Kmart's blue light fades to black with the shuttering of its last full-scale US store

[mahatmakanejeeves]

Kmart’s blue light fades to black with the shuttering of its last full-scale US store

The Associated Press
September 23, 2024, 5:39 PM


FILE - A large Kmart sign is displayed in front of a shopping plaza in Avenel, N.J., April 4, 2022. (AP Photo/Seth Wenig, File)(AP/Seth Wenig

NEW YORK (AP) — Attention, Kmart shoppers, the end is near!

The erstwhile retail giant renowned for its Blue Light Specials — featuring a flashing blue orb affixed to a pole enticing shoppers to a flash sale — is shuttering its last full-scale store in mainland United States.

The store, located in swank Bridgehampton, New York, on Long Island, is slated to close Oct. 20, according to Denise Rivera, an employee who answered the phone at the store late Monday. The manager wasn’t available, she said. … That will leave only a small Kmart store in Miami. It has a handful of stores in Guam and the U.S. Virgin Islands.

Transformco, the company that bought the assets of Sears and Kmart out of the bankruptcy of Sears Holdings in 2019, did not immediately respond to an email requesting comment.

{snip}

[underpants]

1. The one in Newport News had a wheel to spin for the price of a milkshake

Good milkshakes

Kmart was bought by Sears and both were vulture capitalismed

[samnsara]

2. when i was a single mother I would get my dtrs clothes from K mart..

...on the layaway plan.

[bucolic_frolic]

3. As i recall it was bigger than walmart about 1992

Kmart had good quality products when Floyd Hall was CEO. Then the financial press went to town on them for not having a checkout system llinked to inventory, and many KMarts were supposedy stacked with dozens of tractor traiers behind the stores laden with unsold junk merchandise. Floyd quit, and downhilll she went with a CEO from CVS and financial fraud. He hired a guy from Walmart..

[doc03]

4. I hate Walmart and what they have done to this country. We had a K Mart in our

mall I would always go to and over a hundred other stores rather than going to Walmart. The only time I would go to Walmart was if I couldn't find something elsewhere. Today less than half the storefronts are filled, and the mall is on life support. I do almost all my grocery shopping at Kroger to avoid Walmart. I find prices for food are much higher at Walmart than at Kroger.
Other than a bunch of clothing stores for young people we have Boscov's where we can get some Brand name clothing or Walmart with 2nd rate junk. I hear now that Boscov's is not going to renew their lease. If they close we will have to drive 35 miles and more to the Pittsburgh suburbs to avoid Walmart.