K-Mart

Sam06

The one here is closing.

I think the Sears is going too.


2 very large business that were power houses but couldn't compete in the age of the internet. Heck Sears was the Amazon before the internet with their mail order business and K mart was along selling cheap crap before Walmart got bigger than 1 store.

Evolve or die is true in business and nature.

I am hoping for a Trader Joe or maybe a Lidl store(like Aldi but better IMO) to go in the building.

KenK/84Bravo

Hell, I thought they were All gone. Surprised to hear that any are left.

jimdeere

My brother in law bought a lot of military surplus guns cheap from K-Mart and Roses years ago.

bullshot

Good riddance to both. Sad about Sears though, just because of their history, when I was a kid, Sears was like the poor man's Neiman Marcus.
Kmart on the other hand was always a crap hole, the last Kmart here closed over a year ago and Sears is gone this year.
Sears started on a downward spiral years ago when they went to centralized check out rather than department specific check out and employee assistance on the floor disappeared.

Smitty500mag

They ought to hunt down the managers that let Sears go under and hang them even if they're already dead then they need to dig'em up and hang'em. Sears was the founder of mail order and they let a company like Amazon kick their * by sitting around on their thumbs while technology passed them by.

At one time you could order a house from the Sears Catalog.

gearheaddad

I have a Savage 99 my Grandfather bought from Sears in the 1930s. I have a Browning BAR 30-06 I bought from Sears in about 1980. A Browning Safari Grade bought from Marshall Fields in Downtown Chicago by my Dad in the 60s, and a Colt Peacemaker Buntline 22 bought at a KMart in the 60s.
All the department stores seemed to have had great Sporting Goods departments back in the day.
Abercrombie and Fitch was no urban clothing dealer! It was a first class sporting good outfitter.
KMart was cheap, a lot of junk but they also carried some brand name goods back in the day. Colt, Marlin, Winchester, Abu Garcia to name a few.........

montanajoe

KenK/84Bravo wrote:

Hell, I thought they were All gone. Surprised to hear that any are left.

same here,

Sam06

I had 2 $10 gift cards for Kmart. Went today and used them on Golf Balls.

The Place was packed and everything is on sale 15-75% off.

bustedknee

Sears first stepped in it when they started charging for their catalog.
It has been all down hill from there.

jimdeere

There was always a big Sears catalog in my grandma?s outhouse.

DresserDan

I can see why k Mart went under. I hauled K Mart for about 9 months. They still have a warehouse in Lawrence Ks. Some of the most rude and obnoxious people in charge of their stores.

truthful

There are many common threads to the demise of numerous once-great old companies. One is replacing the old-guard management that came up with the good ideas, with MBAs and accountants that know nothing about the business. Apple nearly went under when they got rid of Steve Jobs, but lucky for them he agreed to come back. When he died he left a long list of good ideas that Apple has mostly run out of now.

Another is refusing to deviate from the business model and product line that got them where they are even when it is obvious that a new ship is on the horizon. Kodak WAS photography for 100 years. In 1975 Kodak invented the digital camera, but shelved it in favor of their old tired technology. Now the company barely exists as a packaging outfit or some such.

SCOUT5

My first shotgun came from K-mart. A 20ga single shot, it cost $27.97 plus tax, one of my sons has it. My second shotgun also came from there, an Ithaca model 37 12ga, sadly it was stolen.

asop

jimdeere

hillbille

Sam06 wrote:

I had 2 $10 gift cards for Kmart. Went today and used them on Golf Balls.

The Place was packed and everything is on sale 15-75% off.

when the ones here closed they shipped stuff in from the other closed stores that hadn't sold, marked them up above regular retail then took the % off the higher price. I figured they were gonna close, a year or so before they closed they got rid of most of hunting equipment and firearms/ammo, then the hardware was reduced to one or two aisles, about all they had was clothes ........ as others said won't miss them or Sears

Wild Turkey

truthful wrote:

. In 1975 Kodak invented the digital camera, but shelved it in favor of their old tired technology.

It's actually worse than that. They had acquired several small digital companies that would have given Kodak everything they needed to continue their dominance in the photo market.

But before the digital market opened up new management came in and they wanted a good quarterly "bottom line" so they started selling off the companies that had been acquired cheap and were now worth much more.

And when the digital revolution hit they had nothing left.

Another case of management myopia :roll:

Quick&Dead

Sears closed up here years ago and K-Mart about 2 or 3 years ago.

Also gone are J.C. Penny's and a whole bunch of other retail establishments and not a single pawn shop left either.

The markets and shoppers are changing.

buddyb

When I was a kid,the K-Mart in Greenville SC had trash cans full of old military surplus rifles in the sporting goods.I think the most expensive ones were about 20 bucks.Most were strange calibers we had never heard of.I bought one that was a Mosin-Nagant 7.62x54 caliber.The rifle was about $15.When I went to buy a box of ammo,Norma was the only company that sold it and it was $24. a box.

11b6r

The houses you could order from Sears were really neat- every stick of wood was already cut for a perfect fit- and was numbered. And if you owned a piece of land, Sears would finance the home for you.

And THAT damn near bankrupted Sears. They were heavily into the Sears house program- all kinds of different floor plans, sizes, business was BOOMING- and Hello Depression. Sears suddenly had a crap load of homes they were owed for, had to foreclose on- and could not sell them. Nobody had the money to buy a house.

The last Sears around Richmond VA closed about a year ago. K-Mart about 4 years or more. Funny thing is, Craftsman brand tools are still being sold. By Lowes.

gearheaddad

11b6r wrote:

The houses you could order from Sears were really neat- every stick of wood was already cut for a perfect fit- and was numbered. And if you owned a piece of land, Sears would finance the home for you.

And THAT damn near bankrupted Sears. They were heavily into the Sears house program- all kinds of different floor plans, sizes, business was BOOMING- and Hello Depression. Sears suddenly had a crap load of homes they were owed for, had to foreclose on- and could not sell them. Nobody had the money to buy a house.

The last Sears around Richmond VA closed about a year ago. K-Mart about 4 years or more. Funny thing is, Craftsman brand tools are still being sold. By Lowes.

I seem to remember reading somewhere that Sears almost tanked because they really couldn't do anything except repo a house. They didn't have any attachment to the property/land. So what good would it do to pay people to disassemble and truck a house back!
Kind of like throwing good money after bad.
I also read about and know of a Lustron Steel house.
Pretty cool history on those too...........At least I think its Lustron. Maybe from Indiana?
I'll have to look it up........

gruntled2

My son's first job was working for Sears a bit over 20 years ago. Back then the salesmen made good money on commissions. Then they decided to save money by going only to salary & all their best salesmen quickly left.

Sam06

Wife just told me the Sears at the Mall has been closed for several months. I didn't know that, just shows how much I go to the frickin Mall.

Too bad.

Wife says the Mall is looking at turning the Sears store into an office building because not many go to the mall to shop.

He Dog

My High Standard (the original HS) made .22 came from Sears in 1960. Those were the days, the recent version is the remaining dregs and no loss. They just could not keep up. Both have been gone here for about 3 years.

Sam06

Yep Sears sold good stuff back in the day.

I have a Sears Craftsman tool set from the early 70's my parents got me for x-mas. It was a mechanics tool set and was used but it has a lot of tools all SAE. I have an old Sears tune up box for checking old cars that have points, it measures dwell, timing has a timing gun all that old stuff. Come in handy when working on my 74 power wagon.

I bought a VW bug motor from Sears in the 70's to put in a Bug I bought with a shot motor.

I remember Sears had a great Camping section with all kinds of Camping equipment.

Was Coleman owned by Sears? I have a 2 burner stove and lantern my Dad got at Sears.

When I was a kid I always wanted to go in the Sears store to look at stuff like guns and tools.

Die Hard Batterys

Tires

Sears had it all...............mismanagement and not evolving destroyed them.

pulsarnc

The majority of my tools are craftsman brand. A fair number are 40 to 50 years old and still going strong . Working on farm machinery was tough on tools and the craftsman stood up to the job . Family always bought kenmore appliances over the years and they?d last forever. Sad to see them go . Both the sears and Kmart here have been closed for about two years or so

Quick&Dead

11b6r wrote:

The houses you could order from Sears were really neat- every stick of wood was already cut for a perfect fit- and was numbered. And if you owned a piece of land, Sears would finance the home for you.

And THAT damn near bankrupted Sears. They were heavily into the Sears house program- all kinds of different floor plans, sizes, business was BOOMING- and Hello Depression. Sears suddenly had a crap load of homes they were owed for, had to foreclose on- and could not sell them. Nobody had the money to buy a house.

The last Sears around Richmond VA closed about a year ago. K-Mart about 4 years or more. Funny thing is, Craftsman brand tools are still being sold. By Lowes.

Sears sold off the Craftsman brand of tools some years ago. Also some Craftsman branded tools were/are made in China .. like their 3/4" socket sets, etc. and are so marked.

Quick&Dead

Sam06 wrote:

Yep Sears sold good stuff back in the day.

I have a Sears Craftsman tool set from the early 70's my parents got me for x-mas. It was a mechanics tool set and was used but it has a lot of tools all SAE. I have an old Sears tune up box for checking old cars that have points, it measures dwell, timing has a timing gun all that old stuff. Come in handy when working on my 74 power wagon.

I bought a VW bug motor from Sears in the 70's to put in a Bug I bought with a shot motor.

I remember Sears had a great Camping section with all kinds of Camping equipment.

Was Coleman owned by Sears? I have a 2 burner stove and lantern my Dad got at Sears.

When I was a kid I always wanted to go in the Sears store to look at stuff like guns and tools.

Die Hard Batterys

Tires

Sears had it all...............mismanagement and not evolving destroyed them.

Sears never actually manufactured any of their products. They were made by a mfg company to specifications Sears drew up and low bidder got the contract. A Kenmore appliance was made by various major appliance mfgs .. depending on the year the contract was issued. Same with batteries, Die Hard was just the sears brand name :-)