Kmart ... Anyone Else Enjoying This?

[lonegunman]

The free market is great, as long as there is competition.


Wal-Mart biggest competition was K-Mart. K-Mart is now belly-up.

If Wal-Mart has nobody to compete with on prices, why compete at all?

How do you know you are getting a low price if they are the only store in town?

I never liked K-Mart, but don't see how anybody (except Wal-Mart) benefits from their bankruptcy.

 

[HankB]

IIRC the Rosie Boycott was blamed for cutting overall sales up to 5% at some - not all - K-Mart stores. And some seasonal (i.e., hunting & fishing) merchandise was down up to 75%. By itself, the Rosie Boycott was not enough to bankrupt the company, but there's no question in my mind that it was another nail in the coffin.

My mother, bless her heart, visited a K-Mart store a couple of months ago, since they've been "Rosie-free" for a while. She DID find and buy a few items, for which K-Mart double-billed her credit card company. A phone call cleared up the matter, and the customer service lady at Discover said "That happens a lot at K-Mart." This sort of thing isn't good for business.

My mother also said the store itself, and the merchandise, looked "crappy, dirty, and messy" compared to the K-Mart of 5 years ago.

 

[Marko Kloos]

Moved to Legal & Political.

 

[madmike]

It's called "Free Enterprise," people!

It's great that our boycott (sort of) worked, and bad when instead of becoming paragons of common sense, they file for protection?

PUH lease!

It would be a "good thing" if the stuck around just to compete with WalMart? Should the gov't bail them out then? Support a multibillion corp that puts small businesses OUT of business and then hires the owners at $6 an hour?

Here's an idea: spend your money at that American Small Business. Might cost a few cents more, but they're a lot friendlier, have much more personal service, and you can play with it before you buy it at many.

If KMart POd gun owners, I'm sure they POd other people over other issues. That's bad management.

Their press release insists that bankruptcy is a Good Thing and will enable them to expand. Sounds like they haven't learned.

And screw WalMart, too.

 

[Rome]

Many nails in their coffin.

I've owned my own business for well over 20 years. When I was learning sales, an "old-timer" taught me to never give a potential customer a reason to not do business with you. Specifically, you were instructed to not wear school rings, association or fraternal pins, religious pins, or anything else that a customer might take an immediate offense to. This didn't mean that you couldn't stick to your convictions but you just didn't advertise your affiliations to them. That being said, I was also taught that you had every right to pick your client just as they had the right to pick you as the provider of whatever service you provided. These lessons were never lost on me during all these years.

K-Mart was wearing everything they stood for on their sleeves. Hiring Rosie was a mistake because of her very public views. The K-Mart people certainly knew that. Taking the very public stand about ammunition and firearms had a large impact on the public. K-Mart people certainly knew that would happen, too.

The impact of K-Mart taking these two major stands, along with other, was clearly underestimated by the management. People I know who don't even own guns told me that they wouldn't shop there anymore. I certainly haven't nor has my wife or any of my family.

In addition, competition from Target and Wal-Mart has made it easy to find alternatives to K-Mart.

And, yes, it is a tragedy for anyone to lose their jobs involuntarily but it isn't the consumer who is at fault but the poor choices that management made. In this era of cut-throat competition, they should have recognized the potential impact their decisions would have. So, ultimately, they're reaping what they sowed in my very humble opinion, and I don't think they'll be able to fix it.

Rome

 

[Jim V]

At one time I liked shopping at K-Mart, back when the company was "new' and you got a "Thank you for shopping at our K-Mart" when you checked out. Back when the sales people knew their departments and wanted to serve the customer. Stores were clean and had the things they advertised.

When the service and quality of goods strated dropping I left them. Why pick up sales flier, be at the doors when they opened on the first day of the sale and find the items are "sold out."? It happened to me 3 times. Why go into a store and ask about a product and have the sales person assigned to that department just wave their hand toward the rest of the store and say "Their over there."? That has happened to me too many times.

The Rosie and Michale Moore thing was iciing on the cake.

My only fear is that SAFETY TRIGGER (or is it HAMMER? I forget) will buy up K-Mart and continue the same policies they had before.

Old Man Kresge must be doing about 10,000 RPMs now.

 

[AndrewWalkowiak]

I just wish that the "Rosie boycot" by gun owners was made more public. I don't think that the average person even remembers or makes the connection that it was a contributing factor at all.

It does no good if no one remembers. Hopefully Wal-Mart managment was paying attention.

 

[SW9M]

I think Rosie O. played a larger part in their demise than anyone may imagine. Ever since the event and word spread (news) I had noticed a steady decline in the parking lot congestion. The last time I was in their store (a Super K-mart) they only had four registers open. It wasn't the main factor, but I think it was a really big nail.

 

[AmericanFreeBird]

I really shouldn't laugh but ...

 

[MeekAndMild]

**** happens. I just wish that the Rosie story was better known.

 

[Ron L]

SteelyDan made a good point. Kmart was in bad condition before Bloatie came on the scene. The boycott was just another thing caused by their management decisions that sealed their fate. From a business sense, Kmart made a few questionable decisions going back before Bloatie and Penny.

Grocery sections - sorry, but I wouldn't go to Kmart to buy groceries. Maybe if a shopper was already there and needed to pick something up, but not as a main reason for the shopping trip.

Fashions - Why sign big name people like Jaqualine Smith and Kathy Ireland to huge contracts when they can't bring in the kind of clientele they're supposed to. People don't equate Kmart with fashions.

Housewares - Sorry, but you can't take a $2.99 towel, slap a Martha Stewart name on it, and charge $10.99. Before anybody says it, I know that Kmart said that Martha Stewart items had good money coming in, but they did before the name change. Seems like they just went to selling less of higher priced items.

Sporting goods - Every fall, Kmart could have counted on a butt-load of money coming in from sportsman. They used to have several aisles of hunting equipment out. They've reduced their stock to barely one aisle of average priced stuff and wonder why store traffic in the fall is nil? They also forgot that sportsman would make the usual "other" purchases while they were in the store and they've lost that traffic as well. They drove all those sportsman and their other miscellaneous purchases to other stores.

This past fall, Walmart and Meiers was usually pretty crowded with people buying all sorts of hunting gear. And I bought a bunch on non-hunting items too. Meiers themselves had around 4 aisles full of hunting equipment. The only downside is that without Kmart as real competition, I really didn't see any huge after-season clearance sales like in the past.

Unfortunately, living in Michigan (Kmart HQ is in Troy), I personally know 3 people that are affected by these events.

 

[Byron]

Best explantation I heard was that K-Mart was trying to occupy the middle ground between Wal-Mark and Target. The problem was that there was no middle ground there. Customers looking for rock-bottom prices went to Wal-Mart, those wanting to go slightly upscale went to Target. Nobody went to K-Mart.

 

[RobW]

The bad thing is that all this "Managers" responsible for the failure, will still be the great Honchos with salaries the real working employees there can only dream of.

It's a common thing. If something goes downhill, fire the workers and rise the wages for the managers.

Too much officers, no soldiers. The fish starts stinking from the head.

I think the customers made the right decision.

 

[Ron L]

Byron, that's exactly right. With the more upscale fashions and housewares, they weren't discount anymore. And once you have a reputation, it's very hard to change it. Basically, they lost track of who they were and tried to be something they weren't.

 

[DaveK]

Good riddance.

 

[Blue Jays]

Jeff Thomas...you're on the money.

Good Evening Everyone-

Jeff Thomas, you're absolutely correct.

It's the free market system operating in a healthy fashion. Kmart's senior managers didn't embrace the latest model of business best-practices and now they are paying the piper.

Even small businesses can survive against large mass-retailers so long as they provide a VALUE-ADDED service to the consumer. We've all been in situations where we have happily paid more for an item just so that we could interact with a well-educated and helpful staff.

Besides an environment hostile to pro-RKBA sportsmen, Kmart offered nothing to entice shoppers into their stores.

Respect the customer!

Regards,

~ Blue Jays ~

 

[Hal]

And, when those people move to other companies and other jobs, certainly they can take that lousy Kmart attitude with them. But if that attitude isn't acceptable at Wal Mart or wherever else they land, they'll lose that job as well. That also is the way it should work ... customers have to be treated right, or they won't part with their money.

Jeff, that isn't the way it works in the real world of retail. I know, I was in retail for almost 20 years. I saw it happen day after day after day after day. What you and I and most others consider lousy attitudes usually result in promotions, not dismissals. Why? Because the same upper level that ran the previous competition into the ground is what's running the show at the *new place*. The reason K Mart today. looks like Zayers or Gold Circle of years gone by, is because the same middle and lower upper eschelon managment is running things. The "good people" bailed or were hired away years ago.

In retail if you want to *get ahead* you follow two rules. You treat your customers like garbage ( you use up the money part and discard the non-money part), and your underlings like crap. I watched hundreds of people climb the ladder that way. I never bought into that attitude, and it made the first 20 years of my full time employment a living he-dbl-pick (as you say). I got out of it back in '87 and have cruised the last,,,my Gawd it's been 15 years!,,time REALLY does fly when you're enjoying things!

Enjoy Walmart and the like while you can. I imagine (based 100% on my life experience) Walmart is lighting up the phone lines even as we speak, trying to get to the K Mart management before the competition does. Once those *goofballs*,,,you know the ones,,,the ones that hired Rosie and made the stupid policies,,are in place at Walmart, the downhill slide is inevitable.
Sears, Target, May Companies, Hibee Brothers, Montgomery Ward, Wollworth/Woolco, J.C. Penny, Wester Auto, FIRESTONE TIRES for gawds sake even! Federated Department Stores,,,,there's a looooong line of retailers that SOLD OUT THE RKBA a long time before K Mart did. K Mart did simply because so many of those losers ended up there.

I'm outta this for good,,,this time I mean it! I'm not even going to get involved with the inevitable "Boycott Walmart" movement when it happens either.

 

[David Park]

Last year, shortly before hunting season, I was looking for a shotgun and I started hitting the Kmart stores. One Kmart had a sign posted that they couldn't sell any guns until they got the paperwork from the BATF; apparently they forgot to renew their FFL. Another local store pulled all their guns after 9/11, and as far as I know never put them back on display. The few stores that actually had firearms for sale only had a handful of models, and very few accessories. I ended up buying a shotgun at a gun show.

I've always been willing to give Kmart a try, since I like to avoid the crowds of WalMart. However, every time I've gone there I realize why they're empty. Good riddance.

 

[Futo Inu]

The downside is

that in a few years, Wal-Mart's share will make Microsoft's OS market look highly competitive.

 

[DaiBando]

As mentioned previously, it was a long time coming, and could be predicted if you had been in their stores.

IMHO they deserve it.

Some years back they instituted the 20-40-60 program:
If you had worked for them for 20 years
or
If you were earning $40,000 a year
or
If you were 60 years old --
you were fired.

So, all the skilled salespeople and store managers were replaced by cheaper (read inexperienced) air-heads just out of college.

I knew many Asian Indian programmers who worked for K-Mart designing their Point-Of-Sale system (which was called POS for other reasons) and they said that management was always screwing things up because of incompetency or the urge to micro-manage (a cousin of incompetency).

And then we had them adopt Rosie as their spokesman . . .

Sorry about the impending layoffs, but today, nobody's job is secure. If it isn't bankruptcies or Enron-type criminality/incompetence, it is mergers and flight overseas.