• Kmart/Sears Battle Royale continues, 33 Sears/13 Kmarts closes their doors
    22 replies, posted
https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/business/2018/08/23/sears-kmart-store-closures/1071356002/
>battle royal At this point, it's really more like a slaughter.
The K-Mart near me is gonna be a Lotte soon, I'm really excited
Close the Kmart brand, close half of the Sears, hire a fucking modern website and store designer have a huge sale and stop fucking around. I mean jeeeeeeez.
Funny to think how 20-30 years ago people would never have thought K-Mart would go out of business. They had super-centers, K-Mart express and they used to have full on diners in them back in the day and now they're in their death-throes. The last open K-Mart that I've seen was way out in the boonies and it was simply open because there was no other stores around to compete with it. Infact, it was the only retail store there. Also funny to see how Wal-Mart seems to be following exactly in their footsteps.
Damn, the Sears closing in Dayton listed there makes up a huge half of the entirety of the Dayton Mall. Wonder how badly that will impact the rest of the mall, it still manages to be fairly busy consistently.
I checked the list to see if the local Sears anchor store at our last big indoor mall in the area was on it, turns out it closed last month. Ouch.
battle royale, or thelma and louise?
What's causing all these department store closures? Is it really online shopping? Am I the odd one out for almost never buying physical stuff online?
Honestly the last time I entered a Sears was like 12 years ago no joke. And I went into a K-mart like three years ago, and by accident.
Unlike most major retailers, K-Mart and Sears are really the outliers of the bunch ( at least if your in America, I hear Australia is nice this time of year.. ) as they never really caught up with the modern times. Stores looking decrepit or something out of the 90's, shelves rarely stocked or filled with anything worthwhile. This is a decline happening for quite awhile now.
It was stores in the 90s-00s taking on massive debt with their credit cards. Remember how every fucking store had their own credit card system? Also Kmart's latest CEO has actively tried pinning departments against each other, leading to departments sabotaging each other. Also they refused to update their look or pricing.
What other people said explains a bit. But this is also pretty normal for retail as it's a very cutthroat industry, profit margins for generalist stores are typically very small which makes it quite easy for a company to kill itself.
Dan Bell, who created the Dead Mall series, did an episode about the decline of K-mart and followed a specific store during it's downfall. A very recommended watch if you have some time to spare. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W6yA7r6WfJo Do be careful with the Dead Mall playlist though. You will lose an entire afternoon before you know it.
The last Kmart I went to like 10 years back looked like a fucking horrid. It look like no one had cleaned the floor in like 20 years, it stank, everything about it felt like it was trapped in time. Fixtures had to be older then I was. It was pretty sad because it made Walmart look like the most high-end retail shopping experience. Overall, I feel like what is happening to retail is a depressing trend. Mall's are not quiet the same anymore, I mean there are some really good malls out there but for every good one I feel like there are 20 bad ones. There is just something downright depressing about what was one a huge social hub and shopping hub being nearly abandoned. While online shopping is convenient and cheaper, sometimes it is nice to make an afternoon out of shopping at the mall or walking around.
What, really? Walmart? I would've never thought, they're such a colossus. What's doing them in?
Amazon
I have a feeling just like Woolworths Kmart will still exist in Australia.
As @FlakTheMighty said. Amazon. Walmart will no longer price match against Amazon and other online retailers, I'm not sure if it is through all the stores yet, but they canceled it sometime earlier this year. Which was one of the biggest draws into the store because you could pick up what you needed and just have the price adjusted and didn't have to wait for it to ship or whatever. They no longer do this, Walmart online services are also absolutely horrible. You cannot purchase anything that was bought through a third party to Walmart. So you have to contact the company and go through them. Imagine having purchased something on Amazon prime, and then Amazon tells you to get into contact with a tiny little company that is like, a single comic book store that is on the other coast for you. Now make it x10 worse because half of these companies are little Chinese businesses that spring up and die within weeks to avoid getting sued into oblivion. So if you get something that isn't sold by Walmart.com? You're fucked on getting it returned. Even then Walmart.com and Walmart are practically seperate business and do everything away from each other. So if there is an issue with your order? The people in the store can't do shit about it besides call the group that is running Walmart.com to figure it out. Shit gets lost all the time from Walmart.com, they have an option for Yellow freight/YRC and they will make shit disappear. I ordered a big gun safe through them, and they lost it and it took Walmart two weeks to even ship the damn replacement out, and unlike Amazon. They offered nothing for the fact that they lost the product. No expedited shipping or anything. So it took nearly 5 weeks for me to get it from ordering it. This was a constant problem in the last store I worked at, which was one of the smallest Walmarts that still operate on the west coast. It was a daily problem that someones stuff got lost, or delayed. Not to mention the general unhappiness of the employees and the fact that no one is ever staffed. They put a single employee in charge of 3-4 departments, which 2 of them might be service departments. When I worked up at a Walmart in Las Vegas and I worked in Sporting goods which sold guns. Sometimes they just wouldn't have anyone staffed for automotive so I'd have to cover both counters, and if someone wanted to purchase a gun I couldn't leave the counter. Sometimes this process would take hours and you can imagine the shitstorm that it became. They've also rolled out this new "employee pick their hours" system and it was an elaborate way to screw people out of hours. I knew people who had been with the company for 15-20 years that quit over it because they couldn't get any hours and they where hired on and grandfathered in at full time. Numberous safety hazards as well, equipment isn't avaiable to employees. The tire racks in our auto shop weren't bolted down, so you have 30 foot tall racks loaded with several hundred pounds that sway the hell around. Within 6 months we had one of those collapse and break an employee's arm, followed up by a cat walk collapsing and just about killing an employee as it busted the back of his head open. Employee turn over rates is at about two weeks. If they have to hire for a position, they will over-hire for it because they know most or if not all of them are going to quit right off the bat. Every store I've worked at/been to had these issues. I've worked at three different stores, and then have gone to two others to help oversee remodeling. But was never paid or promoted to a supervisor despite being an acting ASM. I have a family member who is a store manager for a really large and high grossing store and another who works for corporate. They've had the same issues and they just describe them as "Walmart problems." The advice that was given to me by the family member who works at Corporate was to just quit and work for another company, because very rarely is anyone in the company promoted through merit because Walmart is all politics at higher levels. Corruption is absolutely rife in Walmart, when new consoles or any sort've expensive electronics come in. Store Managers, ASM and others will always get first picks. None of our Mini NES even went out to the floor because some of our ASMs where putting them aside and then buying them to scalp them online. No one would ever do anything about it because sales are the only thing that matters, and it doesn't matter who is buying it, so long as its being bought. Oh, and not to mention the amount of theft that goes on. Loses on the floor are absolutely crazy, but Internal theft is way worse. Just let that sink in.
you say that, but walmarts' revenue is the largest of any company in the world. an absolute absurd number of people buy from walmart, to the point where #2 and #3 on the list per revenue are chinese government owned companies. walmart, the same company that won't bat an eye to close several stores just because the employees try forming a union. they're close to having double the number of employees as the second company of most employees. they make almost 3x more revenue than amazon and make more than 3x more net income than amazon. when it comes to retailers, walmart is and probably will stay king.
They used to say the exact same thing about Sears. Retail is beginning to go away and much like the older chains that are going under now have failed to adapt to the trends that Walmart was able to start in. Now, Walmart is failing to adapt to the Online market, and it is something they're worried about. Both family members who work higher up in the company (Store Manager & Corporate) have both told me this. They where losing money due to price matching with Amazon. I have seen customers in the store while I was working at there whip out their phone, look at the item on Amazon and decide not to order it because it was cheaper and it wasn't something that they needed right then and there. Or it was the same price and it wasn't a cheap Chinese knock-off. The only thing they have above Amazon at the moment is the fact that they have fresh and frozen food, as soon as Amazon can get that, Walmart is going to suffer a major hit. Not that the chain actually makes much money on it, such as Automotive, they have them to bring people into the store. Amazon prime is something that has some quality associated with it. Meanwhile, the thought of going into a Walmart to return an item has some dread associated with it. There is a certain stigma associated working for or going to Walmart and they've made no attempt to approve it. I'm primarily going off what I've been told by someone who is pretty high up in the chain and what I've seen with my own eyes while working there. They mostly rely on the older demographic, people who are simply used to going out rather than using the internet for purchasing. Most of the younger people I've seen in the store. (Talking 30 and under here) have been in there to pick up fresh/frozen foods or pick up an item that they needed within that day. I'm not saying Walmart is going to fold overnight, or within the next few years even. But they're showing the same symptons that have been seen with these older chains that have gone under. Being strong today doesn't mean you'll do good when your customer base becomes those you've screwed over and scorned 5-10 years ago. I know a lot of people who won't shop at Walmart anymore simply because they've worked for them and had to be abused by their shitty practices.
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