Do You Shop At Sears Or Kmart? A List Of The Stores That Are Closing

[Winchester]

Is your Sears or Kmart closing? Here's the list

We haven't had a Sears store now for quite a while (nor do we have a JCP anywhere close to us anymore). Our KMart is on that list now, which doesn't bother me because we gave up shopping at KMart a long time ago.

Our local mall is pretty much dying at this point. Sears and JCP, both anchor stores, have closed. We were down yesterday and several fast food places are gone. Other stores, like Christopher and Banks, left the mall, but opened up a new store right up the road at another shopping development. That development has PetSmart, Best Buy, Staples, Kohl's, Targets, Dick's, BB & B, the Giant, etc.

How are your local malls doing? And did you shop at Sears and/or KMart?

 

[blueyedgirl5946]

Our K Mart store, which was at the mall, has been closed many years. There has never been anything else in that nice big addition to the mall. The Sears store is mostly appliances and has always been that way. Our JCP might as well close. The store has looked bare for about a year. Not much to be found there. We are getting some new stores which will include a Ross store.

 

[rubysmama]

Malls around here are struggling too. Sears Canada has just gone into bankruptcy, so all Sears stores will be closing. That will leave one of our malls with a section of empty space on 3 floors. Except for buying my new washer and dryer at Sears last year, I rarely shopped there anymore. And, yes, that extended warranty I bought was a waste of money.

K-Mart closed in Canada years ago. Target tried to make a go of it up here, and lasted just over a year, I think. The only "department store" around here now is Walmart.

Many smaller stores are leaving the malls and going to the business parks. Those are fine in good weather, but malls are still better during winter and rainy days.

 

[muffy]

I have not been inside my mall in years. I just can't do all of that walking. From the outside I can see that we still have a Macy's and a Sears which are the only two stores I shop. When I shop at those stores I go through the outside doors and not through the mall.

I like Macy's clothes and Sears clothes and appliances. I need a new fridge, stove and maybe a new dish washer and I plan to buy them at Sears. All of my appliances have come from Sears and I would really miss them if they closed. I've been shopping at Sears all of my life.

Our K-Mart left years ago and I don't miss them at all. I'm quite happy shopping at Wal-Mart.
Ellen

 

[denice]

I don't have a Sears, Kmart, or Penny's close to me. The closest conventional mall to me is really struggling. I haven't been there in a long time but I know they have lost all their anchor stores, Sears and Penny's were two of them. They opened up Easton Center close to me. It is like a small town and is built to look like a British town or what we think of as a British town. They have everything there which was the final nail in the Eastland Mall's coffin. They don't have a Sears, Penney's or Kmart there. In the center are the expensive stores like Burberry's. The outer ring is stores like Macy's. That is where Trader Joe's is along with every possible restaurant. In a ring just outside of the Macy's ring are the stores like Petsmart, Bed Bath and Beyond, Ulta and Bath and Body Works. That is also where the fast food places are.

 

[Draco]

KMart closed years ago around here.

Sears is barely hanging on in one mall, it's terrible. I'm surprised it's not on the list to be closed.

Another is pretty strong in another area (not attached to a mall, but in a high-end area).

 

[handsome kitty]

Our closest mall has been getting a makeover the last year or two. Has a JC Penny (doing ok), a Sears (not sure it’s doing well), a Macy’s and a Lord and Taylor. They’ve added a new movie theater with recliner seats and a bunch of restaurants. Rent must have gone up since a few stores closed during renovations and then took away the store the local rescue was using to showcase cats ready for adoption.

 

[neely]

We still have a JC Penney, Sears and K-Mart store but honestly I don't know for how much longer. Being a native Chicagoan I'm more distraught over Macy's replacing the grand and stately Marshall Field's. They not only changed the name but the store itself and not for the better. Field's was a tradition and State St. icon. Times may change but for those of us who grew up in Chicago I still boycott Macy's and choose to shop elsewhere because I can be as capricious and fickle as I like.

 

[denice]

Macy's bought out Lazarus in this area.

 

[Mother Dragon]

Most of our mauls (sic) are doing pretty well. The closest one still has Sears, JCP, Nordstrom Rack, two Macy's (one regular and the other is furniture, I think), plus Dillard's, which is just a micro-cut below Macy's. Most of the usual stores are there, too, at least those for the working folks. To my husband's delight and my consternation, it has an Apple Store. It has about 160 stores and a really fancy movie theatre.

We have one mega-mall that's very, very upscale, anchored by Neiman-Marcus, Nordstrom, Saks, and a few others. Most of the stores are way out of the real person's price range, with lots of the designer stores. A few days ago a couple stole a 17 thousand dollar purse. Yes, I said 17 THOUSAND. The mall is three levels with an ice skating rink in the middle, and has crossovers to another block or two. There are over 400 stores and restaurants in the 4th-largest mall in the US. It has two hotels and three office towers. It's a big shopping area for rich tourists, especially those from Mexico. A long time ago, we were looking around one day when they still had a Sharper Image store we liked and I heard no less than 13 different foreign languages in about an hour. Believe me, we don't shop there!

One mall, Greenspoint, has completely failed and is supposed to be redeveloped for some weird purpose. I doubt it'll happen since the area has been nicknamed Gunspoint. It fits.

Off-price malls as a whole don't do well here. We have two successful ones and several failing ones.

K-Mart left Houston many, many years ago. Sears has closed two stores and will close a third because after about 65 years, it lost its lease. I loved the old-fashioned look of that one.

There are a large number of strip malls with Ross, T. J. Maxx, and Marshall's. They're everywhere, like toadstools.

Believe it or not, they've closed quite a few Starbucks around here.

It's a new shopping world every day.

 

[Margret]

I checked the list; the only one in my state is a Sears in a small university town a good deal north of me.

The mall closest to me still has a Sears; I got my latest pair of glasses there, and my most recent underwear. However, when I was looking for pants I discovered that there is a small sub-store inside the Sears, being run by a completely different company, which would not honor my Sears coupons.

The anchor stores are Sears, Nordstroms, Pennys, and one other; I don't remember the name. Macy's perhaps? Definitely a high end department store; I don't shop there often because the prices are too high. We used to have a Montgomery Ward in that spot, but it's long gone. They just finished remodeling the entire mall; lost a lot of customers while they were doing it, and some smaller stores relocated elsewhere, but they seem to be getting new ones to fill those spots.

The other mall near us has had some major setbacks in the last year. It's a very high end mall, and quite large, but somebody goofed; the roof wasn't designed to shed snow properly. We had a major snow storm in the spring, and the roof couldn't take the burden. It caved in, dumping cold/frozen water in most of the stores. All the people got out okay, but there were only a few stores undamaged so the mall had to close down while they rebuilt the roof. Most of the people who worked there went out and got new jobs, but they say they'll be re-opening in time for Christmas shopping so I guess they think they'll be able to find enough people to staff the stores. One of the major anchors there is/was (I don't know what things will look like when they re-open) a gigantic Target. They had some good specialty clothing stores, a perfume shop, a few other places I wouldn't mind re-visiting. We'll see.

I remember when they built the first two shopping malls in Colorado, and both of those have been replaced with other things; basically high end stand-alone stores and expensive parking. I don't visit those areas often, and when I do it's to visit one specific store; I don't stick around and window shop because it isn't worth feeding a meter, nor is it worth the extra steps to feed the meter. I strongly suspect that I'm not the kind of clientele they're looking for anyway.

I can still find a K-Mart when I feel the need, but the one near us has been closed for at least a decade I believe. A lot of Radio Shacks have been closing, as well, though the one in my local mall was still open at last report.

Margret

 

[rubysmama]

Further to my post from the other day, we do still have another department store in the area. The Bay, aka Hudson's Bay Co, still exists. Obviously I don't shop there much, since I totally forgot about it.

 

[MoochNNoodles]

KMart was closed here a few years ago but our Sears is safe. My best friend in high school worked for Kmart. The store always had this smell to it. It was closed for a couple years before they turned it into 2 separate stores. I went in one a couple months ago for the first time. It still has that smell.

I just got DD's Christmas dress at Sears. They weren't packed on a Tuesday evening; but they had customers and I had to wait in line to pay. I've had a bad experience trying to order a dress off their website; but in store I've always had good experiences with them.

 

[Willowy]

I believe the last K-Mart in the area closed last year. I didn't mind; the K-Marts were always dirty, understocked, and overpriced. Walmart and Target are better. Sears in Sioux Falls seems to be doing OK. They're in the mall. The big mall in Sioux Falls is under new ownership and they've made a lot of changes. It was pretty crummy for a while there, but now it seems to be doing OK. And there's a new strip mall with Hobby Lobby, Ross, and Marshalls/HomeGoods.

The mall in Yankton is just about dead. The JC Penney recently closed and there are maybe 3 stores left. I think the owner wants to sell the property or tear down the mall and put up apartments or something.

 

[MoochNNoodles]

I think strip malls seem to be doing better these days. Maybe people don't want to walk just to get to one store. Our mall isn't "dead" but it's not full either. The owners are planning an expansion to the property. The new stores will be more in a strip-mall format and it's supposed to have direct access from the interstate. They hope to draw more people to the area that way. Just up the road from the mall they turned an old Walmart into a strip mall and it's actually very nice. They brought some variety to the area. I think that helps a lot too. We tend to have repeats of chain restaurants we already have nearby.

 

[tabbysia]

The Kmart in my town closed down several years ago and was eventually replaced with a JC Penney. I like JC Penney, but trying to shop there at Christmas time is INSANE. I liked Kmart better because I enjoyed getting a cherry Icee and a soft pretzel or popcorn after I was done shopping--can't do that at JCP. I can't do that at Target anymore either because they took out the food and drink area and replaced it with a Starbucks. I hate coffee. Stupid Target!

As for Sears, I think there is still one about half an hour away from where I live, but I have not set foot in that store for at least a decade.

 

[denice]

The Target close to me put in a Starbucks but they still have the food and drink area with it. They have the ICEEs, sodas with different flavor syrups, hot dogs and individual pizzas. They have it all together. They put in the self checkout which helps a lot. That Target anyway had the same issues as KMart did with the slow checkout. I go there more now since they put in the self checkout.

 

[Kat0121]

We still have a Sears and a JC Penney in our mall. We also have a Kmart but I have not stepped foot in it in many years. It's a nasty store. Always dirty, nothing is where it should be and the prices were never better than WM or Target IMO. It's also clear across town and isn't worth the drive. I haven't shopped in Sears or JCP in a while either. I always thought it was a mistake for Sears to take on Kmart.

 

[Kat0121]

The Target close to me put in a Starbucks but they still have the food and drink area with it. They have the ICEEs, sodas with different flavor syrups, hot dogs and individual pizzas. They have it all together. They put in the self checkout which helps a lot. That Target anyway had the same issues as KMart did with the slow checkout. I go there more now since they put in the self checkout.

Our Target has both too. I am not a fan of Starbucks though. Their coffee is the three "O's"

1. Overpriced
2. Overrated
3. Over-roasted

I had bought their ground vanilla coffee a few years ago and it was AWFUL.It tasted like chemicals from the artificial flavoring. I sent an email to corporate and they sent me some coupons for free drinks. I brought one into the Target location and the girl behind the counter was a real about it. She interrogated me about where I had gotten it and who sent it to me. I still had the envelope and the "we're sorry" letter in my purse. She read it and I got the drink but she still acted like I had made them myself at home.

I'm a Dunkin' Donuts fan. Their iced coffees and iced teas are so good!

 

[denice]

I like their lattes. I don't care for any of their coffee just their espresso drinks. I got a Nespresso machine and make my own lattes now. The pods for the machine are expensive but I figure I am making my own for about half the price of lattes at Starbucks.