LR Kmart closing
Sears Holding says store among 72 shutting to cut costs.
Sears Holdings Corp. is shuttering more stores, and one of its three remaining Kmart locations in Arkansas is on the latest list of closures.
The Kmart at 10901 Rodney Parham Road in Little Rock will close its doors in September as part of the company’s cost-cutting moves. Sears Holdings spokesman Howard Riefs said a liquidation sale for the store will begin June 15 and added the company was making a “difficult, but necessary decision.”
“We have been strategically and aggressively evaluating our store space and productivity, and have accelerated the closing of unprofitable stores as previously announced,” Riefs said in an email.
The number of employees affected by the closure is not publicly available, according to Riefs. He said most of the employees were part-time or hourly workers. Those that are eligible will receive severance and have the opportunity to apply for open positions at area Sears or Kmart stores.
The Little Rock location
is among 72 stores — Sears, Kmart and Sears auto centers — in the latest round of closures, according to a list obtained by Business Insider. The Kmart in Little Rock is the only Arkansas store on the list.
The company closed a stand-alone Sears store in Jonesboro earlier this year. Late last year, Kmart stores in Springdale and Jonesboro were shuttered. A Sears in Little Rock closed last July.
There are four full-line Sears stores still open in Arkansas — Fayetteville, Fort Smith, Hot Springs and North Little Rock — according to the company’s website. Only two Kmart stores — Cabot and Russellville — will remain in operation in the state after the Little Rock store is closed.
“We often hear from our members who are disappointed when we close a store, but our Shop Your Way membership platform, websites and mobile apps allow us to maintain these valued relationships long after a store closes its doors,” Riefs said. “As a result, we hope to retain a portion of the sales previously associated with this store by maintaining our relationships with the members who shopped this location.”
The newest round of closings come as Sears Holdings, led by Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Eddie Lampert since 2004, struggles to maintain relevance in a changing retail environment. More shoppers are heading online because of e-commerce retailers like Amazon.com, and many traditional brick-andmortar retailers have struggled to adapt.
Sears Holdings has sold assets like its Craftsman tool brands and closed hundreds of stores to help offset financial troubles that have spanned several years. The company reported its first profitable threemonth period in two years in May with first-quarter net income of $244 million, but the results included one-time items. Same-store sales — or sales at stores open at least one year — fell 11.2 percent at Kmart and 12.4 percent at Sears in the first quarter.
“I think we’re continuing to experience the evolution of the retail industry in ways people could never have imagined,” Bob Williams, senior vice president and managing director of Simmons First Investment Group Inc. in Little Rock, said of the company’s ongoing struggles. “Technology has really had an exponential impact.”