wonder if what is left of Kmart could end up merging with the Australian Kmart chain. While I don't know how those stores currently compare to the U.S. version, I do know that the Australian chain was at one point tied to the U.S. chain early on. The recent pictures of those stores I have seen strike me as more modern, and in all honesty their influence would be better than the way the U.S. stores have been left to rot. I don't think it would hurt the U.S. stores at this point....
Why would they do that? Kmart has deteriorated to the point where there's little value in the brand and the physical stores are in lousy shape.
Maybe the Australian version has a better grasp on how to operate stores and could breathe new life into the U.S. stores. I personally think the U.S. stores won't survive unless they split off from Sears.
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Re: Sears/Kmart Death Watch 2018

Post by mbz321 »

Super S wrote: January 31st, 2018, 4:20 pm
Maybe the Australian version has a better grasp on how to operate stores and could breathe new life into the U.S. stores. I personally think the U.S. stores won't survive unless they split off from Sears.

I think it is way too late for that. I could see someone swooping in and running their most profitable locations like Guam, Hawaii, NYC, etc., but I find that highly unlikely at this point, with leaving Walmart and Target to fight over the top locations.
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Re: Sears/Kmart Death Watch 2018

Post by storewanderer »

I guess the Reno Sears is being downsized. This is a 2 floor 1995 build store attached to a 1 floor 1978 build mall.

The way I understand it, 1/4 of Sears ground floor is going to stay with Sears, along with the entire second floor. Then, a large chunk of the ground floor will become some sort of amusement/entertainment center. Then, 11k square feet of the ground floor is to be leased to a still to be determined tenant.

The Sears Auto Center is freestanding nearby and no word on what is going on there (it also has Avis/Budget as a tenant).
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