Attention Kmart Shoppers: The Rise and Fall of America's First Big Discounter

by Ben Schultz

In 1989, Kmart was the biggest discount store chain in America. It could be found almost anywhere, in small towns and big cities and mid-sized suburbs from coast to coast. By 2002, Kmart was bankrupt. The company had fallen into third place behind Wal-Mart and Target, which were less than one-tenth the size of Kmart twenty years before. How did Kmart grow to become one of the nation’s most dominant retailers, and then lose it all in, the span of just a few decades? Attention Kmart Shoppers has the full story, from the chain’s founding as an arm of the Kresge variety store company in 1962, all the way down to the five Kmart stores that are still in business today.

Genres: Business, History

260 pages, Paperback

Published March 12, 2025

Reviews

[Kurt]

Encyclopedic listing of dates and business misfortunes of Kmart. Well sourced and documented. This is not a deep dive into all the relevant personalities and/or business fubars that drove Kmart into the ground. That would be an entertaining read as Kmart’s history is certainly populated with marginally talented screwups. Do not expect Barbarians at the Gate — no blue light special here. A decent and certainly–not– great history of the longest going out of business sale in American retail. Just like Kmart, get in and get the hell out.

[Abdul]

Ben Schultz’s Attention Kmart Shoppers: The Rise and Fall of America's First Big Discounter is an unputdownable, impeccably researched account of a retail icon's rise and tragic demise.

The book’s well-curated illustrations—ranging from original advertisements to floor maps—vividly contextualize how Kmart blundered while laying bare the ultimate lesson of modern commerce: complacency is deadly.

To survive, businesses must remain vigilant, constantly innovating to meet shifting consumer demands. Instead, Kmart lost its focus by sprawling into unrelated ventures, while competitors like Walmart and Target maintained a laser-like focus on perfecting the discount retail model. Ironically, the same ruthless retail evolution Kmart leveraged to destroy its early competition ultimately claimed Kmart as its victim.

The narrative takes its most harrowing turn in detailing the executive missteps and bad leadership that sealed the company's fate, from the hiring of Chuck Conway to Eddie Lampert’s eventual takeover.

Through the lens of Kmart and Sears Holdings, Schultz highlights the devastating impact of "vulture capitalism"—a practice where private equity strips viable assets for parts, ignores core store operations to exploit real estate, and walks away with massive profits while destroying working-class livelihoods and communities.

Lampert’s maneuverings, which included dodging over $1 billion in pension obligations and dumping the financial burden onto the federal government's Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation, serve as a stark case study in predatory corporate behavior.

While poorly run companies often fail naturally, Kmart had the potential to right the ship; instead, it fell prey to corporate looters, turning its story into a cautionary tale for the future of American capitalism.

[Lori]

Reminiscing..

This book is specifically about the rise and fall of Kmart from its very beginnings to its buyout of Sears under the leadership of Eddie Lampert and through the shuttering of both Sears and then Kmart. It is truly a walk down memory lane so to speak; a time when malls were rising in popularity, families would go and shop for necessities or browse after perhaps eating dinner at a restaurant in the mall. Teens would meet their friends there and grab a pizza or snack from the food court, or see a movie, shop for the latest hits on cassette tape, 8 track, or CD. Folks would seek sales or big discounts on everyday items or do their holiday shopping with the help of weekly sales flyers and layaway. And then Wal-Mart and the age of online shopping took over... American retail has never been the same!
Sometimes I wish someone or a group with a solid business plan and a good ethical and intelligent group of investors would bring back the mall concept and reinvent some of these great stores. Start small, build a solid reputation and foundation, hire people who CARE about their job, appearance and KNOW their merchandise. Cross train your people so no customer ever receives a nonchalant shrug and hears "I don't know, sorry" as they walk away or "Sorry, this isn't my department." Keep your staff happy and you will keep your customers and THEY will be happy, as will everyone else from janitorial/maintenance staff to the very top. Keep your stores clean and sanitary and prices reasonable while still earning a profit and the people WILL become regulars at your store or mall.
Interesting book with a good dose of nostalgia and detail.

[William O. Robertson]

One of the best books I have read this year. Seriously. How can a book as mundane as discount retail be so interesting? The reason being, if you remember the great discount and variety (5 and dime) stores from the 1960s, 70s, 80s, and 90s you will relive the experience of remembering them. This book is well-researched, documented and captivating in a historical sense. The book provides an in-depth view of mid-century and turn of the century discount-retailing proliferation. The major take-away? No business or dot com enterprise can take for granted they will always be around.

[Steve Wilson]

I very much enjoyed this book. Mr Schultz does his homework and presents a primer on the history of discount stores and KMart's place among them. I always assumed KMart lost its way because it couldn't find its lane when Target and Walmart did. That's only part of the story. Many things contributed to the company's downfall, and it's all well-documented here.

[Kevin Muir]

Great book on how not to operate a retail giant.

Kmart could have survived the Wal-Mart onslaught had it not lost it's focus and invested in everything under the sun. A successful outcome was obtainable had it just focused on Kmart. Excellent book!

[Joshua Paul]

Three important retailers started in in 1962: Kmart, Target, and Walmart.

In the early years Kmart was, by far, the largest of the three. By 1972, they had 580 stores generating $3.3b in revenues (~$20b today). In the same year, there were 46 Target's generating around $400m in revenues, and 51 Walmarts with $78m in revenues.

Kmart got off to a faster start than the rivals that would later surpass it, largely, because it had the most resources to start with. It was backed by S.S. Kresge, a big chain of small stores. Target was backed by Dayton-Hudson, which owned a small number of very large department stores. Walmart, by contrast, was supported only by the modest income of a couple of Ben Franklin stores.

Discount retailers at this time still weren't generally seen as directly competing with mainline department stores like Sears.

[Dee Renee Chesnut]

I purchased this Kindle edition when it was recommended by Goodreads.
I worked for Kmart from 1986 until 2004 as a pharmacist and a pharmacy department manager. I was naive because I believed I could make working for a corporation work for me, until I could not.
I appreciate knowing a bit more about the bankruptcy because I wished that Chuck Conaway could have been strung up based on the rumors that I heard at the time that we had a great holiday season so he gave himself and some others bonuses before paying vendors what was owed to them. There were a lot of people who worked hard and had faith that the different strategies tried during the bankruptcies would get us through tough times because so many of the Kmart workers were people who had been through tough times themselves. Then Eddie Lampert destroyed both Kmart and Sears.