Kmart #7294
1501 US Highway 1, Vero Beach, FL - Indian River Plaza
Some people tend to refer to the current state of Sears and Kmart as the "world's longest liquidation sale", so I guess my coverage of the Vero Beach Kmart's closing is the world's most drawn out coverage of the world's longest liquidation sale! I know it's been a while since the last installment in this closing series, but as slow as it may be, we continue on with installment number four. Today's photos pick up approximately two weeks after my prior visit to the Vero Beach Kmart, which you can recap here, bringing us to the end of October 2019 (Halloween Day 2019, actually). I wasn't planning on returning to this store so soon after my previous visit, but on this particular day I was heading back from covering some stores down in Palm Beach County, and ended up cutting over to US 1 from I-95 at some point, bringing me by the Kmart. Since I was passing by I decided to pop in for another look around, bringing us the photos we'll be seeing today.
Compared to our last visit to the Vero Beach Kmart, nothing major has changed. We'll see some larger patches of emptiness in a few parts of the store, but otherwise the store was still pretty well stocked and none of the salesfloor was closed off yet. It won't be until our next visit when the store closing vibe really begins to hit hard.
Heading inside, we'll do our usual counterclockwise loop through the store, beginning with the hardlines side of the building and looping around through softlines before we exit.
Last time we were here, the closing sale discounts were advertised as 20%-60% off. Two weeks later, the discounts increased only slightly to 25%-70% off. The slight increase in discounts wasn't moving the product any faster than before, as we can tell by the full-looking shelves of merchandise.
Diverting into one of the side aisles in the health and beauty department, this was one of the emptier aisles I'd noticed during my visit here. Still a good amount of product to be seen, but you can see where some of the merchandise was being consolidated upward.
Even though my visit occurred on Halloween 2019, there was plenty of Christmas stuff out for sale - more Christmas than Halloween, actually! As soon as the liquidation started, Kmart dragged out all of the Christmas merchandise that had arrived and started squeezing it onto the salesfloor to get rid of it, lining it all up in the middle of this aisle.
Following that look at the Christmas decorations, what better transition than into the toy department? Still plenty of toys for sale, even at the new 40% off discount price.
The aisles in the toy, sporting goods, and hardware department were cut in half by the aisle we see here.
Pallets of Christmas trees fill up the main aisle in the very back of the store, next to the furniture department. It looks like there's some Christmas trees stored on the back wall too, on that top shelf. I'm sure all those plush Monty Mongooses (Mongeese? I still don't know!) in the bin to my left were hoping to find their way under one of those very Christmas trees for the upcoming holiday season.
The Hardware department (aka the "Do It Yourself" department) was located in the very back right corner of the building, with overstock Paw Patrol toys and Christmas trees trying to encroach into its space as product began to thin out.
Turning around for one last look across the right side of the building, we find more Christmas trees, blocking most of our view to the left. To my right were more random pallet drops of large overstock items and the furniture department (and I think even more Christmas trees!).
Leaving that part of the store, I think we'll be safe from any more Christmas trees through the end of this post. After cutting through the furniture department, here's a look at some of the housewares and small appliances aisles, which were still decently stocked like the rest of the store.
While I promised no more Christmas trees, it appears some other Christmas decorations had found their way into the back aisle, as can be seen here. The pantry department branches off to my left, with electro-pli-mattress department following housewares to my right.
Kmart was just shoving all the overstock merchandise from the backroom wherever they could at this point to get it out, hence all the displays down the center of this narrow aisle.
Some random automotive supplies were tossed into the cleaning supply aisle, and I happened to notice this interesting device mixed in with everything - a solar powered car air conditioner to keep your car cool while parked. This would certainly come in handy on a hot Floridian summer day, when you get into your car and start sweating instantly! Had this been marked down more than $3 from the original price I probably would have bought it, but the discount was still a bit stingy at this point for me.
Continuing along with our tour, we inch closer to the electro-pli-mattress department as we continue down the back aisle.
Even prior to the closing, there wasn't much left to the electro-pli-mattress department, so racks of clothing had begun to encroach into its space. Same as we saw with all the random merchandise shoved everywhere on the hardlines side of the store, racks of clothes were being shoved into every inch of space on the softlines side to push out as many clothing items as possible.
What we see here was the majority of the former electro-pli-mattress department, most of the actual merchandise from this area consolidated just out of frame to my right. With all that consolidated, this became the perfect home for more racks of clothes (as prior to the closing, the footprint of the men's department was slowly creeping further into the electro-pli-mattress space anyway).
This lone register was buried amongst all the clothes. Originally this was the store's electronics register, which eventually got demoted to the layaway payment register, and now was just sitting here amongst all the clothes waiting to get dismantled. I have no idea if this register was being used for anything at this point in the closing sale, but as you can see, it was still very much working when I was here.
More racks of clothes were placed down this aisle, which separated the housewares department from the softlines side of the store.
More clothes, with the shoe department appearing to my left.
This aisle in the shoe department was the only totally empty aisle I remembered seeing during my entire visit this day, so either the shoes were selling well at 50% off...
…or people just wanted to break in this store closing and toss all the shoes on the floor instead.
Now that we've seen the traditional store closing shoes on the floor, we poke out from the shoe aisles for a quick glimpse at the fitting rooms. It's hard to tell if the fitting rooms had been closed at this time due to the liquidation, or if it was just a mess back there.
Here's one last look across the back of the store as we loop our way back to the front.
The left side aisle was also filled with lots of clothes, just like all the other main aisles on this side of the store.
Back up front, we find the check lanes to my right, somewhere behind all those displays.
One last look at the front end before we head out...
I'll leave everyone with this parting shot of the exterior to wrap up today's installment in my Vero Beach Kmart closing series. The next time I get around to this series will be our last installment showcasing this store while it was still in business. With how far the liquidation had progressed by that time, the next installment will probably be the most interesting out of this entire series, considering how much will have changed. I'll get to that at some point, and I'll try to see what I can work on for my next installment of MFR.
So until the next post,
AFB
