How Many Kmarts Are Left

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As of this writing, eight retail stores of Kmart are left in the United States.

However, four of those 20 stores are in the Virgin Islands, around 50 percent of the total.

Once, Kmart was one of the biggest retail companies in the United States. Read the following article to learn how Kmart’s chain became small and almost lost its business.

How Many Kmarts Are Left
Kmart/Source/Depositphotos

Where are the remaining Kmart stores located?

According to USA Today’s report in April 2022, Kmart still has eight retail stores operating all over the United States.

However, there are 50 states in the USA where Kmart’s stores are available in only five states and territories.

The US states and territories where Kmart has been running retail stores in 2023 are listed below to see at a glance:

  • US Virgin Islands
  • New York
  • New Jersey
  • Guam
  • Florida

Then again, one of these states and territories has more than one Kmart store. The US Virgin Islands has four retail stores of this departmental chain, and the population in each store in this territory is around 26 thousand people.

Besides the US Virgin Islands, Guam, an island territory of the US in the Western Pacific, has one Kmart store. That also makes it a store outside the contiguous USA.

On the other hand, Kmart has three retail stores in three US states, including New York, New Jersey, and Florida. In other words, only three stores of Kmart are left in the contiguous USA.

Related Read: Is KitchenAid Going Out of Business

How many stores did Kmart have previously?

In 1994, Kmart was at its peak point of business. At that time, this retail company had 2486 stores all over the world, where 2323 stores were inside the United States.

Kmart had retail stores in all 50 states and the territorial islands of the United States. Besides, the company had business outside the United States as well. The countries where Kmart had stores are listed below to see at a glance:

  • Australia
  • Caribbean
  • New Zealand
  • Mexico
  • Singapore
  • Czech Republic
  • Britain
  • Slovakia
  • Czechoslovakia

The Kmart Oceanian continent is known as Kmart Australia. It is now not under the control of Kmart USA. As of 2023, Kmart is under Transformco, and Kmart Australia is under Wesfarmers Limited.

Why have Kmart’s stores been reduced?

At the peak of Kmart’s business year in 1994, it had nearly 2500 stores all over the world, and that included 2323 stores in the United States. But in 2023, it has only eight stores left which is comparatively an unbelievably small number.

At the end of the 20th century, Kmart was its business peak point. However, the scenario started to change when the internet became excessively available all over the world as e-commerce was introduced.

While other companies, such as Walmart, were investing heavily in their e-commerce sites, Kmart was still sticking with its offline activities. It was an unwise decision for this big box company.

Besides, companies like Amazon were coming into the frame and started biting off the profits of Kmart. Consumers were gradually moving towards online shopping.

When Kmart decided to move to online sales, it was too late. It was already far behind other online competitors, and there was nothing this company could do to catch up.

When did Kmart start to decline?

At the end of the 90s, Kmart’s annual revenue started to decline exponentially. At that time, companies like Walmart, Amazon, eBay, etc., began to rise.

Besides that, in 2001, Kmart’s scandal was exposed. Therefore, people’s trust in this company vaporized instantly, which was a game-changing moment for this company in a negative way.

In 2018, on the verge of collapse, Kmart and Sears’s parent company, Sears Holdings, filed for bankruptcy. It temporarily stopped the liquidation of Kmart. At the auction, Transformco took over Kmart and started the business of Kmart from scratch.

Now, Kmart is at the bottom of the pitfall. However, the company did not run out of business, and trying to recover, though recovering this to its former glory, is nearly impossible.

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