Talk:Kmart

In addition, Kmart attempted to compete against Wal-Mart on price, which failed because Wal-Mart contrived to meet and beat Kmart's price cuts.

Puh-leeeeze. Maybe it's just me, but the notion of contriving carries with it a rather clear suggestion of conspiracy, scheming, and subterfuge. I'd feel more comfortable with "opted", "was able", or "diabolically reset its pricing so as".

Contents

1 anon comment moved from article 1 Headline text 2 Blue light special and blue plate special? 3 Failure reasons

anon comment moved from article

Headline text

I don not know what all you you people out there think about Kmart but yea so if you would like to know there are not many at all that are called kmart any more, and so it is weird that they have kmart on the home page name when now it is really called the big K and so yea that is why i thought that that was weird you know what i am saying any who, so i am looking for a store layout, and did you hear about belling and he was on the radio station, and he made a barogitory comment, and yea so a lot of people who were that culture, were preety affended, anyways so do you think that martha stewart is guilty, or what about michelle Jackson? I think that he is innocent, but what ever i do not beleive in gay marrages do you? What ever well so yea so this is all about Kmart --[anon]

Blue light special and blue plate special?

Anyone know about the origin of the "blue light special" and, specifically, whether the phrase was intended to echo the phrase Blue-plate special? [[User:Dpbsmith|Dpbsmith (talk)]] 11:04, 2 Dec 2004 (UTC)

I don't know whether the intent was to echo blue-plate special, but as I recall, the K-mart term came from a flashing blue light that would indicate the location of a temporary (perhaps in-store) special. An loudspeaker would also make announcements about the special. older≠wiser 12:54, Dec 2, 2004 (UTC)

Sure. The canonical announcement was "Attention, K-Mart shoppers!" And the blue light was on a sort of cart with a post that raised it high enough above the shelving to be visible throughout the store. The question is, was the name (and perhaps the choice of light color) intended to echo or evoke the restaurant phrase? [[User:Dpbsmith|Dpbsmith (talk)]] 13:06, 2 Dec 2004 (UTC)

The story of the attempted "revival" of this Blue Light thing is probably the biggest example of marketing and business stupidity I've ever read in my entire life.

Failure reasons

I do agree that not setting up proper inventory control (IT) was a big mistake. However, i think what really killed them was when they started buying other business that were not low priced. If they stayed within the Kmart store concept, they had a chance of surviving even with a poor inventory control. So issentially, the biggest mistake started in mid 80's. The second major thing that brought them down was poor management ethics. Dig a bit on Charles Conaway, James Adamson, Mark Schwartz etc. I think the company deserved going down when you have such greedy leaders. Oh, and i almost forgot, the store managers did their part to bring the company down. Even when there was some kind of inventory control system, they avoided using them because that would have meant doing away with shelf revenue. What i mean is, they were happy to take the slowest moving items at expense of fast moving goods if the former paid well lending to frequent stock out. Very retarded action i would say

An interesting character, Mark Schwartz, i think worked as an executive for walmart in realty related business, left in 1996, when that business filed for backruptcy. Headed to Hechinger Company and left a week before the company filed bankruptcy. Ended up in Big V Supermarkets and .. you got it... left weeks before they filed for bankruptcy. Ha, you would think they guy will never get a job anywhere else. Wrong, the guy ended up in Kmart, implemented Blue Light Always strategy and cranked up inventory by up to 8.3 billion dollars in 2001 christmas. Apparently, people shopped elsewhere and when January of 2002 came, oops we can't be able to pay our suppliers and the rest is history .. sorry all the above is history. This is the fun part though, the guy got a $3 million parting gift for doing a very good job. What am i to say Kmart, good riddance.