Kmart and Sears to close 100+ stores

So Kmart and Sears had a very bad Christmas season. The news came out the day after Christmas so I expect the decison to close stores was made months ago.



As others on the forum have stated there's scrap in store closings. My question is how do we position our selves to make some money?

I do feel sorry for the employees and stock holders but the management is terrible. If you have been in a Kmart recently I think you would agree. But someone will get the leftovers may as well be us. Mike.

Not surprised. I've boycotted Sears since 1981 due to ineptness and poor customer relations. More than one incident.

Mike I must agree with you on the bad management. I go to Sears to buy garage door openers all the time and every time I walk in the door there are three or four clerks standing around doing nothing. There pushy sales people run more sale off then they make! I have bought hundreds of openers from the same store over the years and every time they try to sell me the extended warranty and ask if I need it instauled. They can see right on the screen I buy one or two a month.

As far as scrapping from this I think one would have to bid and show insurance and such. I also think permission would have to come from the corporate level.

I hope they don't close my local Sears or Kmart. Kmart should be renamed as Clearancemart, most everything is on clearance all the time. But Kmart is Wally Worlds only competition any more around these parts.

It might be tough to get in with some of the national stores and sometimes just being in the right place at the right time, similar to the appliance deal GreenTruck got with Ultimate Electronics. Many of the auctions I go to are smaller businesses that have been seized because they owe some sort of tax to either the city, count or state. Now I'm looking mostly to resell but get stuff below scrap prices sometimes so I know at least i will make something. Some auctions are better then others but most things sell below retail so there is some meat on the bone. And as stated above, I feel for the people that lost their business, but the stuff is for sale, someone is going to buy it.

Sears is nothing more but a joke..truly is.

Anytime I go there, and look at their appliances or electronics, you have 5 to 8 employees just talking to one another and not coming up to you and saying "how may I help you today sir?"

I used to think that they got paid on commissions alone, but now I see it is a base/hourly wage and commissions (maybe).

I went in there one time, and stood in the same little area for dang near 30 minutes. Was in eye contact of like 5 associates.

We wanted to buy a new tv. I got tired of waiting and our 2 daughters got tired and hungry. I finally spoke up real loud and said "babe, lets go, I guess this place doesn't want my money"...as we started walking away, one of the associates came up and said "can I help you sir" and I looked at him and said "You could have 31 minutes ago, but since I wasn't important enough for you to waste a minute on, then you are no longer important for me to spend my money here" and walked.

I have always loved walmart better...that and Best Buy.

Now getting back to business at hand.

I have done 2 store liquidations/closeouts as of date, and they have been from the supers seeing my ads on craigslist and contacting me.

First one I ever did, the guy contacted me up...a Rite Aide I believe was closing down. Some pharmacy is all I remember. Anyways, he tells me that he has a TON of shelving, and some other metal stuff. I told him that I could be there in less than 2 hours (about 45 minutes away) with 2 trucks and trailers. He said, that was cool.

Called up a buddy and asked him if he like to make some cash. We went and loaded to the brim both of our trucks and trailers. Split everything 50/50. I think we both walked away with like $250 to $300. However, I ended up with more, because I had to go back the next day for a LOT more stuff.

Before I got ready to leave...the super says "I forgot, we have some stuff up stairs that you might like to have as well. Went up stairs, and my smile was so big, it was unreal. Tons of metal, copper wiring, you name it. Luckily for us, they had a conveyor belt that went from the upstairs downstairs to the loading dock.

What I would do, is go by one of the stores that you know is closing down. Ask for a supervisor. Let him/her know what you are doing, and ask who you need to speak to about hauling off all their metal/wire/copper whatever for free (or a price).

For me, both guys never asked for insurance or anything. Just pointed to stuff, and told me to have fun!

Originally Posted by injunjoe

Mike I must agree with you on the bad management. I go to Sears to buy garage door openers all the time and every time I walk in the door there are three or four clerks standing around doing nothing. There pushy sales people run more sale off then they make! I have bought hundreds of openers from the same store over the years and every time they try to sell me the extended warranty and ask if I need it instauled. They can see right on the screen I buy one or two a month.

As far as scrapping from this I think one would have to bid and show insurance and such. I also think permission would have to come from the corporate level.

I hope they don't close my local Sears or Kmart. Kmart should be renamed as Clearancemart, most everything is on clearance all the time. But Kmart is Wally Worlds only competition any more around these parts.

Sorry about the off topic question here, but this has really got my curiosity up here. May I ask what do you do with all these garage door openers?

The states and how many are Alabama-3 California-3 Colorado-3 Florida-11 Georgia-6 Idaho-1 Indiana-3 Iowa-2 Kansas-1 Kentucky-3 Maryland-1 Michigan-6 Minnesota-4 Mississippi-3 Missouri-2 New Hampshire-2 North Carolina-4 Ohio-6 Oregon-1 Pennsylvania-2 South Carolina-1 Tennessee-4 Virginia-3 Washington-2 Wisconsin-2

Originally Posted by skylinejackjr

Sorry about the off topic question here, but this has really got my curiosity up here. May I ask what do you do with all these garage door openers?

I had a door company for about 15 years. I closed down but I still have the same phone number, so the many happy customers still call me! Between Doors and AC I ended up becoming interested in scrapping! That's the story.

Yea, those door spring add up to some good weight. I cleaned up a guys back yard, he had them just laying everywhere along with the bolts. I'll bet I picked up about 20 lb of nuts and bolts. I guess he didn't want to mow the yard. lol

Originally Posted by eesakiwi

Someone told me the door springs can be used on horse floats, where they need the big door to drop down & become a drawbridge/ramp for getting the horse outta the trailer.

The spring is put in pretensioned & compensates for the weight of the big door.

I haven't actually sold one or checked it out yet, but I do have one put aside, just in case its true.

I know we are off topic here but I think I should give some words of advice here on the spring subject for people reading this thread.

First and foremost these springs are no joke! They can kill you! Winding springs with the wrong tools can get you broken fingers or dead and any where in between!

Eesakiwi you are correct you can use the same idea of counter balancing a door or a tailgate. The type of spring for a drop gate would be a torsion spring.
With a garage door the door weighs less and less as it goes up as the panels fall back onto the horizontal track. A drop gate would remain the same weight as it drops so for each application requires different drums for the cables. Springs are rated at foot pounds per turn. There is more math involved to these springs then one may expect.

Not only are the springs very dangerous to handle by untrained workers they are also rated for a set amount of cycles! Most doors have 2 springs, when one breaks it is best to replace both as they have cycled the same number of times and there life is about up! So when people find a spring that is not broken they think it is a good spring but really that spring is near the end of it's usable life. Trust me you don't want to be winding (preload) a spring and have it break on you!

Just think of the spring in a lighter. When you take the wheel off the flint the flint and spring flies across the room. Now think about a spring that is 32" long with a 0.250" gauge wire at 2" ID.

Just thought I should warn folks of the dangers!

Originally Posted by badewolf

haha, they closed a k-mart in jacksonville, they were having a liquidation sale, manager let me take a bunch of shelving and i went through the construction dumpster when they were demolishing the building. was about 800+- pounds of steel

Good deal ! I would have thought they would be worried of people getting hurt and not allow that.

If our local Kmart closes I can just picture 100 scrap trucks all around the place.

Its good to hear from someone who has some experience. Hopefully some of our members can take advantage of your experience. Thank you for sharing, Mike.