Sears Essentials

[JSIDA17]

Very poor half-hearted effort to cheaply remodel some Kmart stores into basically the same thing, except for higher prices and random Sears appliances. We used to have one here in Putnam, CT and I NEVER saw more than five people at a time in the store. The only good thing about the store was the Little Caesars in it...

[Pikapower]

I don't know what Sears was thinking at the time when they decided to rebrand some Kmart stores to "Sears Essentials"?

[mixedday]

After the merger, I believe the company decided to increase Sears store count that way, by taking select Kmart stores, which they felt had some value in location, and trying to move them to the Sears division.

I know of two store examples:
Marlton, NJ Kmart. Store converted to Sears Essentials. Company might have figured Marlton is a wealthy enough town that a Sears would achieve higher sales (from more expensive items) than a budget oriented discounter Kmart.
Lawnside, NJ Kmart. Store converted to Sears Essentials as well. This area isn't upscale, but the location is right off I-295, a major highway.

However, a mall Sears was close enough to both Marlton (Moorestown Mall Sears) and Lawnside (Deptford Mall Sears). The mall Sears wasn't that close, but it wasn't too far either. It's not like the area truly lacked a Sears presence.

In hindsight, it's 20/20, that it made no sense to have such an inferior off-mall Sears when a mall Sears wasn't too far, but probably to Sears perspective, the listed above reasons were justification to increase Sears store counts, and this hybrid could work better than Kmart.

The Marlton store wasn't a great conversion, and the half-hearted analysis seems spot on. Also, there were few customers. Also while Marlton is nice, retail does better on Route 73 than 70. I wonder if it had stayed a Kmart, if it would still be operating! That Kmart had a pharmacy, and Kmart's basics with the pharmacy would still be more sensible than Sears products ($500+ appliances: washers/dryers/refrigerators - things you buy once in 10 years, etc.). Keeping floor space for that, but the store not being off a critical retail area resulted with less traffic to the store. Kmart which had a convenience factor to the local area, and that was lost. The Wal-Mart across the street was a factor but Kmart had different product selections. Kmart co-existed with that Wal-Mart across the street for over 10 years

The Marlton site has recently been torn down. They even added Sears Automotive there, and I did get my car oil change there once. I think that wasn't a bad addition if it had stayed Kmart but just incorporated the automotive part.