Big mistake! Kmart has great products, prices, and brand awareness. Kmart should be taking over and expanding into the Sears locations which are often in better shape . Kmart is a great discounter, a general merchandise store that offers everything Target and Walmart do apart from fresh groceries.
Sears is bettered on every single category by Home Depot, Lowe's, JC Penney, Kohl's , TJX, Burlington. Softlines or hardlines, can anyone name anything that Sears excels at? I can honesty say that Kmart is better on price than other discounters on many categories. There is nothing Sears sells that cannot be added to Kmart to improve Kmart. Adding Kmart products to Sears doesn't work because Sears is a department/home improvement store and people don't think of Sears as a general merchandise store.
Sears is a store geared to middle income shoppers , but with a name that is considered downmarket. Kmart is a discounter geared to all income levels looking for a bargain and who consider it an American Icon of getting good deals. Sears has not had real relevance to anyone in decades. It may not have been financially successful in the 90s, but Kmart with their Big Kmart model when they went head to head against Walmart actually was equal to Walmart in the eyes of the shopper, whether it worked financially for the company or not. That Big Kmart period means that the Kmart name still has value to many younger people. Kmart with some Sears brands to bring it's perceived quality up would work, forget that Target was once a normal discounter until they brought in designer clothes. Sears Holdings should be using Sears' brands to make Kmart the steady middle quality discounter, something above Walmart but less trendy than Target.