‘Attention, Kmart shoppers’ will echo along the empty aisles of the New Jersey Kmart for the last time this week as the store prepares to close its door for the final time.
When it shuts on April 16, the number of Kmarts in the US – once numbering 2,323 at its peak in 1994 – will be down to just three holdouts in a retail world now dominated by Walmart, Target and Amazon.
With fixtures and fittings up for sale, including $50 mannequins and filing cabinets costing $25, the demise of the store in Avenel in the middle-class suburb, 15 miles south of New York City, is the tale of the death of the discount department store.
Kmarts continue to operate in Westwood, New Jersey; Bridgehampton, on New York’s Long Island, and Miami.
Kmart’s decline has been slow but steady, brought about by years of falling sales, changes in shopping habits and the looming shadow of Walmart, which coincidentally began its life within months of Kmart’s founding in 1962.
Kmart filed for bankruptcy twice since the turn of the century, as its global profit margins fell from $49 billion in 2005 to just $3.26 billion in 2020.
‘You’re always thinking about it because stores are closing all over, but it’s still sad,’ said cashier Michelle Yavorsky, who said she has worked at the Kmart for two years. ‘I’ll miss the place. A lot of people shopped here.’
‘Attention, Kmart shoppers’ will echo along the empty aisles of the New Jersey Kmart (pictured) this week as the store prepares to close its door for the final time
When it shuts on April 16, the number of Kmarts in the US – once numbering 2,323 at its peak in 1994 – will be down to just three holdouts in a retail world now dominated by Walmart, Target and Amazon
With fixtures and fittings up for sale (including the mannequins pictured), the demise of the store in Avenel in the middle-class suburb is the tale of the death of the discount department store
‘You’re always thinking about it because stores are closing all over, but it’s still sad,’ said cashier Michelle Yavorsky, who said she has worked at the Kmart for two years. ‘I’ll miss the place. A lot of people shopped here.’
Employees at the Kmart in Avenel found out last month that the store would close. People shop the half-empty shelves
For a time, Kmart had a little bit of everything. You could shop for your kids’ back-to-school supplies, get your car tuned up and grab a meal without leaving the premises
Part of its success was due to its early adoption of layaway programs, which allowed customers who lacked credit to reserve items and pay for them in installments
How Kmart founder invested $8,000 in 1897 in a bid to match Woolworth’s success
When Sebastian Spering Kresge opened his first store more than one hundred years ago, little did he know that it would go on to evolve into a retail empire.
In a bid to match Woolworth’s success, Kresge invested $8,000 he had saved into the J.G. McCrory store chain in 1897.
Kresge then opened the first S.S. Kresge store on Woodward Avenue in Detroit in 1899 selling everything for 5 and 10 cents.
The low prices appealed to customers and business boomed. By 1912, Kresge had expanded to 85 stores with sales of over $10 million.
Photograph of Sebastian S. Kresge, founder of the S.S. Kresge Corporation (later known as K-Mart), standing in his office in national headquarters in 1957
Kresge retired as president in 1925 but continued as chairman of the company.
The Kmart brand was established in 1962, with the first store opening in Garden City, Michigan.
Four years later Sebastian Kresge died on October 18, 1966.
Kresge was married three times: to Anna E. Harvey, with whom he had five children; with Doris (Mercer) Harden; and with Clara Katherine (Zitz) Swaine.
Source: Encyclopedia of Detroit
Kmart was founded by Sebastian Spering Kresge as the SS Krege Company in 1899 in the Detroit suburb of Garden City, as a dime store where shoppers could find daily needs such as housewares, clothes and toys.
Kresge retired as president in 1925, and the company was handed over to Henry Cunningham.
By the 1960s, the company transformed into Kmart, seeking to dominate the discount retail sector with low prices on national brands – a feat it succeeded at.
In its heyday, Kmart sold product lines endorsed by celebrities Martha Stewart and Jaclyn Smith, sponsored NASCAR auto races and was mentioned in movies including Rain Man and Beetlejuice.
It was name-dropped in songs by artists from Eminem and Beastie Boys to Hall and Oates. In 2003, Eminem bought a 29-room, suburban Detroit mansion once owned by former Kmart chairman Chuck Conaway.
The chain cemented a place in American culture with its Blue Light Specials, a flashing blue orb affixed to a pole that would beckon shoppers to a flash sale in progress.
Part of its success was due to its early adoption of layaway programs, which allowed customers who lacked credit to reserve items and pay for them in installments.
For a time, Kmart had a little bit of everything. You could shop for your kids’ back-to-school supplies, get your car tuned up and grab a meal without leaving the premises.
‘Kmart was part of America,’ said Michael Lisicky, a Baltimore-based author who has written several books on US retail history.
‘Everybody went to Kmart, whether you liked it or not. They had everything. You had toys. You had sporting goods. You had candy. You had stationery. It was something for everybody. This was almost as much of a social visit as it was a shopping visit. You could spend hours here. And these just dotted the American landscape over the years.’
Struggling to compete with Walmart’s low prices and Target’s trendier offerings, Kmart filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in early 2002 – becoming the largest US retailer to take that step – and announced it would close more than 250 stores.
A few years later, hedge fund executive Edward Lampert combined Sears and Kmart and pledged to return them to their former greatness, but the recession and the rising dominance of Amazon contributed in derailing those goals.
Sears filed for Chapter 11 in 2018 and currently has a handful of stores left in the US where it once had thousands.
It didn’t have to end this way, according to Mark Cohen, director of retail studies at Columbia University in New York and former CEO of Sears Canada.
Trying to compete with Walmart on price was a foolish strategy, he said, and Lampert was criticized for not having a retail background and appearing more interested in stripping off the assets of the two chains for their cash value.
‘It’s a study in greed, avarice and incompetence,’ Cohen said. ‘Sears should have never gone away; Kmart was in worse shape, but not fatally so. And now they’re both gone.
‘Retailers fall by the wayside sometimes because they’re selling things people don’t want to buy,’ he continued.
Over the past 20 years, Kmarts global profit margins fell from $49 billion to just $3.26 billion
A huge line of people with shopping carts wait to enter the Kmart shopping center circa 1962
A new K Mart Store Opens at W. Belleview Ave. And S. Broadway in 1974. Attending the opening were, from left, R. Dejaeghere, assistant regional manager; Ralph LaVigne, district manager; James Goetz, buyer from Troy, Mich.; Henry R. Salby, store’s manager
Kmart shoppers mill around the flashing blue light, sign of the Blue Light Special, at the first Kmart ever built in Garden City, Mich., March 1, 1982
Shoppers enter and leave Kmart’s Garden City, Michigan, store in November 12, 1993
Shopper Lisa Chambo unload her purchases at the checkout counter of a Kmart store in Garden City, Mich., Nov. 12, 1993
‘In the case of Kmart, everything they used to sell, people are buying but they’re buying it from Walmart and Target.’
Transformco, which owns Kmart and Sears, did not respond to an email seeking comment and a phone number listed for the company was not taking messages.
Nationwide, some former Kmarts remain vacant while others have been replaced by other big-box stores, fitness centers, self-storage facilities, even churches. One former site in Colorado Springs, Colorado, is now a popular dine-in movie theater.
Employees at the Kmart in Avenel found out last month that the store would close.
Unlike 20 years ago, when news of impending Kmart closures around the country prompted an outpouring of support from loyal shoppers and a Detroit radio station even mounted a campaign to try and save a local store, the closing of the Avenel location was met mostly with an air of resignation.
A Kmart store in Adelphi, Maryland, a suburb of Washington D.C., is shown in this June 1, 1995
Customers leave Kmart Corps. Big K store in Farmington Hills, Michigan on 22 January, 2002, after Kmart filed for bankruptcy protection, becoming the largest retailer to seek shelter from creditors under Chapter 11 bankruptcy laws
In its heyday, Kmart sold product lines endorsed by celebrities Martha Stewart and Jaclyn Smith, sponsored NASCAR auto races (pictured) and was mentioned in movies including Rain Man and Beetlejuice
Grown Ups 2 star David Spade works the register at Kmart to benefit the March of Dimes, Los Angeles, California, in 2013
It was name-dropped in songs by artists from Eminem and Beastie Boys to Hall and Oates. In 2003, Eminem bought a 29-room, suburban Detroit mansion once owned by former Kmart chairman Chuck Conaway
‘It’s maybe a little nostalgic because I’ve lived my whole life in this area, but it’s just another retail store closing,’ said Jim Schaber, a resident of nearby Iselin who said his brother worked in the shoe department at Kmart for years. ‘It’s just another sign of people doing online shopping and not going out to the retail stores.’
The closing packed a little more of an emotional punch for Mike Jerdonek, a truck driver who recalled shopping at Kmart in Brooklyn and Queens in his younger days.
‘It’s like history passing right in front of our eyes,’ he said as he sat in his car outside the Avenel store. ‘When I was younger I didn’t have any money, so it was a good place to shop because the prices were cheap. And to see it gone right now, it’s kind of sad.’
A shopper leaves a K-Mart store with his purchase in Chicago in this January 17, 2002
An empty shopping cart sits unused January 14, 2003 in the parking lot at the Super K in Dearborn, Michigan