I hear almost every day about how Sears and Kmart are losing money and relevance. If they really are in a death spiral, how much longer do they have? Personally, I love Sears, because I never have to wait in line 
But seriously, 90% of the time when I walk into my local Sears, the only people there are me, and the employees.
I guess Kmart can continue to surive, if only because there are customers even Wal-Mart doesn’t want to serve.
As for Sears, I see it breaking down into smaller and smaller units: Sears Hardware, Sears Appliance, Sears Home. Anything but fashion.
A coworker of mine confidently predicted that Sears would be dead within five years. However, that was in 1995. Somehow they keep chugging away.
Ever since the old Kmart went bankrupt, became Kmart Holding, took over Sears and became Sears Holding Company it has been essentially a real estate holding company: The company’s main assets are the real estate and buildings of its stores and other facilities.
As a group, it is the 10th biggest retailer in the US. (It recently spun off Lands’ End.) But that means little. You can be in the top 3 in your category and still tank.
They can continue for some time just by keep closing and selling off stores. I suspect once real estate prices get fairly good again, they will sell off a lot of stuff. Maybe everything to several different groups. The new owners will then do whatever they want with the real estate. The Kmart and Sears labels are secondary.
Note that the Sears stores in malls are toast. They will close and be turned into secondary sites like flea markets or just plain torn down and redeveloped.
Kmarts are usually sufficiently stand alone that they can be converted into something similar. But these buildings have a surprisingly short life expectancy so they could be torn down and replaced with another retailer. (E.g., the last Kmart in our area was vacant for a long while, torn down, and is now a small WalMart.)
My experience: Never buy anything online from Sears. Never. Their e-tailing system is a disaster. Once the brick and mortar part dies, Sears dies.
If you have a K-mart convenient to you, you should definitely sign up for their rewards card and shop there a lot. The points add up really fast and my family’s gotten hundreds of dollars worth of stuff (if not more) for free thanks to the points. It’s not my favorite store (I actually like Target and Walmart better overall) but man, getting stuff for free rules. Points work across stores too, like if you spend enough to get $10 worth of points at K-mart, you can redeem those at Sears if you want. Or vice versa.
Get in on it while they’re still around!
[sub][sup](I swear I have no connection to K-mart other than shopping there, this is not spam)[/sup][/sub]
The drawback, of course, is the free stuff is from K-mart. 
But it comes with a free frogurt!
I grew up with KMart as the only department store in our area, and it was such a bummer when they left. I don’t remember if they co-existed with Wal Mart or were gone before WM moved in.
That rewards card sounds awesome! I would totally shop there. Most of the stuff I buy is junk anyway. I can’t even go to Target because their stuff is so nice and colorful that i just spend too much dang money there.
Sear has been trying to create an Amazon-type website.
That might work.
There was a Super Kmart not far from here. It’s now a gigantic CarMax. The last time I went to Sears was so frustrating, I vowed not to return. Their computer inventory system is so clunky that it took five minutes to check out for one item.
Near me, the Kmarts are starting to shut down. I’ll miss the fried chicken they cook up. 'Twas delicious.
As I noted above, they have horribly and irreparably botched their e-tailing system.
The current owners of Sears/Kmart do not care at all about customer care. Even by modern American standards of screw the customer, they are awful.
I worked for K-Mart all through high school, college and a few years beyond - 10 years total. The only reason I left was that, as a assistant manager, my next promotion would require a move to anywhere the company chose, with mandatory transfers every 3-4 years on average thereafter. I left in the 80’s, before the bankruptcy.
The K-Mart where I worked is still open. The only thing that has changed about the store and merchandising over the ensuing 30 years are the Sears appliances poorly displayed in a corner of the store. Every time I walk in (less and less frequently) I think I’ve entered a time warp and fully expect to see my old cow-orkers laboring away in the aisles. The reality is that I rarely see any employees laboring in the aisles, and it shows. If my local store is representative of the chain as a whole, the real question is “How have they made it this long”?
Maybe I wasn’t clear, but when you get free stuff it’s because the points basically act like cash. Use it for whatever you want, most of which is the same stuff you get from any retailer.
I’m amazed that K-Mart is still open, ever. It’s absolutely the worst-run store I’ve ever been in. Ever, in my life.
any time I go in, there is one lane open, staffed by someone who’s only partly trained. Inevitably they need someone with “a key” and we all have to wait for forty minutes while this magical “key” shows up. This person is always in Narnia or traveling with Time Lords or something; they’re never in the damn store.
I don’t go to Sears any more now that my dad has all the tools he wants. 
Makes it tough to buy birthday prezzies.