On the inside, we find more of the same too, just even emptier (of course). There was a quite decent crowd inside, though, which is a bit surprising. It's more than you'd see in a normal, non-closing store around here these days! (Which doesn't bode well for in-person retail post-COVID...)
Aside from Christmas Eve rushes and stuff like that, the busiest our local Sears stores were in recent times was during their liquidation sales! That's quite odd too because Sears was practically giving away their merchandise prior to the liquidations through their Shop Your Way Rewards program. Things were actually more expensive after the liquidation sale started than before, but I suppose people didn't know that. I suppose that partially helps to explain why Sears went out of business!
ReplyDeleteYeah, that's true, but it still feels weird to see this store busier in its closing than what I'm used to seeing in, say, Fred Meyer or Target these days! And yes, that's very true about Sears sales -- my parents are constantly getting stuff nearly for free from them.
DeleteOne of our local Walmart Supercenters closed about 5 years ago. You should have seen how busy the store was during the liquidation! Just finding a parking spot was a real adventure! Unlike some other liquidation sales where the liquidation discounts are worse than the pre-liquidation sales, the percentages off Walmart had were off their regular prices so there were good deals to be had even when the percentage was quite low.
DeleteI can't remember for sure, but I think that Walmart completely ran out of merchandise after only about 10 days or maybe two weeks. Even then, there wasn't much left in those last few days. It was pretty crazy.
Nobody even knows why that store closed for sure. It's not too often that Walmart Supercenters close. There were a lot of rumors that were quite interesting, but it's hard to say what really happened.
Ha, I imagine a Walmart closing would be crazy! It is certainly strange to hear of a Supercenter closing, or really any Walmart at all that's not just being replaced with a larger store.
DeleteWe've actually had a number of Wal-Mart Neighborhood Markets completely close over the years here in Houston. I'm not sure if you have WM Neighborhood Markets in the NW. They are basically Wal-Marts with just the grocery department. Wal-Mart has opened a number of them in Houston over the years, but not all of them have been very successful. Still, they continue to open new ones so they seem pretty committed to the format. It seems like most of the new Wal-Marts we get these days are Neighborhood Markets.
DeleteBut, yeah, it is my understanding that only a few Supercenters have close nationwide over the years. It was very strange seeing that happen here at a store that seemed to do pretty well.
We only have a handful of Walmart NMs in the Seattle area, and I've never visited any of them, but I did stop in at one on my Portland trip (in an old furniture store!). The concept never seems to have caught on around here -- in fact, Walmart on the whole really hasn't, with significantly fewer stores than in most other metro areas (and not a single one in Seattle proper, even though the city has plenty of other big box retail). But still, I can't think of any Walmarts closing outright around here! (In the Portland area, though, there were quite a few Walmart NM closures a few years back, but even then I don't believe there were any full-line stores that closed.)
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