Another two bite the dust in this Obama economy, as Sears and Kmart will be closing “68 Kmart and 10 Sears stores this summer in its latest move to cut losses.”
A large number of large chain stores are suffering from our failing economy, resulting in closures and mass layoffs. From Macy’s, to Walmart and the John Deere, the largest manufacturer of farm equipment, none have been immune to government overreach and the failure that is Keynesian economics.
Truth and Action has been following the economic collapse of retail stores across the nation, with a projected 6000 stores closing.
Major U.S. retailers have announced the closing of more than 6,000 stores from coast to coast. The list includes only those retailers which have announced plans to close more than 10 outlets this year and next.
For example, 1,784 Radio Shack stores are vanishing, 400 of the Office Depot/Office Max chain by 2016, and 340 Dollar Tree/Family Dollar stores.
Walmart has closed many stores to help with profitability, reported Truth and Action months back.
One hundred and fifty four stores of the total two hundred and sixty nine are located in the U.S., and most of them are Wal-Mart Express stores or Neighborhood Market stores rather than the Super Centers that attract much more traffic and are generally more profitable. Wal-Mart Express stores launched in 2011 and are small convenience stores, with a total of 5,000 stores in the Wal-Mart system. 102 of the total closures will be Wal-Mart Express stores. In addition, Wal-Mart is seeing a good deal of competition from online competitors such as Amazon.com, and they are beefing up their online capability to answer that challenge.
Discover more about the Sears and Kmart demise on the next page.
The manufacturers are whoring out their products on Amazon directly to the public and creating a monopoly on goods. People love it, because they can buy an item for less than a retailer, so how is a retailer expected to make a profit? You can’t blame the public for seeking out pricing that undercuts retailers, because everyone needs to save money. So the public come in to a store, shop for the item, use the resources of the retailer to find out about the product, get all of their questions answered, try out the product, and run the employees around giving service. Then they say thank you and go buy it on Amazon.
If you like being able to have a retailer in your area offering products, then you need to go to those stores. Right now the bigger companies are being cannibalized the way they killed off smaller businesses 20 years ago.
Time marches forward and we all have to scramble to stay in business, if we are in retail. The only warning I have is this: The same thing always happens with monopolies. First they sell you the products for unbelievably low prices in order to kill competition, then when nobody else sells that product line, the monopoly raises the prices sky high to the suckers who helped them run off their competitors.
I like Kmsrts and do not find there prices high compared to stores in my neighborhood. Have great sales. Rarely go to Sears because store lay out is not good.