Kmart/Sears Case Analysis Essay

Facts: Defendant (Kmart) allegedly failed to provide to plaintiff (Lopez) the written wage statements. The availability of the wage statements is required under California labor code. Under the agreement, employment-related issues between the employee and company shall be resolved informally or by binding arbitration. This replaces the right of either party to go to court or have a jury decide the outcome of the claims. Lopez alleges that the agreement was never valid due to the fact that he was a minor when he acknowledged the agreement and is now entitled to revoke his consent.

1) Should Wal-Mart be expected to protect small businesses in the communities within which it operates?

According to the Kroger business web page, in 1883 Barney Kroger invested his life savings of $372 to open a grocery store at 66 Pearl in downtown Cincinnati. The son of a merchant, he ran his business with a simple motto: Be particular. Never sell anything you would not want yourself. It is a motto that has served him well for the next 120 years. Today, Kroger has grown to 2500 stores with $70 billion revenues, 40 food processing plants ranging from bread, milk, soda pop, ice cream and peanut butter. Kroger operates under two dozen banners, has acquired warehouses, trucking companies, and has over 14,400 private-label items (The Kroger Co., 2012).

     According to the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE), Wal-Mart leads the market with 46 3/8 per share for it’s stock. Sears’ market share is below that at 33.95, and JC Penney’s is at a low 9.5. These prices are as of October 10, 2000. (www.nyse.com)

I chose “After 30 years, Kmart closes doors this weekend in Gonzales” in the Advocate as my article because I grew up going to the Kmart in Gonzales. As a kid, that was the store my family would go to when we wanted to buy something cheap. It was also close to the Jambalaya Park and we would go to Kmart after playing at the park. So seeing that it was closing made me a little sad. I read the article so I could learn more about the closing of a childhood store.

There were also proprietary brands that were held by both Kmart and Sears, and with the merger it would be easier to get those brands out to the target demographics. Making each

Sears Holding Corporation is the fourth largest retailer in the United States and Canada. Its subsidiaries include Sears, Roebuck and Co. as well as K-Mart. The closing of the merger between Sears and K-Mart took place on March 24, 2005. Sears has more than 4,000 retail stores across the United States, Canada, Puerto Rico, and Guam. Sears offers products and services through over 2,700 branded and affiliated stores. Sears operates 894 broad-line stores and 1,354 specialty stores. Sears’ broad-line stores are mall-based locations. The specialty stores include Sears Hometown Stores that are mostly independently owned, Sears Home Appliance Showrooms, Sears Hardware Stores, Sears Auto Centers,

Many people today have no idea what actually exists on the internet. We’re only limited to our basic search engines such as Google, Bing, and Yahoo which actually show just the surface of the internet. Most credit cards or information that is stolen, criminals can sell on the dark web which makes it easy for criminals to perform certain transactions that are illegal an outside of the law without being caught. Most transactions that are performed on these encrypted sites is through bitcoin. Bitcoin is a currency that was created in 2009 by unknown person under an alias Satoshi Nakmto. Bitcoin gets rid of the middleman which is essentially banks and are able to perform transactions anonymously. Usually one bitcoin is equivalent to 4,655 U.S. dollars.

Denial is how we pay attention to everything today; we are constantly making unconscious choice about what to notice, and not to notice. It means when something happened and the person lies to cover up or used to escape from the truth, According to the book, Denial is the unconscious calculus that if an unpleasant reality were true, it would be too terrible, so therefore it cannot be true. Denial today is all around us, if we ignore the obvious at a certain moment because we simply don’t want to confront it, it might lead to more problems. The longer we ignore it the more serious it

This store was twice as big as the original Walton 5 and 10 in Bentonville and sales were $975,000 in the store's first year. In 1962 three other future retail giants opened their doors: the first Kmart opened in Garden City, Michigan, Woolworth's department store opened its Woolco discount chain, and Dayton Hudson opened the first Target store. Within the first five years Wal-Mart had 18 stores with sales of $9 million while Kmart had 250 stores with sales of more than $800 million.# Wal-Mart was incorporated on October 31, 1969, and publicly traded on the New York Stock Exchange in 1972. It is headquartered in Bentonville, Arkansas. Wal-Mart is now the largest grocery retailer in the United States. Fast forwarding to present times in the year of 2009 Wal-Mart generated 51% of its $258 billion sales in the U.S. from grocery sales. It also owns and operates Sam's Club retail warehouses. Sam Waltons' overall business strategy was to achieve higher sales volumes by keeping sales prices lower than his competitors by reducing his profit margin. The same strategy is still used today and has not changed in forty nine years.

Kmart department stores include; merchandise such as home entertainment goods, photographic equipment and developing, camping and fishing goods, sporting goods, toys, kitchenware, small appliances, storage & home organisation, confectionery, stationery, books, cards & party goods, furniture, garden supplies, automotive equipment, lighting, hardware, luggage, cosmetics, clothing and footwear.

Management is a key to success, and Kmart needs proper management to help create a positive image that attracts more customers. Kmart 's disorderly management and bankruptcy caused many customers to shop with other retailers. According to Carr, Wal-Mart and Kmart were the same size in 1990. Since then, Kmart has grown far slower than its rival or the industry. Once one of the largest discount retailers, Kmart filed for the biggest Chapter 11 bankruptcy for discount retailing in the United States (2002). Struggling to find the right type of management has been one of Kmart 's problems that ultimately helped lead the company to its downfall. Kmart is constantly changing CEO 's, and thus focuses. Kmart has had

Wal-Mart, its headquarters located in Bentonville, Arkansas, is currently the largest retailer offering different formats of stores to fit the needs of the neighborhoods in which they are located. The company operates in several different countries: Argentina, Brazil, Canada, Chile, China, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, India, Japan, Mexico, Nicaragua, Puerto Rico, and the UK. With all of these locations, Wal-Mart employees over 2 million employees. Wal-Mart recorded a bold $408,214 million in revenue for the year ending in January 2010, an increase of .09% over 2009. Furthermore, Wal-Mart recorded an operating

The merger between Sears and Kmart was a very big event in business. At the time both companies were in the top three in sales along with Walmart. A summarized look of the history and background of Sears before the merger all started in 1866, When Mr. Richard W. Sears created a watch company that he named R.W. Sears. This company was in Minneapolis, Minnesota and the watches were only sold via mail orders. The following year the company decided to settle in Chicago as their first real location and Mr. Sears hired his first employee named Alvah C. Roebuck, who was a watchmaker. Then in 1888, the first ever catalog that included Mr. Sears watches and jewelry was established. One year later Mr. Sears sells this newly started company and starts another company that was named Sears, Roebuck and Co. A man named Julius Rosenwald, a wealthy clothing line owner, decided to buy out Mr. Roebucks side of the company. Around the same time ownerships are switching the first large catalog for the company was published. Then in 1911 Sears then created their first testing laboratory.

K-Mart is an American multinational retail and discount store chain having more than 1,400 stores across all the states of the country. Established in 1962, K-Mart is the third largest retailer in the United States after Wal-Mart and Target Corporation. In addition to the home country, K-Mart also operates a number of independent retail and discount stores in Australia and New Zealand. Other international locations of the company include Canada, Europe, and Mexico. However, due to some financial difficulties, it had to retrench its operations in many international locations. K-Mart is headquartered in Hoffman Estates, Illinois, United States. It has done a number of acquisitions and mergers during the last couple of decades. It acquired Sears an American retail and departmental store chain in 2005 and formed an independent retail corporation under the name 'Sears Holding Corporation (Kmart, 2013).