Attention Shoppers, America Is Down To The Last K Mart
Another one of Americas’ good old department stores is down to its last surviving store, and that won’t be around for long either. Yes, sadly it’s almost over for K Mart. They have been barely hanging on for the last 20 odd years because of stiff competition from stores like Walmart, Target and to some degree Kohls but mostly from the online superstore Amazon
Attention K Mart shoppers!
For anyone who ever shopped at Kmart you would be familiar with the blue light specials. The manager of the store would get on the sound system and alert, shoppers that there was a blue light special. That would usually mean a discount on whatever item they had too many of. But it has become iconic, and will be sadly missed as part of the American shopping lexicon
K mart just announced its last full-sized store in the U.S. is closing next month. The location in Bridgehampton, New York on Long Island will shut its doors October 20th.
A smaller K mart in Miami will be the last one operating in the lower 48. They also still have a few left in the U.S. Virgin Islands and Guam.
The first K mart opened in Garden City, Michigan in 1962, and by the early ’90s, there were over 2,300 K marts across the country. But they went bankrupt in 2002 and merged with Sears . . . then went bankrupt again in 2018.
Even the last location in Miami isn’t much of a K mart these days. They recently sub-leased most of it out to the home furnishing chain, At Home.
It’s kind of sad that this generation will not know what it was like to do there back to school shopping at Kmart. Of course, it wasn’t just for back to school. It was a store you probably would’ve popped into at least once or twice a month for either clothing, kitchen appliances, household goods, etc.
We only hope that there’s room in this country for a store similar to K Mart. After all, don’t we miss those blue light specials?
