Kmart in the ‘70s/‘80s was awesome

[Dr.Destructo]

I never found K-Mart as being awesome. They were utilitarian and efficient. I noticed it begin to lose that efficiency in the late 80's when a couple of times check-out lines started backing up because of missing price tags or some other problem.

Stores seemed to downgrade interest in customer service around that era. I recall going to Sears and being told the only credit card they took was the Discover Card which they had just come out with. I didn't return to Sears until years later when they either sold off Discover Card or grew sense enough to take other cards as well.

Thats why so many people loved K-Mart. It was there, it had stuff on the shelves to buy.
It wasn't spread out all over the place......you didn't have to walk miles around the store to find everything you needed.
It was compact, had everything, and served good snacks, and had suprise sales that people found fascinating, because you never know when they would happen or what would be on sale.

 

[citygator]

I worked in a Kmart as a kid so let me enhance some facts (to my memory).

Kmart did blue-light specials up to the early 90's sparingly, and tried to bring back the nostalgia in the mid-90s.

No blue plate specials as far as i know were in our cafeteria that was eventually closed and turned into selling floor.

Sears didnt kill off Kmart, the PE firm led by Eddie Lampert did by stopping all investment in physical plant maintenance letting the stores dilapodate.

Still kept in contact when I graduated with folks from the store I worked in and they were turning off half their lights out in the evening to save electricity and all kind of cheap nonsense.

They switched to everyday low pricing for about 6 months one year and went bankrupt thanks to hiring an executive from Walmart.

At the end of the day they had no answer to walmart who could sell the same stuff cheaper. Kmart had better clothing than walmart but never was able to pull off what Target was able to which is grab suburban moms attention as a place you can buy inexpensive fashion. And they never shook off the Rainman quote: "Kmart Sucks".