Kmart "Americas Favorite Store"

Yeah, I remember that slogan.  Back when KMart had over 2,100+ stores and growing.  You can watch the old commercial from 1986 on Youtube:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b-IXJKxSD4Y

Hopefully in the next year or two Kmart will get in the position where they can open up a few new stores here and there. 

I don't remember that slogan at all. I do remember the blue light special thing though. I remember that from when I was a little kid and I'd drag my mom over to where ever the blue light was to see what was going on. 

Paula - the light special thing is actually "The Blue Light Special" --- and it's still alive with the Kmart Smart tagline now....

coming back to retrommercials (The Rock's word for retro commercials), I think one of the very first and cool campaigns was the 1970's Kmart positioning as "The Saving Place" linky http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pDKVLyRt0jQ

another one with Tim Allen: 1980's linky http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F02edtT-4Ns

The old smocks from the late 70s were a light greenish color that the female hourly asso wore with a name badge. dress pants and a blouse. The smock had a Kmart logo/patch on it.. The male hourly asso wore a dress pants, shirt ,with tie, and had a name badge. The male management wore a dress,pants, shirt and tie with a name badge . The male managers had to wear a sports coat but as soon as we hit the door the coats came off so we could go to work.. The female managers wore a skirt , blouse or pants suit and a name badge. The garden shops folks wore blue jeans and a pull over shirt so when they  had to load the 2 or 3  truck loads of bag goods on Sat they could get down an dirty. Security ,as they were called back then, were is plain cloths throughout most of the 70s and then along about 1979/80 LP had to wear a suit or dress pants and shirt and tie. Needless to say they stood out like a sore thumb and apprenshions went down. Some of the LPs use to carry a brass Security badge before 1979.. The security folks had their titles changed in 79 or 1980 due to legal guidelines and only and LP could stop someone. after they were certified. The GM   or AMcould not stop anyone or stop an underringing going on in the store. The  corportae belief was that if one could record or see what was going on then one could see how much the cashier ran the register and then Kmart could take the asso to civil court as well. I can rememeber witnessing a $200 plus underring on several occassion and even talking with my LP  on the phone as i observe through my vidoe camera system and being told to just monior it. Talking about shrink going up.WOW . The resaon we were given was that back then we recovered $16,000,000 or goods but paid out $17,000,000 in claims so it was better to only let LP stop the person under strick guidelines. I went from stopping 24 to 28 and convicting them in as an asst. or manager to none as well as doing away with the CRI  at the service desk. Talking about having to hold it back. Stealing is stealing and well I am off subject here. Sorry but the uniform information is pretty accurate.

But times do change

The Bluelight was great in my time. We use to use it to get rid of our junk at super low prices. On Sat night we would be packed, The popcorn smell was in the air from the Deli and we would run the bluelight all over the store getting rid of 6 of this 20 of that. You could feel the excitement in the air. The store was supercharged.  I rememeber 1 sale we had in Roses home town, we  had printed sent out invitations as well as passed them out  all week to a Special bluelight sale. No one knew what was going to be on sale and the asso. told everyone it would be a Bluelight sale that would not be forgotten. We were person to person you could not turn around,   Thank goodness the fire marshal di d not come in or he would have shut us down. Every shopping cart was in use as well as laundry basket tha we had was in use for a merchandise basket. This was a little group 9 store about 34,000 square feet and we usually did about $9,000 on Sunday back in 1980. That Sunday we KNOCKED OUT $42,000 and had folks hiking in that were parked  down the side of I85. The local police and highway patrol had to come out and direct the traffic  It was a wow moment. We planned the sale, bought the goods, and executed the plans. Needless to say the next Sunday the 3 Roses stores in town had a Sunday night sale.

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Don't even get me started on the popcorn!  LOL  My mom and I could never get out of Kmart without getting the giant bag of popcorn and eating half of it on the way home. It was so good!

Such great memories, birddog333.  Those are some huge numbers for now, and in 1980, wow.  I love the idea of customers walking around with laundry baskets for their shopping!

What about the jewelry specials? Were those "Bluelight Specials" too? I remember red tickets and lots of people squished together around a sales rep selling bracelets and necklaces for knockout prices. Every one holding this ticket anxiously waiting to see what piece of jewelry this woman was going to hold up for us to see! Kmart made so many women delightfully happy during those specials!

Popcorn is an excellent gross profit items and since it is Department 51 there is no mardown to  reduce it if you have to mark it down to clear it out.

How about a promotion in department 51?

What could Kmart do with an ICEE and Popcorn?

These 2 items use to drive some numbers in the old days.

Does Kmart still carry the ham to slice in their delis or do they have delis anymore?

How about the old submarine sandwich?

I like your Kmart about not getting out of Kmart withou a bag of popcorn.

What could Kmart do to make the same feelings happen today?

 Laundry Baskets were standard operating procedures when you open a store in my days. The shopping carts gave out at Grand Opening and we had a large supply up of laundery baskets up front  for our shoppers to use. This way they could carry more than they would have been able to carry in their hands.

<AVERAGE ORDER>

 I can remember opening my last store 3925 on soft opening and we were due to close at 9, we still had a mob so I kept it open  If we were busy, we did not run the paying customers out.until  the number of customers died down . I would then make the closing announcement.

I would assume that the laundry baskets up front are still on the GRAND OPENING checklist to do.

I believe the store # was 9548 for the big sale in Henderson. The store is now closed and that is another storey since a Super Walmart opened after it closed and do a killer business now.

Remember GOLD by the inch. We would bring it in and sale it and then return it as well as the ring specials. We would bring in 600 to 800 rings blow through them and then send the excess back. The MZ Berger watch $15.99, bluelight for $9.99 0r less and still make money.

I would have the Mattel rep ship a Barbie Costune into me and have one of my college students dress up in it .Mattel would pay for an ROP ad to come meet Barbie and the little girls got to meet Barber. Mattel paid the $25 for her to dress up in the costume.Needles to say the little girls brough MOM with them and we sold a bunch of Barbie's, clothes, as well as mom did other shopping also.

Lego

They have a traveling assembled lego display on different items such as planes, trucks, castles  etc and would ship it into the store for diplay for a week. Kmart would pay the freight but we sold tons of Legos.

We also had the ICEE bear costune and the planters peanuts man costune.

I always had promotions going on to drive sales