Fall Rivers, MA Big Kmart

New Harbour Mall Big Kmart 372 William S Canning Boulevard, Fall River, MA 02721

After reading a good Labelscar blog post on it, we had to share. Why? This is (supposedly) the only shopping center in the country with both a Wal-Mart and a Kmart sharing the same building! See our Mesa, AZ post about a Target and a Kmart in the same plaza (though separate buildings), and a Big Kmart and a Wal-Mart Supercenter sharing the same parking lot (literally feets from each other) in Gilette, WY. But supposedly this is the only example of Wal-Mart and Kmart in the same building... very surprised the Kmart still exists. The mall opened in 1970 with two anchors; Kmart opened in 1976 replacing Grant City, while Walmart opened around 2002, replacing the defunct mall anchor Bradlees.
The Labelscar post: http://www.labelscar.com/massachusetts/new-harbour-mall

Some pictures from websites:
An old (2001ish) one:


From the mall management website, note the Wal-Mart on the left and Kmart on the right.


There are more cars on the Wal-Mart side.

Other Cool Sites

Super Kmart pictures!
http://grocerying.blogspot.com/2009/11/last-super-kmart-centers-of-north.html
and
http://grocerying.blogspot.com/2007/10/super-kmart-center-southern-pines.html

And, for oldies, pics of a Big Kmart sign being removed:
http://www.morningsonmaplestreet.com/northadams34.html

Houston: A Sign of Things to Come?

Kmart exited (as in surrendered to the astounding numbers of Wal-Mart Supercenters and even the occasional SuperTargets) the Houston and southeast Texas market in its bankruptcy restructurings and massive store closings of 2002/2003. Here our blog takes a brief look at what is left now... mainly Sears stores! We are the Super Kmart Blogspot, but I suppose it wouldn't hurt to wander astray into a brief glimpse at Sears as well as some former Kmart locations.

Here is a former Big Kmart at Beltway 8 and Beechnut. It is now a thriving Asian shopping center anchored by VietHoa International Supermarket and Sun's Wholesale Club. Less than a block down the road, an Auchan Hypermarket also closed down, but don't worry, a Wal-Mart Supercenter has opened to replaced both... sadly.

A better pic from their website:



Here is a former Big Kmart in Sugar Land, next to First Colony Mall. The location is fantastic, as it is now also next to the Town Center, but I suppose the Kmart just did not attract enough crowds compared to the SuperTarget a couple blocks away, or perhaps it might've been profitable but was closed due to the entire Houston market exit. It is now subdivided into a bridal store, a shoe store, and others.



Here is a Sears Hardware store in Sugar Land/Stafford. The Randall's next to it closed a few years ago, as did an Albertsons across the street (when Albertsons also exited the entire Houston market several years ago), but a Wel-Farm supermarket still operates and a new H-E-B opened on the last street corner. Did you know that Sears is America's #1 volume tool retailer?


We didn't take pictures of the Sears at West Oak Mall or the Sears at Beechnut & US59 (the remains of a former Westwood Mall), but you can find some of those stores on LabelScar blog.

Finally, here is the Sears on Main/Fannin Downtown, a vintage look with a giant sign on top, complete with a really aging autocenter. Inside it's a little better, luckily.









Did you know that the only major retailer to offer all the top 10 brands of large consumer appliances is Sears? Well, kind of cheating since Kenmore is a proprietary brand...

Note the ads for Layaway on the TV screens; something Sears has re-implemented as a result of its supposed successes at Kmart.

Did you know that as America's #1 appliance retailer, Sears sold more major home appliances than Lowes and Home Depot combined in 2008? Quite surprising! Granted, Sears doesn't come close to owning almost 50% of the market which it did as little as 15 years ago, but it still is #1 as of now.
Kind of odd for a store to have a clock (see upper right corner, below):

Only a small number of pictures (none of the clothing sections, Craftsman tool headquarters, etc) because this isn't a Kmart, haha!

Next time: more Kmarts and the KmartWorld photo contest we entered!

Columbia Closing

This is a nice blog post with pictures of a Kmart store closing down in 2009 in Columbia, SC
http://columbiaclosings.com/wordpress/?p=502

Here's one (old) with several Iowa Kmart pictures
http://nathanbush.tripod.com/index.html

Mesa, AZ Kmart

Well, so originally the idea for this blog was to post original photos of a tour Kmart stores that this blog team visits. However, we think we're going to expand to include more "commentary" posts, company news and press releases (like the previous fashion Look Book post), and inclusion of photos drawn from around the 'web. Like this post. (Photos taken from Microsoft's Bing Maps Bird's Eye View and Google Maps, and this post from Holcombe of Hidalgo on Flickr)

Anyway, we were intrigued by this photo:
Yup. That's right. A Kmart and Target in the same shopping center. Maybe not so unusual for 2 to be in the same block. But next to each other? And without the Kmart shutting down??



Wow. so it is true! You can see below, a Kmart store (with fewer cars parked) is on the left, and a Target store (with more cars parked) is on the top right.



Not sure why the Kmart survived (still open as of Dec 2009) when strategy seemed to be close stores whenever competition moves in. However, it does look to be remodeled on the exterior, so perhaps that should teach management a lesson - remodeling is crucial for business! And, it seems a nice, remodeled Kmart CAN compete with a Target. Anyone know of any other places where a Kmart and a Walmart/Target are in the same plaza? If so, leave a comment and maybe we'll dedicate a post to you & your store! For example, there's one at 2150 S Douglas Hwy, Gillette, WY 82716 where the Big Kmart shares a parking lot with the Wal-Mart Supercenter. (What?? How is the Kmart still alive? What is the target shopping audience?)

(Photo from Holcombe of Hidalgo on Flickr, thanks!)


1445 South Power Roa Mesa, AZ 85206

Edit: By compete, we mean still exist. As in still in business post-bankruptcy (2002) and post-Sears merger (2005), since which over 1/3 of Kmart stores (only 1,300 stores remain in 2009 from over 2,114 pre-bankrupcty in 2002... but locations started closing in the late 1990's). To our (limited) knowledge, there have been no new Kmart store openings in the US since then. The only expansion could be a handful of new Sears Grand stores.

.

Spring 2010 Kmart Fashion Catalog

Now online... the spring 2010 Kmart Lookbooks!
Here's for clothing and purses:











And here's for shoes:



In case the pics don't link, here they are:

http://www.searsmedia.com/tools/gallery/lookbook/Kmart_Clothing_Lookbook_Spring_2010.pdf

http://www.searsmedia.com/tools/gallery/lookbook/Kmart_Shoes_Lookbook_Spring_2010.pdf

This year, Kmart has re-launched the Jaclyn Smith clothing line, introduced Al Harrington's Protege shoes, Nickelodeon's Dora the Explorer children's collection, continued with exclusive Joe Boxer and Route 66 brands, kept Disney apparel, and gotten a new fashion line from the US Polo Association, Thre3. However, it is ending its Martha Stewart contract.

FYI:
The Sears "LookBooks" here:
http://www.searsmedia.com/sears/look_books.htm

Happy shopping!
.

Franklin TN Big Kmart

Franklin Big Kmart
104 Watson Glen Shopping Center, Franklin, TN 37064

Wow! What can we say - on our visit in midweek afternoon in Sept 2009, we found this Big Kmart store to be surprisingly nice. The parking lot is well-paved, there are even some coverings for the shopping cart return spaces in the lot, and the building design looks like it was built pretty recently (for a Kmart, that is... ie probably sometime in the 1990s.) The demographics for the area are pretty upscale for Kmart - the average household income within a 5 mile radius is over $100,000 - not surprising that a Publix (formerly Albertsons) is across the street, but given this info, quite surprising that an Aldi is in the same plaza as the Kmart and a Big Lots is across another street. The site plan for the shopping center shows the Kmart clocks in around average for Kmarts, at 86,479 square feet (roughly half the size of a typical WalMart Supercenter but twice the size of a supermarket). The shopping center owner has info here http://www.centroprop.com/PropertyProfile_short.asp?ProjectID=PTNWATSN1 .


Anyway, back to the store. The shopping carts were very nice - they seemed pretty new and unlike the aging carts found at our visits to neighboring Nashville Kmart stores. The target population (at least on a midafternoon weekday visit) seemed to be middle/elderly white women, unlike Nolensville Pike Nashville Big Kmart, which seemed to target a more diverse but lower socioeconomic population. The garden center supplies overflowed into the parking lot, and a lot of flowers were blooming outside the store. A plethora of nice employees were available, including one greeting customers entering the store, and one who tried to help us duplicate a key in the electronics section. However, the manager came up and told us not to take any pictures inside the store (why not, is it illegal to shoot photos?!), so sadly we only have photos from the left half of the store and none from the right, which include the Garden Center, Pharmacy, Tools and Home Improvement, and Pantry Foods. While there were signs of things lost past (a Kodak film photo-developing drop kiosk was hidden behind a shelf, as film developing is no longer offered here), this was definitely one of the nicest Kmart stores we've been to, even though it was not one of those few lucky "Extreme Makeover Remodels" from 2008. At checkout, 2 cashier lanes were open and given the relative dearth of customers, we were stunned to have a choice of empty check-out lanes. At our previous visit to Donelson Pike Kmart by the Nashville Airport (on a weekend), there was only 1 cashier open and a long line started forming until they scrambled employees from elsewhere in the store to open another lane. We suppose it's difficult to balance cashier lanes, but Sears Holding (Kmart parent company) seriously needs to INVEST in CAPITAL IMPROVEMENTS especially in supply chain technology in order to predict customer trends and manage inventory as efficiently as Wal-Mart does. Sears Holding has invested a lot in the web-site shopping experience (even starting a hybrid online-real store service MyGopher), expanding selection tremendously, but in our opinion, because the web allows for extreme price comparison, Sears is not going to win against Amazon or WalMart, so some of this investment needs to be made in its stores!

Sorry, got off track. Here's the pictures of the exterior and from inside the left half of the store (clothing, sporting goods, shoes, electronics in the back, jewelry, furniture in the middle) before the manager asked us to stop taking photos.


The shopping center seemed nice, especially with the trees. It is offset from the main road, but seems too spread out for cross-customer-ization from one side (Aldi, Goody's, fitness center, etc) to the other (Kmart).


Wow, we rarely see shopping cart return covers! And the carts are pretty new and nice - no stuck or squeaky wheels!




Yay bicycles!

The entrance to the electronics section, manned by a helpful employee.


Bunk beds? The furniture selection was pretty large at this store.

Note the new Dora the Explorer kids' clothing line launch.

The inside of the store was well-stocked, clean, and overall, excellent for a Kmart. Indeed, because there aren't crowds of people "messing up"/misplacing merchandise, it's probably more organized than Target/WalMart. The downside: Christmas trees selling alongside Halloween costumes at the end of September! A mother had to tell her 2 little kids it wasn't nearly time for Christmas yet. At check-out, the cashier was friendly and we got nice surprises in that some items were cheaper than marked on the shelf. This seems to happen fairly often at Kmarts - the prices marked are not updated for the sales, so we are pleasantly surprised by price cuts. We pondered whether to go back to get more clearance items, such as a box of 4 heavy-duty ceramic dinner plates for $2 or wooden photo frames for $1, but decided not to. Kmart clearances definitely have extremely low prices, though!









The Garden Center and spillover into the parking lot.



Sorry there's no pictures of the pharmacy, etc, but hope you enjoyed this visit to this nice Big Kmart store! Overall, this Kmart store could probably compare favorably against Target and Wal-Mart (though Wal-Mart Supercenter has the extreme advantage of groceries - more on how Kmart dropped the ball with food in a later post). Enjoy!

Photos taken September 2009.