Sears, Kmarts store closings..UPDATE: Feb. 23, 2012

I wonder how Maine will fare. I've often wondered about the Augusta Sears due to the movement of shopping traffic. Western Ave has gone through many changes. With Sears being on the outer fringe away from town, do people go out there as much? Whenever we go, it seems to be busy enough. I'd hate to see it go.

I have not found a hardcopy of a list of locations that are closing,if one is available at this time, the location up in Waterville is not one of them.

I will be surprised if the Auburn Kmart isn't on the hit list.

1Maine1lostcause,
I have been in that location, it seemed above busy for a Kmart. I bought my first computer there and was very happy with the price and the computer. an LG at $300 in 2001.

Kmarts are kind of crappy compared to Walmart or Target. They don't have as much merchandise, the prices aren't as good, and they still have that old 1970's, 1980's style store setup. Same with Sears. Hasn't changed in decades. While shopping for Christmas, I loved JCPenny's and Macy's because they had coupons and sales every day. I saved a lot of money, especially at JCPenny. But Sears? Blah. And they still have those hard sell salesman trying to sell their TV's and appliances, when most people just go to Best Buy.

I think Apollo's comments regarding both Sears and K Mart are right on target. It's been quite a while since I've been in either place. I think the last thing I bought at Sears was exterior stain since that's what I had put on the house previously. They just never kept either place up with the times. I think Lowes and Home Depot took a huge bite out of their (Sears) hardware and houseware business.

http://www.searsmedia.com/ is where the store closings will be announced. I attempted to go to site a couple of times, the first time the site took about 7 minutes to load and not the full page. A couple of more times i got error messages like "Could not connect to remote server" I finally got though and found this message
"Store closing list announced 12/27/11 will post here. Please check back for updates"

The way I see it is you have too many retailers trying to sell the same
goods in the same market. Plus the fact you can purchase online
and have UPS place the item in your lap or on your doorstep the next day.

Do they still have the roving "blue light specials" with the cart with the flashing blue light on it? That's my fondest memory of KMart as a kid.

I stopped buying at Sears three years ago because, in the five years leading up to that time, everything I bought from them failed and wound up where it belonged - at the dump. If they fail, I sincerely hope they will stop calling me to ask if I want to extend my service contracts.

Perhaps the best and most interesting website on retailers past and present is this site:
[And i believe the website owner is a Mainer]

http://sites.google.com/site/zayre88/zayre88

Another interesting retail site is this:Unfortunately the Auburn Mall is listed...

http://deadmalls.com/

What you are witnessing is just the next stop on the road to extinction. If you look around you will see where we are going because others are further along the road and others, like the Egyptians, the Greeks, the Mayans, the Incas and the Romans have already disappeared. We are not satisfied with what nature provides but compete with each other in our gluttony to consume more.

Like it or not the earth’s resources and natures continuing bounty are finite. In order to get what we need and protect what we have we stake out our territory and supposedly provide for its defense by establishing an elite group (government), allow it to make the rules for our protection and go about our merry way assuming that group will be satisfied with just having their needs satisfied but we don’t protect ourselves from the very ones we enabled to protect us.

While the rest of us go about our merry way using up what nature has provided, the government has taken care of themselves and their friends at our expense. Countries no longer war with each other to get what they want because the price is too high. Instead, their disgruntled inhabitants migrate where the opportunity lies and as long as there is a surplus their encroachment is not suspected until it is too late. In less than two or three generations there will be no more ethnic Russians, in three most of Europe, including the United Kingdom will be governed by Muslims whose themselves or their parents migrated from the middle east or Africa where all but the oil has long been insufficient to sustain their populations.

Closer to home you have the story of the American Indian. Not a homogeneous race, but several races scattered all over the North American continent. They were stripped of their property by force or by cunning. They were slaughtered or isolated in enclaves as are the Palestinians today and they will soon die out, or be absorbed to where they no longer have an identity apart.

The stores are in retreat because their customers, whom they rely on for survival, either don’t have the money to spend, cannot earn it where they are, or have moved to where the work is.
We have one last opportunity for hope and change and it isn’t Obama and the Democrats. Nor is it the Republicans. The rules laid down in the Constitution are sufficient if we put enough teeth in them, get both the President and the Supreme Court out of the legislative business and severely punish legislators who disobey the rules. Then we go after the state governments and do the same.

I remember when K-Mart was SS Kresge and they had very nice department stores.

pmconusa - "....the next stop on the road to extinction. If you look around you will see where we are going because others are further along the road and others, like the Egyptians, the Greeks, the Mayans, the Incas and the Romans have already disappeared...."

Phew, that's quite a leap from the "blue light special", but make of it what you may. LOL.

Yeah, Blue Jay it is too late in the afternoon and too close to Christmas to contemplate the end of the world.

Like Roger, growing up I would be taken by my mother shopping in downtown Lewiston where there was a Kresges, WT Grant and an FW Woolworths. At the head of Lisbon Street was the B. Peck Department Store where before Chrismas you paid your annual visit to Santa and for $.25 got to fish for a gift in the "fish pond". They also had a massive electric train display. I think most people who grew up in the Twin Cities have a picture sitting on the Peck's Santa's knee. More amazing is that over the years I've been to several classmates visiting hours and the "Santa picture" is often among the pictures displayed!

I kinda like the Brunswick Sears. They price match, I don't find the salesmen pushy, and they have some very good sales.

We have no other 'department store.' It serves a useful purpose for me.

With 120 store closings, that still leaves almost 4000 Sears and Kmart stores. Twice the size of Target.

Back when i had a portfolio i had retail. Made money with Walmart. Would have lost money with shld[sears] if i bought when Jim Kramer said to buy.

This is speculaion,of Kmarts, i think Kmart,Augusta is the only store that may have a problem
Sears, i like Sears, i would rather have Sears around than Walmarts, some of the Sears in the state may have a problem. The little Sears store in Waterville is listed for sale

Incidently about Sears and thier employees/reservists that were called up for duty
http://www.snopes.com/politics/military/sears.asp

Deadmalls.com reminds me of the mall scean in Dawn of The Dead when all the zombies return to the mall. The movie was a cult classic and every mall rats fantasy, the end of days looting spree.

Ignore the signs at your own peril.

I don't think the future is quite as gloomy as pmconusa says, but clearly there will be a shake-out in the retail market. You don't need a Walmart Superstore every 20 miles or a Rite-Aid in every town over 2,000 in a sparsely-populated state like Maine. Something has to give.

When I go into the local Rite Aid what I notice is no stock beyond the
item on the front of the shelf.

MAINE STORE LOCATIONS LIVE at least this round

http://www.searsmedia.com/tools/122711_close.pdf

Sears got out of catalouge to soon missing internet sales!
Here is whatelse is wrong w/ sears basing business on outrageous credit card rates before otthers got outrageous.
Forgetting service in stores. Trying to sell what the others had when there own brand was established.
Acquistions thathey o noyt know whatto do w/ i.e. Lands End!

When one goes to exchange tool and is ignored by 3 clerks that is bad. As it happened a bunch of suits were talking about he latest revamp on my way out,I stopped introduced myself ad explaied what their problem was.

......."When I go into the local Rite Aid what I notice is no stock beyond the
item on the front of the shelf."......

We shop in Rite Aid in Dover. Used to buy all our scrips in there but found a place to buy them by mail order which is much cheaper. We buy a few OTC med there also and what you say about the stock is very true. I use 1000mg fish oil caps and Rite Aid has them in a huge bottle, for a fair price, when they have them in. A couple of days back that had a lot of 2 for one sales, but in many cases they had only one item on the shelf. There OTC meds are long on the Rite Aid brand, and very short on name brand meds, especially in the larger sizes we usually buy.

Rite Aid has bought every independant drug store and small chain that they could buy in order to try and build a monopoly in many parts of the state. Just like the government, too much debt, and they must have plenty, will kill your business for sure. I suspect, from what I see that financially they must be struggling. I can't imagine what will happen in some of these areas if they go under but suspect we may find out. Debt is OK when business is booming but not so good in a downturn like this one.

WC

I looked at a free-standing freezer at Sears. I was ready to buy it. The man said we'll deliver it for a $79 fee. Lowe's had the freezer at a cheaper price and delivery is free as long as it is within 75 miles. Just one of the many reasons why Sears is in trouble.

edited 'misfire'
....i read the second closing list was out and began this post before checking the hardcopy source

"If the multicultural customer is the customer of the future, then Sears/Kmart may, by continuing to make efforts to bring this population into its stores, help establish itself as a key retailer in the future"
--March 28, 2005 DSN Retailing Today by Emily Scardino

.....Seven years later....yesterday, i go into Kmart for the first time in a long time as i am shopping around for a TV. First the clerk approaches me near the TVs, covered in facial jewlery including two nose rings , rings or something on her lips, and says some sales pitch blab,blab,blab. I said no thanks to what ever she said. I said to myself,ok, thats kids today and continued shopping aound.

Then RAP MUSIC comes on over the Kmart store sound system. I could not get out of the store and Kmart parking lot fast enough.

Kmart might as well go dig its own grave, hop in, and cover itself with dirt on its own. The retailer is so poor.

ADD HORRENDOUS CREDIT CARD FEES BEFORE OTHERS IMHO TO THE REASONS FOR SLOW DEATH LIST!

When I go to Sears for a tool I pay cash. It puts them into a state of confusion. They want your phone number and address to pay cash. It does little good to explain retail sales to them, but they can't seem to print a receipt without an address. A supervisor can do it. I think I'll bring a pad of retail receipts from Staples next time I go in. I'll fill out the item and part number and have the clerk sign it.

Sounds like the N.H. liquor stores. They used to ask for my Zip code all the time. So I'd give them Mars Hill, Ellsworth, Harmony, Jackman - anyplace but where I lived.