Just want to know what people think of this retailer, have you gotten a good deal or a good product? What keeps you going back if you like it. What was your bad exp. if you had one?
Sometimes I find toys that are 50% off. Those are the only good deals I have found at Kmart in a long time. I use to shop there often. I do like there $2 make-up. I can't think of the name of the make-up at the moment. K-mart's layaway did come in handy at Christmas time.
I love that Kmart has Layaway! I think its so great that they still do that, no one else does anymore! Walmart does during the Christmas season but they have so many rules as to what can be put on layaway and what can't. I like to shop Kmart when I want to browse at something different. They have ok prices, I can usually find stuff cheaper at Target or Walmart but they are much farther away than my Kmart so I stop in when I need something and don't want to make that drive. They have sales often that are pretty good and their store brand items are always a great price.
I also heard that sears and kmart are the same company know! I wonder if the merchandise from sears ends up at kmart if this is true? sears has better quality items. does anyone have thoughts on this?
Yep, they are! And actually, it was Kmart that bought Sears, not the other way around like people usually assume because of the quality. They still operate under separate systems to a certain extent. And I doubt the merchandise does too much mixing from one to the other outside of things that are already carried by both. I do think it's neat that you can use your Sears/Kmart card at either store.
I actually used to work for Kmart, and from an employee standpoint, they are terrible! Headquarters doesn't allow the budget to staff the store, so you are often left with one or 2 cashiers, and a line going to the back of the store. You can also never find anyone to help you, and the employees are pretty rude half of the time. However, I do like their apparel, and I do think they have good deals. I shop there occasionally for the deals, and sometimes you can find a decent Kmart that has enough staff.
I have noticed what your saying as a customer @smartee. We have one not to far from here and when I go there if i go there, I do notice that there is a skeleton crew working!
I went to Kmart a couple of years ago to do Christmas shopping because they are open on Christmas day and my job didn't pay me until Christmas Eve. I thought that their prices on older games were too high, like everyone knows that Halo 1 came out in ,like, 2002 and that's a game that Kmart would charge $39 for even though you can buy it used for $5 now. Anyway, I bought a Naruto game for $50 and cursed under my breath and never went back. But recently, I went into Kmart and noticed that they have a lot of nice home decor stuff and wall art. They used to have grandma throw pillows but now they have cool and modern looking stuff that is knockoffs of Crate & Barrel and IKEA, so I guess I like Kmart again because I have a weakness for cute home stuff.
I don't ever go to Kmart anymore. I have been in to my local one once and it was such a confusing mess I never went back. As a matter of fact it got shut down last year. If I'm looking for a deal I would rather go to Wal-Mart or Target. I don't like cluttered stores no matter how cheap their products are.
I used to love K-Mart as a kid growing up in the 70's and 80's - but by the time I was starting high school in the late 80's/early 90's it had gone seriously downhill, and hasn't recovered much since. I'm amazed they've been able to stick around as long as they have though, with so many other large chain stores shutting down over the years - they outlived almost all of them at this point. I think the only other chain store to stick it out when it was only hanging on by a thread like that would be WoolWorths. I would love to see K-Mart make somewhat of a comeback though. They just need to overhaul their brands, and improve the quality of their merchandise - and weed out non-performing departments to make way for a better selection in the departments that do perform well. They also need to staff the places more, even if they loose money up front, until they start getting more customers. Their electronics section is just sad - they haven't carried any new or latest release products or entertainment in over 20 years. It's always stuff that's several years old from some cheapo brand that's been sitting on a shelf collecting dust. They need to clean out all the old crap, like CDs, DVD's, VCR Tape Rewinders, Old cables and game controllers and other peripherals that nobody uses anymore, and pair down their selection to just a small set of brand new devices at competitive prices. One of the things I read is that Wal-Mart is actually testing out smaller locations, as they've noted people have grown tired of these enormous super size stores that have become the norm in the past 20 years. That's where K-Mart has an opportunity to regain their customers, since they have a whole slew of smaller sized locations already out there, they just need to revamp the stores and remodel them all and revitalize their selection.
So I have a Kmart story. When you buy items from Kmart.com, you can't return them to a physical store, you have to mail them and they deduct the cost of sending the item back from your refund so you are paying for the privilege of sending in a return. Not only did Kmart not credit my refund for an item they received 10 days ago, they blocked me from messaging them in Facebook so that I won't ask about the refund anymore. I'm going to try calling their crappy automated phone line later.
