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

211 pages, Kindle Edition

Published March 13, 2025

Reviews

[Dee Renee Chesnut · Rating 4 out of 5]

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.

[Kurt · Rating 3 out of 5]

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.

[William O. Robertson · Rating 5 out of 5]

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 · Rating 5 out of 5]

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.

[Josh Paul · Rating 4 out of 5]

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.