Thread regarding Sears layoffs

If K Mart is a retail powerhouse, why did it go from 2300 stores down to near 35 stores and falling in 2020?

People posting such nonsense surely must be doing it purely to troll....They surely cannot believe their own words.

The real world facts about K Mart's decline largely contradict and negate the fantasy world pom pom scenarios posted by the K Mart cheerleaders.

"K Mart is a retail powerhouse" Yeah, maybe 40 years ago.....Nobody wants anything to do with it anymore aside from liquidators.

Fads are typically short-lived where Walmart and Target have been around for decades. If Kmart is such a powerhouse, why does it keep shrinking?

KMart is a retail powerhouse. No other retailer has the combination of quality product, selection, experienced personnel and Shop Your Way. It is a one of a kind member experience and will be around long after Walmart, Target and other fad retailers disappear.

Another point to make is that during the bankruptcy proceedings a couple years ago, when the court put the company up for bids, the only other bidders besides Eddie Lampert were liquidators or other retailers interested in the real estate looking to expand their own store presence.

If K Mart is such a valuable retailer as the OP keeps claiming and harping on, how come the only bidder with the intent to keep K Mart open was Eddie Lampert?

Nobody else wanted it aside from liquidators or other retailers looking to expand their own footprint.

And Eddie has been doing the same thing that he did pre- bankruptcy.....laying off and terminating employees and closing stores.

The generation of shoppers that supported and stayed loyal to Sears and K Mart is dwindling with the passing of time as that generation is dying off from old age.

The present generation is an online shopper with Amazon or equivalent or shops at Walmart or other competitors.
What does Sears or K Mart offer of value these days that can also be found anywhere else?

The declining sales and store count shows clearly that shoppers in ever increasing numbers are finding what they need at retailers other than Sears and K Mart.

K Mart had 2323 stores in operation at its peak in 1994.

It presently has anywhere from 3 dozen to 4 dozen stores remaining in operation in the US depending on what source one reads.

39 of 50 states no longer have any K Marts in them.

Eddie Lampert has been promising a turnaround for the company since George W. Bush was in office more than a decade ago.

Sears and K Mart had a combined total of more than 3,000 stores when Eddie announced his intent to turn the company around.

Here it is in 2020 and there are less than 200 stores combined remaining with no turnaround in sight.

Pretty soon, the OP will have to buy a plane ticket.....or a motel room... on a long road trip in order to visit one of her beloved K Mart stores before the final K Mart store closes.

OP says that we must think positive about K Mart.

Okay, I'll go along with that.

I am positive that K Mart is in trouble.
I am positive that K Mart has lost relevance.
I am positive that K Mart has lost market share and income.
I am positive that K Mart has little chance of a turnaround.
I am positive that K Mart is not going to be around much longer.
I am positive that the owner of the company has no clue how to run a retail business.

There OP....enough positivity for you?

The reason K Mart and Sears is closing stores is in big part due to all those Walmarts and Home Depots, etc....Competition is driving the company out of business.....

Soon, all those K Marts that are 4 and 5 hours round trip drives for many shoppers will be out of business as well because the stores are relying on a shrinking customer base that is going to nearby Walmarts and Home Depots instead of the K Marts and Sears.

Nearby shoppers are not shopping in these stores let alone shoppers that live far away thus the continuing waves of store closures.

The logistics of having a couple hundred stores scattered all over the country with many distribution centers closing down also makes it more difficult and costly to restock the stores with merchandise.

There is less and less incentive for local or long distance shoppers to shop at KMart or Sears when there are other shopping options nearby.

@2vcg, for the same reason that Walmarts 5 hours away from you aren't depending on you to be a customer, Kmarts 5 hours away aren't depending on you as a customer. I'm not sure why your kmartlesss location would have relevance to the locations where there are Kmarts. The OP didn't mention anything about you driving 5 hours to a Kmart.

The OP is living in a fantasy world of the past.....I looked up "KMarts near me" and a list of 15 K Mart locations came up.
13 of those 15 show "permanenty closed". Of the two remaining open stores on the list, one is a 2 hour drive from my home and the other is almost 3 hours.

The Sears situation is similar....1 to 2 hour drive to the nearest stores still in business and I live in the busier Northeast part of the US.

Why would I drive that far to a K Mart or Sears when I can drive 15 minutes in any direction to a Walmart, Home Depot or Lowes to find virtually the same products without burning a half tank of gas or more?

The next response will likely be why I don't order it on Sears.com or KMart.com?

Same reason....why wait a few days for it to arrive when I can drive a few miles to Walmart...etc...and get the item today.

There is nothing unique or special at K Mart that deserves a 4 or 5 hour total round trip drive for me to see or buy.

The Charles City Kmart closed in early February of 2020. The employees of the local superstore were keyed in on this fact months before – as early as October of 2019. After this, 28 year old employee Kenin Neve started to nab merchandise from the economically collapsing store.

Neve ended up stealing over $6,200 worth of cash and merchandise from the store – accumulating a 2nd degree theft and Class D felony count.

Neve pleaded guilty to the charges as security and management were able to spot him stealing money from the store’s cash bags.

The Floyd County Attorney’s Office recently recommended a deferred judgment for defendant.

And on April 22nd, the district judge placed a civil penalty of $750 on Neve. In addition, he would be under 2 to 3 years of probation and would need to repay Kmart $5,645. If all of this is adhered to, Neve will have the charges erased from his record.

Even Eddie Lampert fhimself likely finds these K Mart worship posts to be unrealistic, outlandish and hilarious....He probably reads them while sipping wine from the comfort of his yacht.

The OP is trying to state her case to the wrong audience....If she is truly sincere in her concern for KMart, she would be stating her case to the shopping public.....not to a site with employees and ex employees that were fired and laid off through the actions of Eddie Lampert.

The fact that she keeps blaring her horn here and also replies to her own posts under false pretenses pretending to be other people and manipulating the upvotes and downvotes on her own posts only reinforces the case that she is only looking for attention and to troll the site.

K Mart is done! Stick a fork in it!

Sears and KMart were on a long downward spiral while unemployment numbers were low.

Now how is Sears and K Mart going to survive, let alone make any sort of turnaround, when millions of Americans are out of work due to the pandemic?

There is a difference between being optimistic and being realistic.

A turnaround is just not going to happen for this company.

The coronavirus will be the final nail in the coffin for Sears and K Mart.

K Mart does not stand a chance. Eddie Lampert is running it and he is the one responsible for running Sears and K Mart into the ground.

K Mart is on life support and the funeral hearse is warming up in the parking lot waiting to take it to its grave.

All of these ideas are reasonable (retreat to a few strong regions, or become a small-format retailer), but none of them are going to happen unless Kmart is sold to someone competent.

One can think positively till they are blue in the face. It won't matter until money is applied to change things. Will you open your wallet, princess?

And the Cheerleader is back at it....downvoting and upvoting replies using multiple devices.

She is trying to play the victim saying she does not want to cause any distress.

What a crock of bull!
She posts the same nonsense day after day.....ignoring the fact that the moderators are deleting her posts as fast as she can type them.

She is trying to play victim here when she actually has an agenda to troll and disrupt this site.....She is crying crocodile tears and is a FAKE, PHONEY, and a FRAUD!!!

Keep at least 1 positive post up, please. In these quarantine times, we need something with optimism. This poster is just trying to be happy, and upbeat. Why erase that?

This Cheerleader clown wastes so much time writing up these long drawn out diatribes only to have it all soon deleted by the moderators.

Talk about being dense and thickheaded, this cheerleader takes the cake!

Stick it where the sun doesn't shine, troll!!!!

Peace, love and hair grease (that's IF you can find it in stock at the remaining Kmart stores!)