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Mergers and acquisitions of sears and kmart
Mergers and acquisitions of sears and kmart
SEARS leadership problem
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Sears, a company spanning 131 years that began as R.W Sears Watch Company was once the largest retailer in the United States. Kmart, its runner up, began as a general retailing store just thirteen years after Sears as S.S Kresge Company in 1899. Sears had been the largest retailer in the United States until Wal-Mart rose and surpassed them, and Kmart bought out Sears and merged the two struggling companies in 2005 (Meyer, 2017; New York Times, 2002). From there, Sears and Kmart have been steadily making their way towards what many believe will be an inevitable closing. According to Michelle Ma (2017), an avid business author: Sales at stores open at least a year declined 11.5% in the fiscal second quarter as the company scaled back the number of pharmacies and electronic products in its stores. Kmart's same-store sales fell 9.4%, compared with …show more content…
Nearly four decades past its peak, Sears strives to maintain steady profits against its competitors (Howard 2017; Meyer 2017). Kmart, contrarily, entered behind Wal-Mart as the second largest retailer in the United States after Sears’ reign. They, however, suffered a similar affliction to what felled Sears when Kmart ruled discount retail so heavily that they seemed almost unstoppable. However, with lack of solid knowledge on the business’ purpose and Wal-Mart as a strong competitor, there began a steep decline, along with Sears, that led to filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy (New York Times 2002). Kmart began as a five and dime store in Detroit founded by Sebastian Spering Kresge and John McCrory. The partnership dissolved and they took over the separate stores, Kresge mainly sold costume jewelry, houseware, and personal care products, always for thrifty prices. The company was incorporated in 1912 with 85 stores producing $10.3 million in annual
Over one hundred years ago, an entrepreneur named Sebastian Spering Kresge opens his first retail store in 1899. The store was named Five-and-Dime and was located in downtown Detroit. The store was named Five-and-Dime because everything in the store was priced at either five cents or ten cents. This low price gained him a lot of customers and a lot of publicity. With this new found publicity, in 1912, he opened 85 more stores with annual sales of $10 million. As time went on, the prices have changed to $1 or less, but the business philosophy has remained the same. Around this time, the retail environment was getting very competitive, and the company needed to make some changes to keep up. In 1959, Kresge hired Harry B. Cunningham to become the president of the company. Under Cunningham leadership, the first Kmart store was opened in 1962 in Garden City, Michigan. In 1966, sales in 162 Kmart stores and Kresge stores topped the $1 billion mark and in 1968, the S. S. Kresge aired its first T.V. commercial. In 1976, Kresge made history by opening 271 Kmart stores in 1 year and becoming the first ever retailer to launch 17 million square feet of sales space in a single year. By 1977, nearly 95% of the S. S. Kresge sales were generated by Kmart so the company officially decided to change its name to Kmart Corporations. In 1991, Kmart opened the first supercenter in Medina, Ohio offering a full-service grocery area. In 1996, a complete redesign of Kmart was launched, changing its name to Big Kmart [or BigK] and in 1999, Kmart launch a new internet presence, named bluelight.com [now known as kmart.com]. In 2002, Kmart filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. (Corpor...
Kmart was formed in the late 1950's to challenge new forms of discount stores. They are a descendant of an organization Sebastian S. Kresge. The average Kmart store is around 100,000 square feet. In 1987 Kmart was the largest discount retailer in the United States. They currently have 2,223 stores and last year they had over $25 billion in sales which is nearly double that of Wal-Mart. In 1991 they opened their Kmart superstores. The superstore is a 150,000 square feet and is expected to gross $40 to $50 million dollars in revenues. It will also remain open 24 hours a day.
I don't see Wal-Mart as a huge retailer trying to take over the world with cheap prices. I see Wal-Mart as business that has played their cards the way they were dealt. Our economy is poor right now; banks are hurting because people a...
Kmart is a huge vintage company that had peeked at one time and now is
Sears had managed to keep their company stocks good, but eventually it would have some problems. Why? Because around that time they had competitors to deal with in the retail industry such as Kmart Holding Corp, Best Buy, Target, Wal-Mart and etc. This had led to be an all-out war battle had cause a problem in the stock market for Sears going further into the millennium. “According to the USA Today article, Sears Roebuck & Co. had gross about $41.1 billion sales in the American Retail industry and by then had already owned about 1,970 stores all over the country” (Sear, Kmart to merge. (2004, November
When the company was increasing in size and work, Roebuck could not handle the work and quit the company. Sears bought Roebuck’s half and fully owned his company again. Until he met Julius Rosenwall, he bought a dozen factories to be able to get all the products made and shipped out on time. Storekeepers were not staying in business, they were basically fighting a losing battle. Further more, Sears allied with the federal mail and delivered the packages for free, this boosted his revenue. Although the Sears company is not what it used to be, Richard Sears was a genius in retail sales and made everyones life easier with his products and delivery. One of the largest key to own a successful company is to be able to anticipate the changes and Sears defiantly knew how to appeal to every costumer in each time
Wal-Mart’s competitive environment is quite unique. Although Wal-Mart’s primary competition comes from general merchandise retailers, warehouse clubs and supermarket retailers also present competitive pressure. The discount retail industry is substantial in size and is constantly experiencing growth and change. The top competitors compete both nationally and internationally. There is extensive competition on pricing, location, store size, layout and environment, merchandise mix, technology and innovation, and overall image. The market is definitely characterized by economies of scale. Top retailers vertically integrate many functions, such as purchasing, manufacturing, advertising, and shipping. Large scale functions such as these give the top competitors a significant cost advantage over small-scale competition.
As revealed by the SWOT analysis earlier Kmart has potential to pull itself out of its current position of facing closure. In order to exploit opportunities and counter threats Kmart needs to build on these competencies to strengthen its position and counter internal weaknesses against the single largest industry threat - increased competition in a mature market.
K&K Toys in Norfolk, Virginia grew into over 130 stores on the East coast, which later would serve as the foundation for what expansion of the dollar stores. The expansion of Dollar Stores was continued alongside K&K Toys stores, mostly in enclosed malls. Dollar Tree store now include health and beauty, food and snacks, party, and seasonal décor all for an $1.00. Dollar Tree has earned a spot in the Fortune 500 and operates a estimated 13,600 stores throughout the 48 contiguous U.S. states and Canada.
The first Kmart store was opened in Garden City, Michigan., in 1962 (the same year that Wal-Mart and Target began operations) by the S.S. Kresge Co., a five-and-dime chain that was founded at the turn of the 20th century in Detroit by Sebastian Spering Kresge. By the end of 1963 Kmart had 63 stores converted from Kresge's. By 1977, Kmart generated nearly all of Kresge's sales, and the company changed its name to Kmart Corp. Kmart sold the remaining Kresge stores in 1987.
In today’s market Sears competitors are not only in its more valuable retail space of mall-in locations; but outside of the mall market competing with a number of integrated retail stores both brick and mortar and online. The majority of Sears competitive market is with the following retail stores Walmart, Target, Kohl's, J.C. Penney, Macy's, The Home Depot, Lowe's, Best Buy and Amazon (Thomson Reuters, 2016). In which Kohl’s, J.C. Penney, and Macy’s have a high concentration of mall-in locations. Sears current business model is competing in a multi-competitive market by offering a wide variety of retail services that are competing for the same customers as the retailers listed in the diagram above. Sear’s integrated business model has made it increasingly difficult to find a competitive advantage where Sear’s is the top leader.
In 1897 Sebastian Spering Kresge opened five-dime stores in Memphis and Detroit with John McCrorey as his partner. Two years later the partnership broke up and each person kept one city. Mr. Kresge kept the Detroit store and began expanding from there onward. In 1912 the company became incorporated as S.S. Kresge and was the 2nd largest dime store chain with 85 stores and annual sales of more than $10 million. In 1918 S.S Kresge was listed on the New York Stock Exchange. Throughout the decades, Kresge rapidly expanded eventually opening the first Kmart store in 1962 in Garden City, Michigan. By 1966 there were more 160 Kmart stores in the US and Canada. In 1968 Kmart began airing TV commercials. In the 1970s, Kmart continued to expand opening 270 stores in 1976 alone. In 1977, S.S. Kresge changed its name to Kmart because 95% of its sales were coming from that branch. In the 1980s and early 90s, Kmart diversified by adding other retailers such as Walden Book Company which was the number one bookstore chain in the US. The Sports Authority in 1990, 90% stake in OfficeMax and the Borders bookstore in 1992. Also in 1990 Kmart opened its first Kmart Super Center in Medina, Ohio. Whatever was left of the Kresge locations in the US was sold to S.S. Kresge's former partner's store chain McCrory's. Between 1994 and 1995 earnings began to fall for Kmart causing them to sell off their other operations, OfficeMax, The Sports Authority, PACE, Borders and its US automotive service Centers. Also in that time period, more than 200 US stores were closed. Fast forwarding to the future, Kmart launched www.bluelight.com which is now known as www.kmart.com in 1999. In 2002 Kmart filed for Chapter 11 Bankruptcy which was the biggest retail bankruptcy i...
Overall, the main point of the merger was to help both organizations financially. Since Sears and Kmart were both facing financial deficits and significant declines, this merger was thought to bring about prosperity. However, there was no concrete strategy implemented that would ensure long-term
Should Kmart and Sears keep their own identities and have unique competitive strategies, or should they be combined in some way with a new overall corporate competitive strategy? Please defend your answer.
Sears began as a small retailer but as the years have gone by, they have become