Kmart in Petaluma, CA Closed now

Reviews about Kmart

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  July 05, 2019, by Info info
  Dear Kmart, I love you because you are not Target or Walmart. I love you, because you are a smaller, more human version of the big box stores that have gobbled up the former diversity of our local commercial landscape. I love you because I can find pants, a flat of canning jars, washcloths and wrapping paper all in one place when I shop with you. But I want you to know, I'm worried about you, Kmart, precisely because of your timidity in the face of the Targets and Walmarts. You are not as clean as you should be. You are woefully understaffed so that I can never find a sales clerk. And when I do encounter a staffer, you have failed to train him or her in your product lineup. Employees don't know what canning jars are. They don't know what an orange juice squeezer is. They don't know which aisle anything is on. So, like so many American businesses, you've forgotten to put the customer first by leaving him on his own, wandering dim and disorganized aisles, with no one to help him find, choose and buy. Your hiring and training practices are the cause of this, and going a level deeper, the Kmart brand is facing a worse failure even than this, rooted in the inability to differentiate itself from the mega box stores. Why should a customer shop at Kmart? That's the question that needs to be answered, and it's not being answered right now. Both Walmart and Target are offering the same shoddy, imported goods; things to be grabbed up today and thrown out tomorrow because they fall apart, break, fade, shrink. By taking the same approach, Kmart, you are in the same boat, but with fewer advertising dollars and fewer employees. Have you considered giving this one last try? Why not tie Kmart's brand to something real? Maybe a strong emphasis on Made in the USA quality would do it. Maybe by being the un-Target, you could differentiate, you could befriend the American whose dollar is having to stretch farther than ever and who should be able to use that dollar for a product that works and lasts. With the right mindset and honest, meaningful marketing, Kmart could align itself to a set of values that might intrigue simply because they have become so rare. You'll have to see how to keep prices affordable, you'll have to work that out ... but I believe you could do this. And I want you to do it, because I don't want to lose you. Don't relegate me to shopping at Target, which has about the same appeal as shopping in a giant, glaring fast food joint. Don't leave me to the whims of Walmart, whose employees are so impoverished that they are on welfare. Be the alternative, and make the alternative truly different, in core values, in product quality, in staffing, training and alignment with the good of the American consumer. Are you up for this? Please say yes.