Transformco Shocker: Only 34 Full-Line Sears And 50 Kmart Stores Are Left

Sears and Kmart continue to disappear right before our very eyes. And the number of remaining full-line stores could be as little as half of what has been reported.

An analysis using the store locator tool on the Sears.com website of Sears and Kmart stores that remain in operation – regardless of whether they have reopened after the coronavirus pandemic shutdown – shows only 34 locations identified as “Sears Stores.” For Kmart the store locator shows just 50 remaining locations.

That total of 84 stands in contrast to the last update issued by Transformco, the privately held company run by Eddie Lampert that bought the remnants of Sears Holdings
CKH
out of bankruptcy court last year. In a statement in November 2019 the company said it was closing 96 stores which would leave it with 182 although it did not give a nameplate breakout.

According to the company’s own website the 84 count indicates there are 98 fewer full-line stores remaining since that announcement. However it is unclear whether that original 182 tally was only of full-line Sears and Kmart stores or included other Sears nameplates such as auto centers and repair centers.

A Sears spokesman, when asked to confirm these new numbers, said to refer to the November statement and that the company would have no further comment beyond that.

The full-line stores don’t tell the whole story for Sears, however. Last October Transformco bought the remaining portion of an allied retail operation called Sears Hometown and Outlet Stores that it didn’t already own and folded those stores into its overall holdings. At the time of the purchase, there were estimated to be 491 Hometown stores, which essentially sell major appliances and tools, as well as 126 Outlet locations, selling primarily close-out hard goods like appliances, lawn and garden and home repair merchandise.

The current store locator shows 323 locations identified as Hometown stores, as well as other stores that are called outlets, repair drop-off points and auto centers. This would seem to indicate there are 168 fewer Hometown stores now than there were at the time of the acquisition last fall. A spokesperson for Sears Hometown did not respond to an inquiry by deadline.

But it is the apparent continued fall-off in full-line stores that seems to be a major development. The remaining Kmart locations are clustered in isolated locations with 30 in just five states: California, Florida, New Jersey, New York and Pennsylvania. And 11 are in U.S. territories: Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands and Guam. Michigan, the one-time home of Kmart, has two stores remaining.

Almost two-thirds of the states in the country have no Kmarts. For a chain that was once the largest retailer in the country with close to 2500 stores as recently as 1994 it is a shocking comedown.

The Sears decline is no less so. It was also once the largest retailer in the country and even when it filed bankruptcy in 2018 it continued to operate more than 700 stores. According to the store locator on its website there are now 38 states without a full-line Sears store and the ones that are left are centered in what seems to be a random pattern. Texas and Florida have multiple locations while New York has only two and Illinois, where the company has been headquartered for its entire existence, has no remaining full-line Sears locations.  

When Lampert purchased the Sears and Kmart assets out of bankruptcy court – a place he took them while serving as CEO of the predecessor Sears Holdings – he said he remained confident that he could save the company, its more than 400 stores and its 45,000 jobs at the time. As recently as the last store closing announcement in November, 2019 the company said, “We will endeavor to create and deliver value through a strategic combination of our better performing retail stores and our service businesses, brands and other assets, and expect to realize a significant return on our extensive portfolio of owned and leased real estate.”

Since that time it has sold a number of assets, including its Innovel logistics company to Costco and its DieHard automotive parts brand to Advanced Auto.

“We will continue to evaluate our Sears and Kmart footprint, consistent with our overall retail and service strategy,” the company also said at the time. Apparently, at least according to the company’s own count, that includes the possible closing of perhaps as many as 98 additional full-line Sears and Kmart stores.

It is unclear whether any of these actions are related to the coronavirus pandemic (A statement from the company lists 26 Sears stores reopening by May 22), but certainly the crisis is not helping the company’s fortunes. “Sears is in a very dangerous position,” Neil Saunders, managing director at GlobalData Retail told CNN last week. “Before the crisis hit, the consumer economy was robust. Even during those times Sears wasn’t doing particularly well, and things will be tougher going forward.”

The final demise of Sears has been predicted by many for a very long time. But if these store closing numbers are real and if they continue, Sears’ end will be not with a bang…but with a slow and sad vanishing act.

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