With closure of Tahoe Kmart, only one store will be left in all of California

[Demovictory9]

This means Grass Valley will soon be the only community in California with a Kmart. Up until recently, Kmart had six locations in California, but the Costa Mesa, McKinleyville and Ramona stores all closed in the past year.

Kmart began life in the late 1800s as a five and dime store in Tennessee. Its first Kmart-branded store opened in 1962 in San Fernando, and at its height, Kmart had thousands of locations nationwide.

But things soured in the 2000s. In 2002, Kmart filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection and laid off tens of thousands of workers in the restructuring. Two years later, Kmart bought another struggling retailer, Sears, and merged the two companies. But that move didn't slow down Kmart's woes, as the retailer continued to shutter stores year after year.

There are only a few dozen Kmarts now left in the United States, although don't trust the Kmart store locater to give you an accurate count. It's still listing permanently shuttered locations as open.

https://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/california-kmart-locations-tahoe-closed-16263146.php

[Mopar151]

1. Only place ever "carded" me for buying spray paint!

I liked their Dutch Boy acrylic enamel spray paint, and I have a lot of homemade stuff to paint! The cashier was pretty snippy when I asked why they needed to see my ID - she claimed that there was tagging gong on in the area, so the store was checking ID's. Last I ever set foot in a K-mart......

[madville]

2. I didn't know there were any left

I haven’t been in one in over 10 years and their prices were about double that of the Walmart down the road.

[Demovictory9]

3. there was one near me until recently. It was a sad shadow of its former self

half the space was roped off and empty. was filled with weird products from unknown manufacturers... like a 99 cent store

[hlthe2b]

4. Because K-Mart did not remodel or keep up their buildings, they now await costly demolition in

even the more prosperous communities across the country. Ugly shells of buildings in strip shopping centers.

I hated it when Sears bought K-mart, knowng the latter would drag down and effectively bankrupt the former. There is absolutely no pleasure in being right. The greed that took them both down leaves many communities with no other options than Walmart. And, those ugly empty shells of buildings.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

6. It was amazing to watch K-Mart fall and Wal-Mart rise.

K-Mart seemed helpless to respond.

[Demovictory9]

9. And Target.. Target kicks butt

[RegularJam]

5. I think we are down to four in the state of Florida.

The last one they closed in my area made Walmart look like a clean top end store. That bad. The smell was horrible.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

7. I'm old enough to remember when K-Marts were ubiquitous.

I like Super Target but there are none in my area.

[Demovictory9]

17. yep. with those blue light specials

[Buckeye_Democrat]

8. The last K-Mart in my area looked like...

... it was hit by a tornado inside of the building, yet it somehow remained open like that for several more years despite almost no customers anymore. The management at that location seemed to be non-existent, but it was full of employees who were depressed like they realized the end was near.

[Demovictory9]

10. Mine was full of stuff nobody wanted

In its final yrs

[Buckeye_Democrat]

11. That too, but even basic stuff became difficult to find...

... at my local store. The last time I was there, I finally found what I wanted to buy (folders for school) in a section that didn't make any sense. They weren't even among the other school supplies.

Edit: My suspicion is that it was ultimately a management problem from the very top -- CEO's and Chairmans. And probably a case of them not heeding the advise of the employees under them. I never worked there, so I don't really know, but I've seen it happen at other places where I've worked.
Some of the upper management types could probably even ruin the work atmosphere at places like CERN, given enough time. Then you'd suddenly see previously happy scientists and engineers completely disorganized and not working as a team anymore.

[Fiendish Thingy]

12. Thanks to Bain Capital and Mitt Romney. Nt

[Klaralven]

15. AFAIK, Eddie Lampert and his hedge fund ESL didn't have or need Bain's help to strip Sears and Kmart

[Klaralven]

13. SEARS AND KMART, A SAD, SAD STORY

By the time the two merged in March 2005, both were ailing but many thought Eddie Lampert, who had engineered the merger, would somehow stitch the two together and achieve a stronger company. The stock price rose from $124 at the time of the merger to $195 in short order. It did not last.

Lampert failed to reinvest in the company, and instead milked it and stripped it of its assets over time. We pointed out in our 2008 paper that Sears had the lowest rate of capital investment to sales of any major U.S. retailer. The biggest use of this diverted cash was to buy back shares. Capex-starved stores look old and tired, and both Sears and Kmart have fit that bill for many years. Post-merger Capex is detailed in Chart 1.

https://www.babson.edu/academics/executive-education/babson-insight/strategy-and-innovation/sears-and-kmart-a-sad-sad-story/

Lampert is a self-proclaimed supporter of free market economics and is a fan of libertarian writer Ayn Rand.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eddie_Lampert

[Demovictory9]

18. yep... very sad

[Klaralven]

14. How vulture capitalists ate Sears

If you track the long-term course of Sears' revenue and stock price, the problems didn't just set in with the arrival of Walmart and the big-box stores, or with Amazon and the rise of the internet economy. Instead, the tailspin really started with the arrival of a guy named Eddie Lampert and his hedge fund, ESL Investments.

Lampert had already bought Kmart out of bankruptcy in 2003. And in 2004 and 2005, he engineered Kmart's purchase of and merger with Sears, creating the third-largest retailer in the country at the time. Lampert became chairman of the combined company's board. In 2013, Lampert became Sears' CEO.

Lampert slashed capital investments to try and create a more efficient company. He retooled Sears' structure, so that almost three dozen different business departments — like shoes, home furnishings, or menswear — were each siloed, with their own management team and even their own board. It was a model taken from the hedge fund world, meant to encourage healthy competition inside the company and thus power a better overall business.

https://theweek.com/articles/801927/how-vulture-capitalists-ate-sears

[msongs]

16. best place to buy shoes. got wide feet and they always had that kind. cheap shoes to be sure but

fit well as long as they lasted.