And then there were 3 - [Kmarts]

[professorscott]

Kmart started losing focus no later than the 1980s with its purchase of outfits like Builder's Square and Waldenbooks, when it should have been concentrating on upgrading its stores and inventory system. Add to that the lie-filled tenure of Chuck Conaway and the current ongoing rape of the company by sociopath Eddie Lampert, and it's remarkable there are any stores left at all.

That, and the complete neglect of basic store upkeep. Lampert basically took it as a real estate play, and he himself has been doing OK with it, while destroying two iconic American brands. Sears and K-Mart [[there used to be a hyphen) were absolutely go-to places in the 1960s and 1970s, and it has been awful to watch the slow, painful and inexorable decline. My daughters and nieces have never been inside a Sears or a KMart and likely never will - I'm talking about women from their early 20s to mid 30s in age. Those brands are utterly irrelevant to them.