The emergence of internet merchants such as Amazon has resulted in the demise of hundreds of stores around the country, ranging from mom-and-pop shops to big-box retailing behemoths. Few brands have suffered a sharper decline than Kmart.
S. S. Kresge founded the business in 1899, and it altered the way people bought, becoming one of the most omnipresent companies in the United States all the way up to the 1990s.
However, a New Jersey site announced its closure yesterday, leaving only three locations open. And folks who grew up in an era when Kmarts were ubiquitous…well, they’re not OK.
The downfall began in the 1990s, when Walmart began to gain prominence and Kmart began to establish a reputation for dirty storefronts and low-quality merchandise. They attempted to rebrand and diversify, but they were never able to fully recover, with most outlets closing by 2018.
Bright Sun Films provides a fair overview of Kmart’s fall below.
Among the moves that broke Kmart was a merger with Sears in 2004. Once the largest (Sears) and second-largest (Kmart) retailers in the U.S., the pair would now drag one another down. By the late 2010s, there weren’t many Sears stores left, either, and these days, both are owned by a holding company, having changed hands a few times since 2018.
