Do you remember going to Kmart and experience the ‘blue light specials’? You could literally stand in the store and wait until an employee rolled up a cart with a pole that went up a few feet above the average human head, which was topped with a flashing blue light similar to a police car beacon on top of a patrol car. As soon as the light was flipped on you’d hear an employee over the speakers in the store announce the new sale item, aka ‘the blue light special’. Shoppers would scurry over to the half price sale on tidy whities, shampoo or slippers-whatever the store wanted to get rid of that day. It would last about 15-30 minutes and then the cart would move somewhere else in the store. Kmart closed on Parleys Way in 2005 and was turned into a Walmart. The one on 900 East @4900 South was bulldozed two years ago and in its place is a huge apartment complex. Well, the last full sized Kmart in the U.S. has now closed in Bridgehampton, NY. There are still a few stores in Asia and a tiny version of it in Kendall, FL, but the retailer is basically kaput.
This isn’t surprising, as the company failed to trend after Target entered the market with their groovy offerings and they couldn’t compete with Walmart’s low prices. Plus, in the past decade Amazon and its free home delivery to members has decimated brick and mortar options for retail shopping. Plus, people work at home more and shop on line more, rents for retail spaces are high, and it’s hard to find workers in low paying blue collar jobs.
Bed, Bath and Beyond disappeared from malls in ’23 when they closed the last of 900 stores nationwide. This year Business Insider reports Walgreens is closing 1,200 stores after losing 8.6 billion last year, Family Dollar is closing 1,000 stores, CVS has a three year plan to close 900 stores and eliminate 2,900 corporate jobs, Big Lots has concluded with the close of 500 of its locations, and Denny’s will close 150 locations. 7-11 is shuttering 444 stores and has been bought out by a Japanese firm. They have had lower sales due to a reduction in SNAP benefits and flavored nicotine bans that had previously created a lively cash flow for the company.
The disturbing thing about the Walgreens and CVS failures are due mainly to prescription pricing wars and who controls how meds are priced. There are hundreds of small pharmacies that have closed around the country due to this really fubar system and it’s leaving retail deserts in big and small cities. Sure, sometimes the little guys can’t compete with the big guys, but it’s very worrisome to see so many large retailers leave the landscape. On the other hand, progress is bringing Amazon’s One Medical, Amazon Clinic and Amazon Care that offer virtual health care and same day appointments under $50 a month.