Attention, Kmart Shoppers: You're About to Become a Thing of the Past

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Sometimes it’s easy to forget that there was a time when Walmart wasn’t ubiquitous. As a child of the ‘70s and ‘80s, we had plenty of other choices that aren’t available now.

In the town where we lived the first few years of my life, I remember a store called Zayre that my family frequented (I just learned that Zayre was the company that eventually launched TJ Maxx). When we moved to another town, there was a five-and-dime store called TG&Y in a neighboring town where my mom and her cousin occasionally shopped. We also had Harper’s Discount Store as a local shopping option.

But the gold standard — or the blue-light special standard — was Kmart. That was the store that had it all! Going to Kmart as a kid was almost an adventure. Our Kmart initially sat in the heart of town, and it was where everybody would go for a bargain.

When you were at Kmart, you never knew when the next announcement of “Attention, Kmart Shoppers” would alert you to the next blue-light special, designed to draw your attention to a specific department where even more special deals awaited. Kmart had food, clothing, and electronics, all at prices that were hard to beat.

I can still sing the jingle the store used to play over the PA system. “Kmart is your savings store / Where your dollar buys you more.”

Walmart came to town in 1983 or ’84, and it provided competition that Kmart couldn’t keep up with. Kmart moved to a new shopping center closer to the interstate shortly after that, but it wasn’t the same. That location closed for good a few years ago.

Just like Zayre, TG&Y, and Harpers, Kmart is about to become a thing of the past. The last full-size Kmart store in the continental U.S. is closing on October 20. When the store in Bridgehampton, N.Y., closes, Kmart will only have a small location in Miami that isn’t a full-sized store, as well as a few locations in the U.S. Virgin Islands and Guam.

“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 U.S. retailer to take that step — and announced it would close more than 250 stores,” reports the Associated Press.

It’s a long fall from grace for a chain that had over 2,000 stores at one time. With roots going back to the 19th century and the S.S. Kresge Co., the Kmart brand debuted in 1962 and dominated retail for years. But it wasn’t just Walmart and Target that spelled doom for Kmart; the advent of Amazon changed the way people shop for some of the staples that stores like Kmart used to provide.

Kmart and Sears merged in 2005, but instead of giving the two struggling chains needed support, the deal helped the iconic brands sink further into despair. The combined entity filed for bankruptcy in 2018.

“At the time of the 2005 merger Kmart had about 1,400 stores and Sears nearly 900 full-line U.S. stores,” reports CNN, which later adds, “When the retailer emerged from bankruptcy it still had 231 Sears and 191 Kmart stores, but those were also almost all doomed. Today only a handful of Sears stores remain.”

It’s easy to speculate what Kmart could have done to change its fortunes, but we can’t go back in time to remedy any of it. And now a memorable brand name for Boomers, Gen Xers, and older Millennials is falling by the wayside. The Miami location is little more than a convenience store, which leaves no proper Kmart locations on the mainland, and that’s a sad ending to a long story.