Sears/Kmart: Will 2020 be the end?

[cjd]

Remember that last month Sears sold its delivery arm, Innovel, to Costco for $1 Billion. Not sure if that will help much but I suppose it could keep them afloat for a while. Not sure there's much point in that though.

[babs]

Remember that last month Sears sold its delivery arm, Innovel, to Costco for $1 Billion. Not sure if that will help much but I suppose it could keep them afloat for a while. Not sure there's much point in that though.

Pretty sure that billion is going into Fast Eddie's pocket and not to keep Sears afloat.

[storewanderer]

I went to Kmart today. The entire bed/bath area is now filled with Easter products. The main seasonal area has summer stuff as described previously.

A couple employees were wearing masks and they had wipes at the entry for the shopping carts.

The grocery area has the out of stocks you'd expect; no paper products. Some basic Best Yet grocery items (sugar, oil, canned goods) seem well stocked. There is limited promotion on some of these items. Drug area is clearly not being restocked; they now have gallon jugs of water on some of those aisles. No promotions at all in the drug area.

Clothing area is still very full, numerous items 70% off and will probably be hard sells even at 90% off.

They need to sell the lease to Target and get it over with.

[storewanderer]

Kmart is on point with the current retail trend of having a plastic barrier at checkout. I am surprised they even did this. But their barrier is floor to ceiling and seems like a see through plastic tarp. How do you clean that?

[klkla]

How do you clean that?

Maybe they just change it every day and put a new one out.

[storewanderer]

How do you clean that?

Maybe they just change it every day and put a new one out.

That would be a huge capital outlay, but perhaps it would be pretty sanitary.

I am actually shocked they did anything...

Someone still seems to be awake in their corporate office despite their zombie like operation.

[rwsandiego]

How do you clean that?

Maybe they just change it every day and put a new one out.

That would be a huge capital outlay, but perhaps it would be pretty sanitary.

I am actually shocked they did anything...

Someone still seems to be awake in their corporate office despite their zombie like operation.

Maybe it's unsold plastic painting tarps from back when Sears was a leading paint retailer.

[BillyGr]

Maybe they just change it every day and put a new one out.

That would be a huge capital outlay, but perhaps it would be pretty sanitary.

I am actually shocked they did anything...

Someone still seems to be awake in their corporate office despite their zombie like operation.

Maybe it's unsold plastic painting tarps from back when Sears was a leading paint retailer.

Or shower curtain liners? Who knows what they might have a stock of hanging around

[storewanderer]

Or shower curtain liners? Who knows what they might have a stock of hanging around

Kmart doesn't really have a bed/bath department anymore. All of those aisles now have seasonal goods (Easter this week, spread out over the 4 or 5 aisles, at 90% off). There is a single aisle of very few towels stocked and a few random bath accessories. I've seen a better spread of bed/bath products at larger sized Rite Aid Stores on the West Coast.

Kmart is like an undermerchandised Big Lots at this point, with a ton more clothing. Still tough for me to see how operating 40 locations or whatever they have left with many core departments having their merchandise sets basically torn up (not restocked and shelf tags long gone) at this point makes any sense at all.

One thing I notice is this Tahoe Store seems to be making some effort to fill its shelves up with whatever they have. No more vendor potato chips- take those racks down, put up normal shelves, and stock with bottled water. No paper products- stock more bottled water on that aisle. They have taken a few aisles in what used to be kitchen/home organization down entirely and put up some assembled furniture (tables, etc.) in that place. I get the feeling someone in this store seems to actually be trying... but to say they have limited resources to work with is an understatement.

[jamcool]

Well they’re not running out of bottled water...