I went to a Kmart on a mini road trip for the first time in months. SHC has totally left my metro area for both sears and Kmart and the nearest Kmart is now 90 miles away. My Kmart closed in September so I haven’t seen a Kmart store not in liquidation since may. I was shocked at the sad, sad level of inventory in the store. Pantry was an absolute joke! It was getting bad before we announced, but I have never seen such a pathetic pantry. One half of a shelf of Coke and Diet Coke 12 pks. NO other brand soda and no 2 L. No name brand chips/salty snacks. NOTHING in the milk coolers (they filled the coolers with smart sense jug water), whole shelves filled with random c-ap including small appliances, paper products, and comforters instead of food. Feet and feet of of single facing boxed goods. It was so bad. Time for Kmart to give up on pantry if they are going to do this, what an absolute joke. Also, Christmas was only 80% off? Most other retailers have already put Christmas at 90% off and moved on! One quad of picked over Valentine’s Day merchandise, NOTHING else. Patio/ outdoor living not set or partially set, just a big empty seasonal with random boxes of Christmas trees. The whole thing was SAD. To top it all off, there were tops, 4 cas in the lot at 1:00 in the afternoon. My first thought was, “this is what a go forward store looks like?” Pathetic
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You guys still get Smart Sense Soda?
Hey, don't underestimate the ability to have an aisle full of Smart Sense soda one deep.
It's a $300M line of credit. The billion dollars Eddie has is going to pay off previous loans.
I will have to go checkout that Warren store again, I went there before Christmas, that's not what I saw.
They need totes right away!
OP here. Not fake news. I was there and it was pathetic. I have no problem calling out the store location either. The Dalles, Oregon (last Kmart in the state)
See how much inventory they get in when they have access to that billion dollar+ line of credit Eddie has lined up.
As far as Patio and Lawn & Garden do most stores even set this early? I don’t think they’ve every gotten anything in until February at Sears.
@Xf6s8tm-jmf Haven't been to Bridgeview in a couple of months. It wasn't empty then but the store is pretty rundown (old and worn). That store and Des Plaines Kmart are the only Kmarts not announced as closing (yet anyway) in Illinois. That said, the store has always seemed somewhat busy when I have been there in the past. FWIW
@-Mxd I was in a Kmart here on the west coast and it was well stocked too. Whereas I agree it may be prudent to drop Kmart and go to a blended format on one system, there is inventory in the stores. Show me a recent YouTube video of a Kmart with no stock that was on the go forward list, not something from 4 plus months ago. After the deal closes transform holdco or whatever the bs name is will pound in the inventory, that is guaranteed.
@zun you can spout your bs all you want, the media and YouTube videos of empty Sears and Kmarts are there for the whole world to see every day, never mind anyone with two feet and two eyes for the shrinking number of people who still have one in their neighborhood
I noticed Bridgeview IL Kmart has no valentines stuff yet, just a big empty space where the holiday stuff normally is.
@afr Dropping Kmart would also mean finally getting rid of the two incompatible sets of software systems. (Even in the Kmart-inside-a-Sears store that they tried recently, they had to keep the Kmart checkout at separate registers.)
I say give up on the KMart concept and convert remaining go forward stores to Sears with a new inventory concept (less softlines more hardlines). Might be a better way to generate cash flow and margin in the long run. Never has been a lot of love for KMart. Seems the $ it would take to “fix” KMart is very high risk for a very low margin ultra competitive business. Got to change the model all together unless you want to go into the growing 5/10 dollar store format. Still low margin but a big and growing industry in brick and mortar retail.
and everything you stated is in the Warren store are exceptionally low margin items. So good luck with making any profits. More fake news! Just like the 13 year transformation!
OP specifically stated multiple times that the Kmart they went to is not closing. There can be regional variations. If a lot of other Kmarts have closed in your region, the remaining ones get more inventory, I think. And even some of the food vendor relationships are regional, such as the soda bottlers.
Ain’t this some fake news! I was in the Warren, MI Kmart over the weekend, they had plenty of everything except snacks (potato chips, corn chips etc). The parking lot had about 75 cars in it. The store is a stand alone, with only a church’s chicken on the parking lot near the main road.
Pepsi and coke products were both in abundance. There was plenty of milk, a shocking amount of cereal, fresh dated and faced. Valentine’s Day candy cards etc were present and in abundance. They had a substantial toy section of about 20 aisles, again very well stocked. Electronics was reduced to 3 aisles mostly junk, cd’s minor stuff. Clothing was as always in substantial supply, though greatly reduced from my late November visit when shoes etc were packed literally 15 feet high.
I have no idea what the OP is talking about, maybe the store he was in is closing. I have been to the two go forward sears in the area they are both well stocked in tools, with small appliances being a weak spot but all other areas stocked in abundance and both stores quite busy.
Any of you are welcome to actually visit the named locations and confirm my findings.
I have no idea why someone continues to push the fake narrative that their is no inventory but it’s simply not true.
Yes some items are lacking most are not.
Nothing is really warehoused anymore either. Inventory is out as soon as it comes in. It's a dead company walking.