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Why Kmart went bankrupt?

I live in an area that has access to many national retailers. Walmart is not far away, Target is the closest and my weekly grocery run passes by a Kmart every week. As an investor, you might want to know why I try and stay out of that Kmart store at almost any possible cost.

My Kmart is situated across the street from a movie theatre. Two months ago, my wife and I arrived got our tickets and walked into that Kmart to purchase a carpet cleaner that is not stocked at our local Target store. It took five minutes to get the cleaner, another five minutes to pick out something for our baby.

We got into line 35 minutes prior to the start time of our movie. There were four people ahead of us with very small orders. The checkout clerk was having a hard time. She keyed very slowly and if an item didn't scan she stared at it with a confused look for several minutes before asking for a price check.

When it got to be 10 minutes before the movie, we left our order on the conveyer and walked out. The clerk was obviously not trained well enough and wasn't being adequately supervised.

On my weekly grocery run a few days later, I stopped in to pick up those very same two items. Again, I was forced to stand in line 45 minutes. Different, day, different clerk, same result. The man had no clue, allowed a woman to run him through a half dozen price checks and did not get help when it was clear he was in trouble.

He was very polite when he got to my order and inquired as to why I was scowling. So I told him. He completely wasted my time by the way he handled the order ahead of me. He had a hard time processing my two item order, taking breaks during the order to ask questions and figure out how to scan the items.

Kmart is a company that has let its stores out of control. A shopping experience at Kmart is a misadventure. Checkout is very complex because of the many grocery items that can be purchased there.

Most of the products the Kmart sells can be had elsewhere. Believe me, that is what I do now. Wonder why Kmart went bankrupt? Stop. Wonder if they can recover? I'll believe it when I see it.

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Shmuel Protter
investmenttool.com

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