Kmart and Sears Plan to Close 120 Stores

Julie Shenkman
Posted by in Retail •


Bad news for fans of the blue light special; Kmart and Sears are preparing to shut down 120 stores across the nation. No word has been given yet as to when the closings will be coming or what will happen to the employees. The company listed the first wave of closings but the rest have not been released yet. The late December announcement has communities all over wondering when the axe will fall and if it will hit them on the way down. The company has been downsizing for the past 2 years. Super Kmarts have been shrinking to Big Kmarts. Some locations have been forced to eliminate the stores’ grocery sections, reduce hours and layoff employees. Currently there are about 2,700 Sears stores and 1,500 Kmart stores in the US. The stores turned in terrible results for the holiday season instead of receiving the typical surge in revenue that comes in this time of year. Same store revenues fell 5.2% from last year at Kmart and Sears locations. Brian Sozzi, a New York-based independent retail analyst surmised, "There's no reason to go to Sears. It offers a depressing shopping experience and uncompetitive prices." Most shoppers opted for the chain’s rivals, lower priced one-stop options like Wal-Mart and Target that customers say are cleaner and better stocked. Credit analysts say the softer-than-expected holiday sales performance point to "deepening problems at this struggling chain and renewed worries about Sears survivability." Sears Holdings Corp., the 125 year old company based in Hoffman Estates, Ill., anticipates additional proceeds from the sale or sublease of real estate holdings. The retailer predicts that the store closings will generate $140 million to $170 million in cash in inventory sales. Company officials have stated, "We will carefully evaluate store performance going forward and act opportunistically to recognize value from poor performing stores as circumstances allow." What do you think? Which box store is best for your shopping needs? By Heather Fairchild - Heather is a multimedia developer with experience in web, film, photography and animation as well as traditional fine arts like painting and sculpting. In addition to writing for Nexxt, she is co-founder of a design and promotion company. Heather’s spare time consists of making puppets, teaching Sunday School, building Legos and doing science experiments with her children.

Comment

Become a member to take advantage of more features, like commenting and voting.

Register
Sign In
  • Joe Pantel
    Joe Pantel •
    Pretty! This was an incredibly wonderful article. Many thanks for supplying these details.
  • Charles j
    Charles j •
    i have always liked sears for their kenmore appliances.i am a second generation purchaser of these appliances.they were always top notch and they lasted  for ever also. the salesmen who assisted my family were always knowledgeable and very friendly. that was pretty much all i bought there. when we need more appliances i guess we will go 25 miles away in knoxville,tn to buy the kenmore brand.
  • Craig White
    Craig White •
    I AM NOT SURPRISED.  I worked at a large Sears Store in Minnesota when Sears merged with K Mart. I could see their downfall coming right away. They soon after cut my hours from 40 to 30 and told me my wages were frozen indefinably. (I had excellent reviews and small raises each year for 4 years from Sears). It seems that I wasn’t the only one to be discouraged because within a year there were just a handful of the ones that were there just five years before. They began replacing customer service conscious full time employees with uninterested low paid part time employees. Regular hours were became a thing of the past and the people with secure jobs that cared were given different days and hours each week. Important days off were ignored and we were no longer given any say in the days or time of days we worked. The bottom line became the only important thing. No heart any more for the many people that gave theirs to Sears. As we saw and heard customers complain about the lack of help, many before me gave up and moved on and the complaints increased. The attitude for every one even the Manager gave way to despair. Things would never be the same. So no I’m not surprised to hear of store closings. There will be more.The artical mentioned Target and Wal-Mart that is were every one I know goes.

Jobs to Watch