Sears/Kmart: Will 2020 be the end?

Predicting the demise of Sears & Kmart since 2017!
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Re: Sears/Kmart: Will 2020 be the end?

Post by Super S »

storewanderer wrote: January 2nd, 2020, 9:19 pm Someone should go take a visit to the Burlington, WA Kmart and see how things are going there.

I read on another forum the store hours are 10 AM to 8 PM and it rarely does more than $8,000 a day in sales. That is pretty pathetic if true. Though I suspect Shopko had many large stores doing that sort of volume.

Tough to believe a 100,000 square foot store is doing so little in sales.
Life has become busy and I won't be doing much traveling for a while. I kinda want to visit the Kmart in The Dalles and the Sears in Lacey one last time, and wanted to get to Aberdeen but that store is closed already. I might still be able to get up to Lacey, but not going to be able to go to The Dalles or Burlington.

Kmart has reduced hours at other locations. It seems that a few years back the Lacey Kmart was closing at 7 or 8 just before the closure was announced, and I remember Coos Bay was closing REALLY early, 6PM if I remember right.

To make a case to keep these stores open, you have to have convenient hours. 8PM might be good enough in a smaller town. 6PM is too early for this type of store though. It's just another example of how they really aren't doing anything to get customers in the door along with little to no advertising and selling off their once-exclusive brands. Not to mention closing all but the most far-flung locations, then closing the far-flung locations. People aren't shifting to those stores. The one store that puzzles me a little is Southcenter, which as far as I know is not closing (yet), but is falling in to disrepair with moldy A/C among other things. It is one of the only stores (maybe THE only store) left in the region that is located in a top-tier mall.
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Re: Sears/Kmart: Will 2020 be the end?

Post by storewanderer »

Was at Kmart in South Lake Tahoe again today. Summer seasonal is partially set including BBQs (BBQ Pro brand), Patio Sets (Essential Home and Jacklin Smith brands), and summer clothing including shorts and t-shirts (somewhat limited, Athletech brand in mens) in mens. The drug/HBA area seems to have been restocked since last visit but still needs a lot more work. Automotive area is very restocked from last visit, but still virtually no quarts of motor oil. Kitchen/Bedding areas are basically out of commission with no planograms and weird random items including paper towels filling those aisles.

Also if you want paper towels or toilet paper hopefully you like Charmin, Bounty, or Best Yet because that is all they offer (and they have large quantities of these brands available). Also they have no Coke products again, after some sort of brief replenishment a month ago.

Who knows what is going on.
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Re: Sears/Kmart: Will 2020 be the end?

Post by storewanderer »

More store closures were announced last week. Not real clear where or how many stores. Kmart Penn Station in NYC appears to be closing. That was one of the flagship stores and probably the nicest Kmart.
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Re: Sears/Kmart: Will 2020 be the end?

Post by storewanderer »

Someone posted a video on the Burlington, WA Kmart. I am surprised to see this is still open as long as it has been as many of the mid 90's Kmarts shut down during the first bankruptcy. What a sad looking operation. I wonder if it even does $50,000 in sales in a week.

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Re: Sears/Kmart: Will 2020 be the end?

Post by BreakingThrough »

Apparently Sears did an update to that weird house / heart icon they introduced late last year. The update is getting slaughtered in the design community (as did the original version of icon when it launched last year): https://www.underconsideration.com/bran ... _again.php

The theory is that Airbnb or another company with a similar logo found last year's Sears icon too close for comfort.

I'm just like...why even bother with the first icon? The brand is obviously winding down...maybe there was excess Marketing budget to spend? What a waste of time, money, and energy all for naught.

It's funny to read through some of the comments on the design blog post linked above, with some commenters asking if last year's icon was added to building signage on Sears locations. LOL! With many locations still using their '80s signage, there was zero risk that Sears put the outgoing icon on any buildings.
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Re: Sears/Kmart: Will 2020 be the end?

Post by kr.abs.swy »

Here is a list of closures that USA Today compiled last week: https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/20 ... 675534002/

It looks like at least 28 Sears stores and 14 Kmart stores.

That would be the last Kmart in Las Vegas and, I believe, the last Kmart west of the Cascades in Washington.
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Re: Sears/Kmart: Will 2020 be the end?

Post by kr.abs.swy »

Apparently the Des Plaines Kmart that is closing was re-launched in 2016 with a "Millennial" theme. Tough to imagine that Kmart didn't get any traction with that … https://consumerist.com/2016/08/31/kmar ... index.html
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Re: Sears/Kmart: Will 2020 be the end?

Post by klkla »

I didn't realize the Glendale CA store was still open. Going there always felt like I was going into a time machine from the 1950's.
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Re: Sears/Kmart: Will 2020 be the end?

Post by Super S »

kr.abs.swy wrote: February 12th, 2020, 11:44 am Here is a list of closures that USA Today compiled last week: https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/20 ... 675534002/

It looks like at least 28 Sears stores and 14 Kmart stores.

That would be the last Kmart in Las Vegas and, I believe, the last Kmart west of the Cascades in Washington.
Not only the last Kmart west of the Cascades, but the last Kmart period, in Washington. I have a feeling the Southcenter Sears won't be far behind....
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Re: Sears/Kmart: Will 2020 be the end?

Post by cjd »

BreakingThrough wrote: February 12th, 2020, 11:12 am Apparently Sears did an update to that weird house / heart icon they introduced late last year. The update is getting slaughtered in the design community (as did the original version of icon when it launched last year): https://www.underconsideration.com/bran ... _again.php

The theory is that Airbnb or another company with a similar logo found last year's Sears icon too close for comfort.

I'm just like...why even bother with the first icon? The brand is obviously winding down...maybe there was excess Marketing budget to spend? What a waste of time, money, and energy all for naught.

It's funny to read through some of the comments on the design blog post linked above, with some commenters asking if last year's icon was added to building signage on Sears locations. LOL! With many locations still using their '80s signage, there was zero risk that Sears put the outgoing icon on any buildings.
I think the icon from last year looked better. I too wondered what was with that symbol that had started appearing on their flyers and other things. It just showed up and I dIdn't see how it was going to do them any good at this point. I didn't even realize they had changed it again since Sears here closed last year and we no longer get any mailings from them.
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