Kmart

Kmart (/ˈkeɪmɑːrt/ KAY-mart), formerly Kmart Corporation, operated since 2019 by Transformco, is a department-store chain and online retailer in the United States and its territories. It operates three remaining Kmart locations — a big-box department store in the US Virgin Islands, a big-box store in Tamuning, Guam, and a smaller location in Florida. The Florida location remains open in the former Garden Shop of its Kendale Lakes, Florida (Miami postal address) store, while the adjoining big box building is occupied by another retail chain, At Home that has since leased the space. The company closed its last full-sized big-box store in the mainland United States in 2024.

Before 2018, Kmart owned and operated a much larger chain of its namesake stores. The company was headquartered in Hoffman Estates, Illinois, United States.

The company was incorporated in 1899 as S. S. Kresge Corporation and renamed Kmart Corporation in 1977. The first store with the Kmart name opened in 1962 in Garden City, Michigan. At its peak in 1994, Kmart operated 2,486 stores globally, including 2,323 discount stores and Super Kmart Center locations in the United States. From 2005 through 2019, Kmart was a subsidiary of Sears Holdings Corporation, which owns Sears. Since 2019, Kmart has been a subsidiary of Transform SR Brands LLC, a privately held company that was formed in 2019 to acquire assets from Sears Holdings.

S. S. Kresge, the founder of the company that would become Kmart, met variety-store pioneer Frank Winfield Woolworth while working as a traveling salesman and selling to all 19 of Woolworth's stores at the time. In 1897, Kresge invested $6,700 saved from his job into a five-and-dime store in Memphis, Tennessee. He jointly owned the first store with his former tinware customer, John G. McCrory. Kresge and McCrory added a second store in downtown Detroit the following year. These were the first S.S. Kresge stores. After two years of partnership, he traded McCrory his share in the Memphis store, plus $3,000, for full ownership of the Detroit store, and formed the Kresge & Wilson Company with his brother-in-law, Charles J. Wilson.

In 1912, Kresge incorporated the S.S. Kresge Company in Delaware with 85 stores. In 1916, Kresge incorporated a new S.S. Kresge Company in Michigan and took over the operations of the original company, becoming the modern day Kmart company. The company was first listed on the New York Stock Exchange on May 23, 1918. During World War I, Kresge experimented with raising the limit on prices in his stores to $1. By 1924, Kresge was worth approximately $375 million and owned real estate of the approximate value of $100 million. Growth early in the 20th century remained brisk, with 257 stores in 1924, rising to 597 stores by 1929. Kresge retired as president in 1925, continuing as the company's chairman. The Great Depression reduced profitability and resulted in store closings, but the number rose to 682 in 1940. After the war, shopping patterns changed and many customers moved out of the cities into the suburbs.

Under the leadership of executive Harry Cunningham, S.S. Kresge Company opened the first Kmart-named store, at 27,000 square feet (2,500 square meters) on January 25, 1962, in San Fernando, California. It was referred to by Kresge as a "bantam" Kmart and was in fact originally intended to be a Kresge store until late in the planning process, This happened just six months before the first Walmart opened, while the first ground-up full-size Kmart with 80,000 square feet (7,400 square meters), opened on March 1, 1962, in Garden City, Michigan. Cunningham and Sam Walton were both inspired by Ann & Hope, which they each visited in 1961. Seventeen more Kmart stores opened in 1962. Kmart Foods, a now-defunct chain of Kmart supermarkets, opened in that decade. Though the chain continued to open Kmart branded stores, the company was still officially known as S.S. Kresge Company.

Company founder Kresge died on October 18, 1966, at age 99.

Around the time of the opening of the first Kmart, some poorly performing S.S. Kresge stores were converted to a new "Jupiter Discount Stores" brand, which was conceived as a bare-bones, deep discount outfit.^{[citation needed]} During the 1970s, Kmart put a number of competing retailers out of business. Kresge, Jupiter and Kmart stores mainly competed with other store chains like Zayre, Ames, Bradlees, Caldor, Hills, and those that were operated by MMG-McCrory Stores (McCrory, McLellan, H.L. Green, J.J. Newberry, S.H. Kress, TG&Y, Silver's and eventually G.C. Murphy Co.). In 1977, S.S. Kresge Company changed its name to K Mart Corporation.