Smallest Kmarts and Iowa Spotlight!

So most Kmart stores are 1 story (and aging...) - but there are some, like 2 in New York City, one in Philadelphia, one in Southbury CT, and one in Los Angeles, that are 2+ floors.

The average sales per square foot in 2009 at Sears stores was $111 and at Kmart stores $107, compared with $280 at Target and $416 at Wal-Mart, according to retail research firm Kantar Retail. So that got us thinking, where are the smallest Kmart stores?

We compiled a list of what we think are the smallest Kmart stores by area! This is probably quite accurate - if anyone who works at Sears Holdings has the list, feel free to comment. Here are the smallest 25 Kmart stores by square foot. The "average" Big Kmart store size is 90,000 ish square feet, with a range of probably 80,000 - 125,000. (Walmart Supercenters range almost 200,000 square feet.) Some former Super Kmarts now without groceries stand at around 180,000+ square feet. Probably one of the biggest that was not formerly a Super K is the 143,471 sqft Manhattan NY store - the only 3 story Kmart, we think! (And it has nearly 2.5 million people living in a 5 mile radius!) These smallest ones are all under 60,000 square feet (even some big supermarkets are larger than them!) and most are in rural areas where Wal-Mart is not in town.

Unofficial Rank - Store Number - City - Square Feet - Population (5 mile radius) - Address

1. 9243 Red Oak, Iowa - 39798 - 6,157
2501 N Broadway, Red Oak IA 51566












The store seems to be in a somewhat random location, and lacks much signage/visibility from the highways. It survives probably because the nearest Walmart is in the next town over. The only Kmart under 40,000 square feet.

2. 9233 Oelwein, IA - 40007 - 8,328
2105 S Frederick Ave, Oelwein IA 50662










3. 9030 Peru IN - 40165 - 20,022
11 Sherwood Square, Peru IN 46970

4. 9222 Cherokee IA - 40312 - 5,487
1111 N 2nd St, Cherokee IA 51012


5. 9261 - Glenwood Springs, CO - 40318 - 8,571
51027 US 6, Glenwood Springs CO 81601

(photo taken 2004 from Flickr user phuzz_ott)

(SHC)
Wow, the signage hasn't been updated in what, 30 years?

6. 9238 - Raton NM - 40327 - 5,193
1235 S 2nd St, Raton NM 87740

(SHC)

7. 9264 - Tucumcari NM - 40334 - 5,598
2100 E Tucumcari Blvd, Tucumcari NM 88401

(from Marik_8705 Photobucket)

(older photo from Flickr user ukslim)

7. 9237 - Smithfield NC - 40334 - 25,440
950 W Market St, Smithfield NC 27577

(SHC)

9. 9274 - Greenwich NY - 40537 - 8,423
1251 State Rte 29, Glens Falls NY 12834





10. 9306 - Glendive MT - 40800 - 6,806
1515 W Bell St, Glendive MT 59330

This store was built in 1980 and reports sales of around $200/sq ft in 2006. (That's around double the national Kmart average, but then again, this store is half the size. An estimated $10 million annually in sales)

10. 9309 - Webster City IA - 40800 - 8,192
2307 Superior St, Webster City IA 50595


10. 9319 - Alliance NE - 40800 - 7,464
1515 W 3rd St, Alliance NE 69301

(SHC)

13. 7109 - Watertown CT - 45466 - 119,611
595 Straits Tpke, Torrington CT 06795



(from Flickr user XISMZERO)
At last check, this Kmart still has the 1970's retro design - well not retro, but just original, non-updated!

14. 9521 - Madawaska ME - 49650 - 4,123
417 Main St, Madawaska ME 04756

(from user ArmandC on Panoramio)

15. 9255 - Palmer MA - 50479 - 28,112
Wilbraham St, Palmer MA 01069

(photos from Flickr user KaizenVerdant)


16. 9147 - Newburyport MA - 50677 - 54,973
45 Storey Ave, Newburyport MA 01950

From the aerial photo, this Kmart has new signage and a lot of cars - both generally signs of a prosperous store!

(SHC)


17. 9146 - Great Barrington MA - 50730 - 8,447
546 Stockbridge Rd, Pittsfield MA

(from Flickr user KaizenVerdant)

18. 9121 - Madisonville KY - 52278 - 21,923
50 Madison Square Dr, Madisonville KY 42431

(SHC)

19. 9557 - Grayling MI - 52504 - 5,519
2425 S I-75 Business Loop, Grayling MI 49738

20. 9124 - Elwood IN - 52579 - 15,236
1519 State Rd 37 S Anderson IN 46036


21. 9186 - Grand Blanc, MI - 52996 - 65,757
12730 S Saginaw St, Flint MI 48439



(SHC)

22. 7916 - Eureka CA - 55238 - 42,557
4325 Broadway, Eureka CA 95503

(from Flickr user Romleys)

22. 9797 - Scotts Valley CA - 55238 - 60,716
270 Mount Hermon Rd, Scotts Valley CA 95066



A new facade and a relatively busy store in a relatively populous area - wonder why it's so small...

24. 9532 - Effingham IL - 55552 - 17,908
1006 N Keller Dr, Effingham IL 62401

(by Spiderweb24 on Panoramio)

(SHC)

24. 9680 - West Frankfort IL - 55552 - 13,895
3 West Frankfort Plaza, West Frankfort IL 62896

(SHC)

Unofficial Rank - Store Number - City - Square Feet - Population (5 mile radius) - Address


And to wrap it up, some links to good photos by FourStarCashierNathan of Iowa!

Ames, IA
http://www.flickr.com/photos/fourstarcashiernathan/sets/72157622472682985/


Carroll IA
http://www.flickr.com/photos/fourstarcashiernathan/sets/72157623359798679/


Cedar Rapids, IA
http://www.flickr.com/photos/fourstarcashiernathan/sets/72157622575169169


Marshalltown, IA
http://www.flickr.com/photos/fourstarcashiernathan/sets/72157619427908590/


Mason City IA
http://www.flickr.com/photos/fourstarcashiernathan/sets/72157624156230478/


Webster City IA
http://www.flickr.com/photos/fourstarcashiernathan/sets/72157622607533438/


Thanks for reading!
*many photos taken from Microsoft Bing Maps and websites by Fourstarcashiernathan (links provided above)

Kwash

Iowa City, Iowa

The laundromat, part of what parent company Sears Holdings Corp. calls its "test-and-learn philosophy," will have 31 washers and 30 dryers, free high-speed wireless Internet access, a wash-and-fold drop-off service, and a rewards system for frequent users. The laundromat also has a full-service Kmart register.
(Photo from the SunTimes)

Kwash will have the largest loaders in the area, ranging in size from 18 pounds, to 30, 40, 60, and 80-pound washers, and prices will vary accordingly. For instance, the 30-pound washer will cost $2.97 a load, while the 60-pound washer will be $5.97. He said the rates are competitive, but no one will be able to match the convenience of shopping and getting the laundry done simultaneously. Time is money. (And MyGofer.com service in-store)

See full article from WalletPop: http://srph.it/bB1V78


Interesting concept... small steps, but still not going to be a "big hit" companywide though.

Also, SHLD reports Q1 2010 results. Kmart gross margins 24.3% with SG&A 21.8% (Selling/General Admin Expenses) with 1,320 stores as of May 1 2010, down from 1,364 a year ago. (comparison, Sears US is 30.3% gross margin 27.1% SG&A and down to 907 from 926 stores)


Anyway, next time, we'll spotlight the top 10 smallest Kmarts, coincidentally many of which are in Iowa.

Fremont, Ohio Super Kmart Center

Fremont Super Kmart Center

Store # 3784

1825 N STATE RTE 19
Fremont, OH - 43420

In a small "average middle-class American" Ohio city, this almost 17 year old Kmart Supercenter remains in business, one of the few dozen surviving Kmart Supercenters left in 2010 after hundreds (well, maybe there were once that many, but Kmart never did successfully exploit the hypermarket grocery superstore concept) have been closed this past decade. On a visit, this Super Kmart had several cashiers open and was doing brisk business for a Kmart - though significantly less than a Walmart. However, the volume of traffic is still much less than the peak of Kmart in the early 1990s - indeed, back then Kmart was a retail force as this Kmart opened 3 years after a Walmart opened in Fremont. Now the Walmart has become a supercenter and draws a lot more crowds.

The layout involves the electronics, garden center, sporting goods, and apparel on the right side of the store, with the pharmacy and health section in the front left, bakery/deli and groceries in the middle left, and meats/seafood/produce in the back left. The other departments fill the rest of the store. There are two main customer entrances, one on either side of the row of cashiers in the middle. In front of the cashiers include customer service, Olan Mills portrait studio, Coinstar and Lotto machines, Western Union money orders, video rentals, etc.

Note: store right/left side is defined here as seen when standing in the parking lot and looking at the store. All pictures in this post copyright owners of SuperKmart blog.

View from the air. Copyright owners of SuperKmart blog 2009.

Sign from the main highway (20/6/53 Grand Army of the Republic)


View of the back of the store from the highway exit onto Route 19 N Oak Harbor Rd


View from State Route 19, the only entrance into the Super K Center. Note the garden center overflow in the parking lot.


The sign says Open 24 Hours.


The main store front.



The right entrance leads to apparel/electronics.



View facing the middle of the store from the right entrance. 16 cashier lanes!


The right entrance.



Kmart's expanding apparel lineup.


Toys in the main back aisleway.


Looking toward the front of the store. Super Kmart Center salutes our Ohio vendors.


The left side of the store with the perishable foods in the corner.



The produce selection isn't the best, but not bad for a Kmart.


Refridgerated/freezer cases



One can order cakes online at SuperKmart.com


There were freshly baked products available.


Looking toward the front of the store from the left side.


Wow, more than 4 cashier lanes were open midday weekend!


The Shop Your Way program has promotional signage.


The Customer Service "Super Stars of Super K" at the front of the store.









From a 2010 visit


Here's an interesting archive article about the opening of this store.

Nowadays, the major direct competition nearby is a Walmart that became "supercenter-ized" in 2005 - quite surprising that the Kmart is still open 5 years later. There are, to the best of our knowledge, no Targets, Costcos, Sears, or BJ's nearby, so there's only the Walmart, some Krogers and a handful of small independent grocers, and the ubiquitous drugstores. Still surprising the Kmart is surviving the many rounds of cuts that have winnowed down the Super K ranks.

A quick Comparison:

Fremont Wal-Mart Supercenter

2052 state Route 53, Fremont, Ohio

Open: 1990 as 130,152 sq ft Store, Re-opened April 2005 as 211,350 Supercenter

Features include (as of 2005): Portrait studio, Garden Center, Auto Service, Hair salon, pizza store, vision center, drive thru pharmacy

Employment (as 2005): Around 320 Full time jobs and 80 part time jobs

Check-out lanes: 20 cashiers, 8 express lane cashiers, and 8 self-checkout lanes (36 total)

The 47^th Walmart Supercenter in Ohio (not including 69 discount stores and 27 Sam’s Clubs in OH as of 2005)

Open 24 hrs

Fremont Super Kmart Center

Store # 3784

1825 N STATE RTE 19
Fremont, OH 43420

Open: Aug 1993 as 173,046 sq ft Kmart Supercenter (8^th Super K in the USA)

Features include (as of 2010): Garden Shop, Pharmacy, Olan Mills Portrait Studio, Video Center, Lotto, Western Union Money, Deli/Bakery

Employment: estimated 100-190 (My guess is 184)

Check-out lanes: 16

Open 24 hrs

# of Kmart Supercenters in the USA: 47 in 2009, 32 in 2010 (estimate)

www.superkmart.com

Cool Walmart Growth Visualization

http://flowingdata.com/2010/04/07/watching-the-growth-of-walmart-now-with-100-more-sams-club/

The success of a well-run (and by some measures, the world's largest) company.

Walmart facts as of Feb 2010

Retail Units Worldwide 8,423

US Retail Units 4,361:
Walmart U.S. stores 810
Supercenters 2,756
Sam’s Clubs 605
Neighborhood Market 184
Marketside 4
Supermercado 2

International Retail Units 4,062

Company History
First Walmart opened in 1962 (Rogers, AR)
First Sam’s Club opened in 1983 (Midwest City, OK)
First Supercenter opened in 1988 (Washington, MO)
First International unit opened in 1991 (Mexico City)
First Neighborhood Market opened in 1998 (Bentonville, AR)
First Marketside stores opened in 2008 (Chandler, Gilbert, Mesa and Tempe, AZ)
First Supermercado store opened in 2009 (Houston, Texas)

and back to Kmart.
In other news... the first Sears Fashion Outlet has opened at the Discovery Mills Mall in Lawrenceville, GA. Discount/out of season/overstock brands include Sears Holdings exclusives Lands' End, Dockers, Apostrophe, Country Living and Cannon at bargain hunter prices.

An interesting diversion that could be successful, but probably not completely essential/relevant to the core business or need to improve Sears Holdings often mysterious or poorly planned/executed ideas...

Kmart merchandising

As you can see, the number of full-line (normal) Sears stores, Kmart stores, Super Kmart Centers, and some other minor brands (Sears Grand/Essentials, Sears Hardware, Great Indoors) have decreased. The number of franchisee-type Sears Hometown stores has increased, as has Lands' End kiosks inside Sears. We will see how the decision to make exclusive brands such as Craftsman available to other retailers will bode for Sears.

The exclusive Country Living home collection has replaced Martha Stewart Everyday lineup in Kmart stores. It's tough being in the shadows of Walmart and Target, especially when it comes to dealing with suppliers (for example, Walmart accounts for over 21% of sales for some consumable companies like Kelloggs), but Kmart does still have around 1,300 stores and $16 billion in sales a year. Indeed, Kmart is over a third of Sears Holdings and while Sears Holdings has lost almost a third of its share in the $2.99 trillion retail market to 1.4% last year from 2.1% before Kmart and Sears merged, it is still big. (For comparison, Wal-Mart's share jumped to 10.2% from 8.7%)

Kmart is launching an exclusive apparel line with Disney Channel teen star Selena Gomez - trying to raise the coolness factor of its clothing lineup to be more in line with popular Target or even the Miley Cyrus line at Walmart. In fact, the Gomez/ Dream Out Loud line sales are hoped to be around $100 million for the launch year!

For its exclusive adult clothing line-up, Kmart is pushing a relaunched classy Jaclyn Smith brand for women, described as “classic feminine styling, quality fabrics and ease of fit". The attention brand is for sophisticated, contemporary looks. The Route 66 brand is for jeans and vintage looks. For men, exclusive brands include golf-style Top Flite and Piper and Blue casualwear.

All in all, Kmart's clothing department seems to be getting more souped up, trying to be as "cool" as Target while boasting "Everyday Great Prices". A dedicated website, Kmartdesign.com , shows off Kmart's 250+ design team. It seems this part is working... nicer clothes at affordable prices, and for stores that are nice inside, it should be a success. The only issue would be if aging stores still remain off-putting for people to venture inside - something management does not think is a problem but most Wall Street analysts deride (lack of capital reinvestment in store remodelings). We'll see who is right...


Sources:
http://industry.bnet.com/retail/10008505/why-selena-gomez-may-not-be-kmarts-next-cash-cow/
http://industry.bnet.com/retail/10008566/kmart-bets-that-jaclyn-smith-can-kick-martha-stewart%E2%80%99s-posterity/
http://www.marketwatch.com/story/kmart-counts-on-rebuilding-consumer-demand-2010-04-15

Bigg's to close

Market Watch:
Cincinnati based Bigg's will close 5 hypermarkets and sell the remaining 6 large supermarkets to local Remke Markets. Bigg's, which some have described as a more upscale Walmart Supercenter selling everything from fresh produce to apparel, had around a 5% grocery market share in 2009 in the Cincy area, falling behind hometown giant Kroger and WM. Supervalu Corp, which owns biggs, ostensibly is selling the chain for cash given their relatively large debt ever since the Albertsons acquisition, but this also signifies that the Biggs supercenters were probably not as competitive with Walmarts and the like...
I'm sure many will miss you, bigg's!

Comparisons against Walmart

Walmart, the world's largest retailer, now accounts for 21% of the grocery/foods market share in the US, larger than the next 3 largest competitors (such as Kroger, Costco, and Safeway) combined. Almost 90% of Americans have shopped in a Walmart in the past year, an astoundingly high (and inspiring for any business) number. What about regular weekly customers? Here's something from Supermarket News:

	PERCENTAGE OF WEEKLY SHOPPERS 2009	% CHANGE 2008-09
Conventional supermarkets	43.5%	+2.4
Warehouse clubs	9.2%	+1.1
Target general merchandise stores	8.8%	+1.1
Kmart/Big Kmart/Kmart Super Center	4.7%	+1.0
Walmart Supercenter	28.7%	+0.8
SuperTarget	5.4%	+0.5
Walmart discount stores	10.5%	+0.5
Dollar stores/small-format value retailers	14.8%	+0.4
Extreme-value/price-impact supermarkets	9.3%	+0.3
Health/natural supermarkets	4.9%	+0.2
Drug stores	20.6%	-0.6
Specialty food stores/neighborhood specialty markets	6.9%	-1.1
Convenience stores — gasoline purchase	41.1%	-2.2
Convenience stores — merchandise purchase	16.4%	-2.3

SOURCE: Retail Forward ShopperScape (survey of 4,000 consumers who are primary shoppers for their households)

Parsippany NJ Kmart/Sears

Big Kmart, erm, Sears Essentials, erm soon to be kmart
808 US 46, Parsippany NJ

Well, it seems like perhaps the first new Kmart will be opened in almost a decade. Oh wait, it was a Kmart. Never mind, just converting a Sears Essentials (that was itself converted from a Big Kmart) back to the Kmart banner. (See our previous blog post on the miserable failure that Sears Essentials is/was. Great potential, terrible execution...) I wonder if this "conversion" will involve a major makeover, or just some cheap new signage. Hopefully, they will use this opportunity to explore with fresh & appealing designs (aka Walmart's "Project Impact") and add an expanded grocery section (aka Target's "pFresh"), but cross your fingers, for Sears management isn't particularly known for retail ingenuity in the 21st century. In other random news, a newspaper article from Columbia, TN states that Sears is replacing its closing mall store... with a Hometown franchisee a couple blocks away. Uh, sure a Sears Hometown store is better than no Sears, but a Hometown store is a fraction of the size...


From the Dailyrecord.com:
PARSIPPANY — Sears Holdings Corp. confirmed on Thursday that it was converting its Sears Essentials store in Parsippany back to a Kmart. The building at Arlington Plaza on Route 46 West was built and opened in 1998 as a flagship Kmart store, which was featured in a high-profile national advertisement that also included a staged parade in Boonton led by Penny Marshall and Rosie O'Donnell. It was rebranded as a Sears Essentials store after Kmart Holdings Corp. purchased Sears, Roebuck and Co. in 2005, creating the company known as Sears Holdings Corp.

"We found that the popularity of Kmart resonated better with the customers, so we are changing it back," said Sears Holdings Corp. spokesperson Kim Freely.

Freely said the store will close for two days following the liquidation sale that began on Sunday. It will then soft-open as a Kmart on March 24, with the grand opening scheduled for May 28.

"And we'll be adding a layaway program, sporting goods, hosiery and jewelry," Freely said