More Kmart stores closing

[roadman65]

They have been dead in Orlando for two decades.  Only the one on US 192 in Kissimmee is barely alive.

[jp the roadgeek]

Damn.  Closest Kmart  to me in Cromwell, CT is biting the dust.  Place did have a somewhat messy feel the last time I was in there.  Yet, somehow, some way, Watertown survives (see link in post #41) .

Already rumored Shop Rite will be moving in.

[catch22]

They have been dead in Orlando for two decades.  Only the one on US 192 in Kissimmee is barely alive.

That one's on the closure list.

[Max Rockatansky]

They have been dead in Orlando for two decades.  Only the one on US 192 in Kissimmee is barely alive.

Didn't there used to be one up on Semoran and Curry Ford?  I drove by there a year or so back and it was not only an empty store but empty parking lot.

[LM117]

The Kmart in Goldsboro, NC is barely a step up from Danville these days, but it's close proximity to Seymour Johnson Air Force Base and being on one of (if not THE) busiest thoroughfares in Goldsboro (Berkeley Boulevard) is probably what's keeping it afloat, although that shopping center recently lost a Save-A-Lot grocery store.

Welp, that's that. Looks like Goldsboro's Kmart is finally biting the dust.

http://www.newsargus.com/news/archives/2017/01/04/kmart_closing_goldsboro_location/

I had a lot of good memories of that one as a kid. Sucks to see it close. It had a good run.

[SP Cook]

And, less than 8 days from its last announcement, Sears announces the closure of yet another 78 K-Mart and 26 Sears stores.    List is on the WSJ website, none particularly near me.

And the sale of Craftsman tools to Black and Decker.  Cash now, more cash in 3 years, and long term royalty scheme. 

I would look for them to sell off Kenmore and Die Hard when the next quarter's returns are as bad as this one's, along with more closings and more real estate deals.  The end is near. 

[catch22]

Just heard today that the store in Platteville, WI is going to be closing in March, along with 78 other locations. It's actually surprising that store held on as long as it did, as there were never more than a dozen cars in the parking lot. Everybody wondered how it survived. I feel bad for the few people left working there that will be losing their jobs. I'll actually miss the store, as we would go there from time to time to look for something that Walmart might actually not have. And for shoes, as they had a better selection of shoes than Walmart. Now the hope is eventually a store like Target or Shopko will take over the building, rather than have it sit empty for a decade.

Here's the list, along with some Sears stores also closing.

http://www.businessinsider.com/list-of-sears-and-kmart-stores-closing-2017-1

The three Kmart stores closest to me are also closing -- Garden City, Westland and Plymouth, MI.  The GC store is the very first Kmart, which opened in 1962.  My family checked it out on its opening day (I was 10).

Fuck me, Garden City's closing!  That's the first Kmart, ever, and to see it close, spells the beginning of the end of the chain, IMHO.

I grew up less than a mile from this store, and in my teen years rode my bike up there often.  I bought a lot of books, clothes, sporting goods and toys there over the years.  I was feeling pretty wistful about this particular store closing, but then this morning my wife said, "What's the difference?  It's obvious to me that all the Kmarts will be closed real soon now.  The fact that this one's not the last to close doesn't mean much in the end."  And she's right, of course.  The Kmart I knew back then has been dead for years now.

[Max Rockatansky]

Re: Prodigy, this seemed to me to be the intended extension of Sears's non-core assets Dean Witter, Allstate, Coldwell Banker, and Discover.  The first three of these were clustered in financial service centers in many stores.  Prodigy was envisioned to be something promised a decade earlier and realized a decade later–home transactions of every kind on a personal computer.  The infrastructure (networked home computers) was not there yet.

Thing was once Netscape and AOL started coming around it was already too late for Prodigy with the closed IP.  I seem to recall a push for an open browser (had some family associated with the company) much like Netscape or a drastic loosening of content rules.  The big thing with Prodigy was the early social media via message boards and chat rooms.  The company tried to snuff out anything that wasn't family friendly and ended up pushing a lot of subscribers away.  The ironic thing was that was the big thing for Prodigy and not the shopping, news, stock, in addition to all the rest of the stuff they thought it would end up being. 

[Brandon]

Add to this Macy's cutting 68 stores at the same time.  Some are even in the same malls as the Sears stores closing.  I never saw much reason to spread the Macy's name everywhere.  It only had any cachet in the NYC area and the Bay Area.  Everywhere else really didn't give two shits about the Macy's name.  It meant nothing, and still means nothing to them.  As an aside, I thought Macy's and Gimbel's were made up names when I saw Miracle on 34th Street as a kid.

[inkyatari]

Add to this u[rl=http://www.cnbc.com/2017/01/04/here-are-68-of-the-100-stores-that-macys-will-close.html]Macy's cutting 68 stores[/url] at the same time.  Some are even in the same malls as the Sears stores closing.  I never saw much reason to spread the Macy's name everywhere.  It only had any cachet in the NYC area and the Bay Area.  Everywhere else really didn't give two shits about the Macy's name.  It meant nothing, and still means nothing to them.  As an aside, I thought Macy's and Gimbel's were made up names when I saw Miracle on 34th Street as a kid.

Seeing as you're from the Chicago area, you can understand the outrage when macy's killed the legendary Marshall Field's stores and replaced them with macy's

I won't even cut through the macy's at the Louis Joliet Mall anymore to go into the mall.

[kkt]

Seeing as you're from the Chicago area, you can understand the outrage when macy's killed the legendary Marshall Field's stores and replaced them with macy's

I won't even cut through the macy's at the Louis Joliet Mall anymore to go into the mall.

A lot of Seattle folks feel the same way about the Bon Marche.  When Macy's acquired them, they promised they wouldn't change the name. 

[Brandon]

Add to this Macy's cutting 68 stores at the same time.  Some are even in the same malls as the Sears stores closing.  I never saw much reason to spread the Macy's name everywhere.  It only had any cachet in the NYC area and the Bay Area.  Everywhere else really didn't give two shits about the Macy's name.  It meant nothing, and still means nothing to them.  As an aside, I thought Macy's and Gimbel's were made up names when I saw Miracle on 34th Street as a kid.

Seeing as you're from the Chicago area, you can understand the outrage when macy's killed the legendary Marshall Field's stores and replaced them with macy's

I won't even cut through the macy's at the Louis Joliet Mall anymore to go into the mall.

I haven't been to the Macy's there in quite some time.  Been to the Penney's and Carson's recently though (and often enough).  Hopefully the management comes up with a plan for Sears when they finally go.  Wouldn't mind seeing a Von Maur or a Dillard's replace them.

[hbelkins]

If I'm not mistaken, Macy's ended up replacing what used to be McAlpin's in this part of the country.

I loved McAlpin's as a high school and college student, as they had reasonably-priced quality clothes. My mom had a McAlpin's charge card; for $100 I could buy clothes to last an eternity.

I don't know that I have been in any of the Macy's that came to this region.  I'm guessing the merchandise is overpriced.

JC Penney is my go-to for slacks and jeans, but only if there's a sale.

[jeffandnicole]

Add to this Macy's cutting 68 stores at the same time.  Some are even in the same malls as the Sears stores closing.  I never saw much reason to spread the Macy's name everywhere.  It only had any cachet in the NYC area and the Bay Area.  Everywhere else really didn't give two shits about the Macy's name.  It meant nothing, and still means nothing to them.  As an aside, I thought Macy's and Gimbel's were made up names when I saw Miracle on 34th Street as a kid.

Seeing as you're from the Chicago area, you can understand the outrage when macy's killed the legendary Marshall Field's stores and replaced them with macy's

I won't even cut through the macy's at the Louis Joliet Mall anymore to go into the mall.

I haven't been to the Macy's there in quite some time.  Been to the Penney's and Carson's recently though (and often enough).  Hopefully the management comes up with a plan for Sears when they finally go.  Wouldn't mind seeing a Von Maur or a Dillard's replace them.

Unfortunately, that's usually not up to the mall, but to the stores.  Other stores may have a growth plan, but in recent years numerous malls have decided to go different directions with large, empty anchor store spaces.

I went thru my local mall about 5 nights before Christmas, and was surprised how dead it was.  It was busier than normal, but for being so close to Christmas, it was comparatively dead.  What was funny was walking near two kids, probably in their 20's, saying how busy the mall was.  They are clearly of the internet age.  They have no clue what it was like to go back and forth in the parking aisles looking for a close spot, and ultimately giving up and parking on the outside of the mall's ring road, in the furthest reaches of the parking lot.

[SP Cook]

Federated Department Stores owned Macy's and a about 15 other stores which really were all the same for many decades, in 2006 it reversed this policy and renamed all as Macy's.   This seemed to bother big city people who had loyality to the original downtown stores (Marshall Field's, Lazarus, Kaufmann's, etc) more than smaller town and rural folk who just saw it as a remodel of a store in the local mall with no real changes. 

Now a question.  When my daughter moved to Lexington, KY three years ago, the Sears had just closed and the local newspaper said that Lexington was now the largest town without a Sears.  After these latest changes, what would be now?  (Here I am using "town" in the way the newspaper did, meaning "market" , meaning "it is not reasonable for people living in this area to shop at Sears, because there is not one reasonabably nearby",  not looking for nitpicks about city limits and such. ) 

[kkt]

Federated Department Stores owned Macy's and a about 15 other stores which really were all the same for many decades, in 2006 it reversed this policy and renamed all as Macy's.   This seemed to bother big city people who had loyality to the original downtown stores (Marshall Field's, Lazarus, Kaufmann's, etc) more than smaller town and rural folk who just saw it as a remodel of a store in the local mall with no real changes. 

The Bon was only part of Federated Departments Stores since 1989, so it was only 14 years until it lost its name.  1929-1989, it was part of Allied Stores, but that was just ownership.  The Bon made most of its purchasing and marketing decisions until about 2000, when Federated took over operations as well as ownership.  The only concession to the Bon legacy seems to be maintaining a local monopoly on Frangos chocolates.

Now a question.  When my daughter moved to Lexington, KY three years ago, the Sears had just closed and the local newspaper said that Lexington was now the largest town without a Sears.  After these latest changes, what would be now?  (Here I am using "town" in the way the newspaper did, meaning "market" , meaning "it is not reasonable for people living in this area to shop at Sears, because there is not one reasonabably nearby",  not looking for nitpicks about city limits and such. ) 

Well, then it becomes a question of what's reasonable.  The closest Sears to Oakland, CA, (population 390k) is in Richmond, about 7 miles away through traffic that's frequently heavy.  One could travel there, but pretty much everything Sears sells could be had much more conveniently closer.

[inkyatari]

The hits keep coming...

Sears sells off Craftsman...

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-01-05/stanley-to-buy-craftsman-brand-from-sears-for-about-900-million

[Rothman]

The hits keep coming...

Sears sells off Craftsman...

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-01-05/stanley-to-buy-craftsman-brand-from-sears-for-about-900-million

[Max Rockatansky]

That's a pretty telling sign about what's going to happen.  Just another piece of the pie that was worth some cash to liquidate.

[kkt]

No turning back now.

[thenetwork]

To paraphrase a former jingle:

K Mart WAS your savings store,
'Cause you can't shop there no more.

One childhood memory was the coin op candy/prize machines.  The slots where you'd insert the coin then turn the handle were designed that if you put a wrong smaller coin, you couldn't get it out due to an upper metal lip.  BUT if you had a flattened drinking straw handy, you usually could get the coin out!

[vdeane]

Did they sell Craftsman, or lease it?  Because the terms make me think that Lambert is also trying to turn Sears into a shell company that does nothing but collect royalties on owned intellectual property.  I guess it's at least one step above becoming a patent troll...

[Roadrunner75]

The hits keep coming...

Sears sells off Craftsman...

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-01-05/stanley-to-buy-craftsman-brand-from-sears-for-about-900-million

Are they nuts?  Why not also stop selling appliances while they're at it, so people have absolutely no reason left to go to Sears.  For years it's looked like KMart/Sears have almost purposely done everything they can do to run themselves into the ground - the "Major League" of retail.  Sears should have dumped clothing and the rest of the department store lines, and just focused exclusively on Craftsman tools and appliances.  That was (is) their only hope.  I don't know what KMart can do at this point - they still look just like a smaller version of Walmart, just without the customers.

Last week I stopped into KMart for the first time in probably 6 months or more, to buy a second controller for my son's new game machine.  It's closer than Walmart and Target and I was pressed for time.  I had a few other items on my list, but the minute I walked in I knew I made a big mistake.  There were practically tumbleweeds blowing around.  When I got to the electronics area at the back of the store, most of the shelving and displays had been completely removed, including all the gaming items and most of the electronics, and replaced with a couple of mattresses sitting awkwardly between the magazines and the DVDs.  I walked right back out.

[GCrites]

Add to this Macy's cutting 68 stores at the same time.  Some are even in the same malls as the Sears stores closing.  I never saw much reason to spread the Macy's name everywhere.  It only had any cachet in the NYC area and the Bay Area.  Everywhere else really didn't give two shits about the Macy's name.  It meant nothing, and still means nothing to them.  As an aside, I thought Macy's and Gimbel's were made up names when I saw Miracle on 34th Street as a kid.

Seeing as you're from the Chicago area, you can understand the outrage when macy's killed the legendary Marshall Field's stores and replaced them with macy's

I won't even cut through the macy's at the Louis Joliet Mall anymore to go into the mall.

I haven't been to the Macy's there in quite some time.  Been to the Penney's and Carson's recently though (and often enough).  Hopefully the management comes up with a plan for Sears when they finally go.  Wouldn't mind seeing a Von Maur or a Dillard's replace them.

Unfortunately, that's usually not up to the mall, but to the stores.  Other stores may have a growth plan, but in recent years numerous malls have decided to go different directions with large, empty anchor store spaces.

Keep in mind though, that sometimes the anchors own their own spaces and still can maintain full control over what happens with them. If you've ever seen a mall torn down while the anchor spaces remained (empty, sold or still occupied by the anchor) you've seen the phenomenon in action.

[roadman65]

They have been dead in Orlando for two decades.  Only the one on US 192 in Kissimmee is barely alive.

That one's on the closure list.

Does not surprise me at all.  Considering that neighborhood its in now, as even up the street there used to be a small mall that turned into an ethnic bizarre and is listed in deadmalls.com as one of the many dead malls.   That place had no one in it the last time I went in to it and seemed to have lost what it once had back in the 70's and 80's and possibly before.

Wal Mart seems to have taken over and K Mart never did anything to even try to compete.  Target too of course ruined them, but in Kissimmee the Target just a few doors down from K Mart even closed due to the neighborhood.  That is why I said "barely" alive.