Kmart

If you want to shop at a store that acts as if a bankruptcy filing is coming any day now come shop at this K Mart. It’s the saddest department store I have seen and I have been to some in third world countries. You go in and sometimes 90% of the shelves are empty. Bare. And I’m not talking about certain things being seasonal. Some of the merchandise price stickers are so old the color has faded entirely away and looks like the label was printed 20 years ago. The store has that old crappy demolish-​me-​now look. This is a KMart I would imagine that could be the last KMart in America nestled in a town with a population of 100. The customer service here is very bland — it’s like the workers know their pay checks could stop all of the sudden so why give a SH! T. None of the price scanners work and in fact the last time I went they were all gone. A Manager saw a line was forming and I was number 2 in line at a cash register. The manager tells the woman behind me (number 3 in line) to check out at the customer service desk and tells me to follower her. I wondered why — I went from being number 2 in line to number 3 in line. Does that make sense? The manager didn’t even have the sense to ring us up if he felt the need to address the long lines.
Kmart, you need to be shutdown and shipped to North Korea. You may have better business there.

I am about to drop some serious knowledge that will have no bearing on your life.
Kmart is weird. There’s no other way about it. The only people who shop at Kmart are the people who live too far (or not a bus’ ride away) from a Walmart.
Kmart gets Walmart’s sloppy seconds.
Pssst, Kmart, place your department stores in high density areas with no Walmart within a 8 mile radius.
That being said, Kmart is being gobbled up by Target and Walmart. Kmart has been on the decline for 14 years since it filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. Somehow Kmart still managed to buy out Sears, another fellow sinking company.
I think there is plenty of hope on the horizon for Kmart. It’s becoming mainstream to appreciate all things that are not mainstream. Craft beer: in. Fat chicks: in. Capris: in. Dressing up as a nerd: in. I dub this the Hipster Paradox. The Hipster Paradox is liking something that sucks to the point it becomes mainstream. It’s making the unpopular popular because we all know it’s hip to like things that are unpopular. I am calling it. In 5 years, Kmart will supplant Walmart and Target and become the premier big-​box department store.
Let me tell you something about these fools who are posting one star reviews for Kmart. These fools are only posting something because they had a negative experience. If your transaction at Kmart went smoothly without any kinks, you will have no reason to post about it. The only problem with my experience was that the line was long and I had to wait… which was not too bad because I standing behind two goons were stupidly high that they forgot to leave with their items. gh.
But think about it, there were about 30 customers sharing two lines. That is some serious business!!! It took like 20 minutes for me to be rung up. That is to show that Kmart is definitely doing something right. Business was booming.

The worst customer service on the face of the earth… I waited in line for an hour to return something… The workers there look like they hate their lives and don’t give a crap about anyone’s time. The only reason I go there is because of its convenient location, and their laundry detergent is mostly always on sale. My trip to this Kmart Is never pleasant.

I have been a Kmart shopper since my grandma took me there as a child to ‘layaway” my Christmas and Easter clothes. I think the quality and styling of their clothing is superior to that of Wal-​Mart and easily matches Target and Kohls. Kmart also has competitive prices. But I am very disappointed that the Kmart in Aspen Hill is not as nice the one in Gaithersburg /​Kentlands MD, Stafford, VA area or even Pace, FL which are both very well organized, bright and clean. They are also well staffed with employees throughout the store to keep it neat and help with customers’ inquiries. All of which is remiss in Aspen Hill. While in the past 4 months some efforts to improve it has a long way to go. They departments are messy if you go after 1pm, shopping carts are not available or locked down with boots, and lines are very long because not enough registers are open, and the employees try to be helpful but they are overworked and the store is understaffed.
The Kmart/​Sears company is responsible for this. They are not providing the environment to make shopping pleasant or keep employees morale up. I wrote to them about this about 2 years ago to bring awareness to needs to improve the store. They sent me a generic «we do what we can…» So please keep shopping there so the store remains open, the employees keep their jobs and the community can shop. Unlike Gaithersburg the people in Aspen Hill do not have many department shopping choices (no WalMart, Target). There is a Kohls but it can be expensive for many families in the area. Residents would have to go to Wheaton or over to Rockville Pike to shop if it closes.
Sorry so long! Can’t let the store be bashed without the full picture especially since it serves a diverse lower middle class (if even) socio-​economic demographic.

We went to this KMart to pick up a bistro set purchased online. We actually used my gopher to buy it for 75 $ less than it was priced at the KMart then went to get it the next day.
The staff was super helpful and loaded it into the car for us. They seemed very familiar with the ‘buy online’ and pick up at store deal.
The bistro set is beautiful and I highly recommend it. The brand is Jacquelin Smith and it is called Cherry Valley bistro set. We very quickly put it together (5 minutes tops per piece) and enjoy sitting on our front porch with coffee at this set. This is a high quality piece with a granite top, not what I would expect from the big K!

Anytime I’ve been to this KMart it reminds me of a store that is going out of business. The stock is a mess and very limited. When I go for specific items on sale they are inevitably sold out. I ordered online to pick up an item and they couldn’t find it. After about 30 minutes they found the same item in the store stock and gave that to me.
I avoid this place unless the sale is a great bargain, and then I go with trepidation.

Their customers push shopping carts into your cars in the parking lot !!@@ they put a small dent on mine… am done with THIS store, plus everything there is ALWAYS disorganized, and the employees are clueless to merchandising placement. …if you must go there park far away from the store, so the animal shoppers dont damage your vehicle with the unguarded carts, and inconsiderate, rude, lazy shoppers who cant take their carts back… and those whose understanding of english sucks, like their bad, evil characters. dont know how kmart is still around ???

Doesn’t deserve not one star!! This store is the worst store ever!!! I bought a pair of jeans for my daughter. They didn’t fit and the cheap ass tag fell off before I got them home. I took the jeans back to the store and they wouldn’t let me return them or exchange them and the receipt clearly stated I payed for two pairs 4 days ago. They don’t stand by their policy! Not to mention rude, dirty, and terrible customer service

Seems to be a sever shortage of shopping carts every time I visit this place. I guess the upper level management doesn’t think the shopper needs them. Last time I went the customer service they told to find one in the parking lot. I said, «bye bye!»

This store is a circle of Hell Dante was too scared to write about. If you can find a cart, it’s riddled with disease and spent tissues, who knows from what? Apparently, cross-​training would bring this location to a fiscal halt and therefore was never implemented. Getting help with an item is like requesting a presidential pardon, if you can distinguish the staff from the customers, both equally as sad. The store is something of a historical phenomenon, as the registers at each checkout aisle were the first computers ever created. Because of this, they rarely work, which gives the staff ample time to cough in your face. I wouldn’t ask my worst enemy to shop there for fear of insisting a war. Do not go to this store. Do not go to this store. Do not go to this store.

This Kmart is very run down. The store is a mess. The isles looks like they have been run through by a wild hoard. It is obvious the employees do not take pride in their store. Items were tossed everywhere in the isles and looked like they had been there for days or weeks. I will not be returning.

This Kmart is a complete, utter dump and I will never, repeat never, set foot in there again. Back in the mid ‘00s I occasionally shopped there but, as the other reviewers have pointed out, the store itself, interior and selection of merchandise are all crummy. And the check-​out lines are ridiculously slow. Really, is it that hard to find people who can competently operate a cash register? While this store is particularly distasteful and jumbled throughout, frankly I’ve found most Kmarts to be this way. I’ve only come across one Kmart, in the Kentlands area of Gaithersburg, that was half-​way decent in this entire area.
After several years of avoiding this store like the plague, last summer I decided to give it one more try. Alas, the store was ridiculously hot — clearly the A/​C wasn’t working correctly — and smelled like gasoline. That’s not an exaggeration. Plus I couldn’t even find what I was looking for. I walked out of there empty-​handed and will never enter that building again as long as it’s a Kmart.
Kmart corporate: do us all a favor and shut down this excuse-​for-​a-​store once and for all.

I wish it was a half star option…
It’s dirty, the appearance of the outside clearance rack is always tacky looking. Customer service is UGH However, there is one checker who is always polite every time. Everybody else’s service sucks. You really need help when you shop there. You can’t find price tags, and price checkers don’t work either. Other than that, it’s a regular old KMART!

Being a shrewd consumer, I put several of this year’s «Hottest Toys» on layaway in late August when the list of the toys that were likely to be hard to find by Christmas for my niece via the Kmart website. I figured that having them on layaway not only had the advantage of me paying them off little by little (there was no fee for layaway), but I didn’t have to store them. However, my no hassle plan turned into a huge hassle!
I paid off the layaway online and waited 4 days for it to process in Kmart’s system, which was experiencing technical difficulties at the time. After it finally processed, I printed out my receipt stating that the whole layaway order was paid off and which Kmart to pick up my order from. It happened that the this was the Kmart that was the closest to me, so there we were. We went on a quiet Saturday morning and went straight to the layaway, which is tucked away in the back corner of the store. I was second in line (or was it third, hard to tell one guy gave up hope and sat down on the bench to wait). After 20 minutes of being second, while they tried to figure out how to apply a coupon and payment to her order, they started to look for mine. After another 15 minutes of not being able to find it, they finally called a manager to the back of the store. He took another 10 minutes to get back to us. (We are at 45 minutes already, not counting the 4 days of processing).
The manager then spent 10 minutes processing the coupons and payments of the first customer. Then he spent 5 minutes tracking down my layaway and then said for me and the guy on the bench to follow him to Electronics. The gentleman was putting something on layaway and it took the manager almost 15 minutes to get his layaway setup. In the meantime, another customer walks up and gets between me and the other layaway guy. The manager spends 10 minutes checking out the new customer. I am continuing to wait patiently as I glare at my watch at the 1 hour 25 minute mark. Finally, he acknowledges me and starts to try and figure out my issue and another customer bursts in that they have been waiting 10 minutes for his attention. I very calmly explained that I was already at the 1.5 hour mark and I had already paid for my order I just was waiting for him to deactivate the security tags. She apologized and I continued to wait. Another 15 minutes later I was like I already paid for this whole thing; I don’t need to pay anything else. Frustrated I took my item off the counter, receipt in my hand and stormed out of the store. At the front door the alarm sounded as he didn’t deactivate the tags, but I didn’t care… nor did the staff based on their lack of action to the alarm sounding. I waited a minute, saw no one moving to assist and left with my VERY paid for item.
I WILL NEVER go back to this store and wouldn’t even consider doing business with them again via their website. I will be sending a copy of this review to their corporate office.

I’m probably being too generous giving this place 2 stars, but I’ll cut them a little slack since I have successfully made a few purchases here. But mostly I avoid this place like the plague because the selection is poor, and the long check-​out lines move at a glacial pace. Like many stores in this neck of the woods, it’s also taken on a slightly run-​down, unkempt look — I guess because it’s not in a high-​dollar part of town. For years, it’s been the only department store within a couple of miles from my house. However, with the Kohl’s now open in Aspen Hill, this Kmart is going to have to step it up big time or they won’t be around much longer.

Store is amazingly run down. Store looks very old and unclean, but apparently this is the one Kmart that the company keeps up, as it had a recent color scheme when I moved to the area in 2007, and has been remodeled since. Store layout is not that conducive to finding things, and employees not helpful.

This store is a mess, the staff is a bunch of idiots. I saw in the news that several Kfar! stores are closing. I bet this is going to be one of them.

This Kmart is a nightmare!
Not only do the prices seem to be more expensive than Target, their merchandise selection is just not as abundant. The store is pretty run down too. The cashiers are so S L O W. No matter what time of day you go, it seems as if you have to expect to stand in line for about half an hour (more or less). They could call more cashiers, but that doesn’t help.
Do yourself a favor and head to the Target in Wheaton or Rockville.

If you have the time to kill, you can go here to kill time. You are always greeted at the door by a minimum of 3 people asking for money or for you to sign up for something. Then there is the roaming home consolkutation people that try to get you to schedule an in home estimate for something.
I have never been rung up correctly at this store and always had to wait in line twice (once to pay and once in customer service. My last trip was 45 minutes in line. I paid and noticed that they had not applied the sales. I waited in line for customer service for another 45 minutes. Then it took an additional 45 minutes for the manager to get off her reclyner in the back room to do an override. Needless to say, I will not be returning.

This is part two of my journal detailing the abusive relationship I have with Kmart (guess who’s the victim?) in MD.
I still had that darn $ 10 coupon burning a hole in my pocket, so I drove to this location which apparently is near the Canadian border, although its address is technically Silver Spring. USPS should require this location to place the city in quotations on all couriered correspondence. So, their address would be 14 014 Conn Ave., «Silver Spring,» MD 20 906.
Why trek so far, Les? Well, the cold weather has made my eight year old car battery anemic. It’s had a good life, but I don’t want to spend a morning in sub-​30 degree weather looking for alternative transportation because of a dead battery. And here’s a secret kids, DieHard makes the best auto battery on the market, and they’re reasonably priced. Who carries them? Sears. Who owns Kmart? Sears. So you can get DieHard at Kmart, but you can’t really check on their stock online, not on batteries. So, I wanted to get a new car battery and use the $ 10 coupon. Heck, I decided to get new wiper blades for the Lestermobile, too. What a deliberate consumer I am. Or, so I think.
First impression, man, this parking lot is steep. I bet stray shopping carts hit 30 mph speeds careening at the bottom of it. Park far from the shopping carts. Next, I found the batteries in the store. OK, a decent selection, I should be able to find something that works. For those not in the know, automotive parts manufacturers supply catalogs to retailers that customers can search to find the correct replacement part for one’s car. So, I expected to flip through a DieHard book to find the proper replacement battery for the Lestermobile. No book. I speculate it was stolen. Anyway, I try to locate the part number in my car owner’s manual. Well, there are all sorts of numbers, and nothing corresponds to DieHard’s system. This is ridiculous because you can’t sell batteries unless you know the replacement part (or want to guess!). So, Kmart isn’t moving any car batteries these days. That’s a short aisle of +$ 100 merchandise collecting dust on the shelf. So no battery for me.
Let’s move to wiper blades. Well! they do have a selection guide for Namco brand wiper blades/​refills. But guess what? They only carry Valvoline blades, and there’s no Valvoline selection guide. So, wipers are sitting on the shelves as well. The bizarre thing is that manufacturers usually visit retailers to make sure their products are properly displayed (selection guide catalogs). I think DieHard, Valvoline, and Namco have given up on this circus. Leave them be.
So, I decided to get a couple of Christmas gifts for the brother-​in-​law (hint: he likes to fish), and a couple boxes of Chex. Meanwhile, the manager comes over the PA system to scream at the employees to «FINISH YOUR RESTOCKING!!!» Her anxiety escalates with each announcement. Then, she starts calling them out by name. I see a couple of employees talking to each other in a back aisle. Ain’t no restocking happening. I kind of wanted to hang around to see how this little employee/​employer miscommunication resolved itself. Is the store manager going to go completely berserk on the PA system? Start hunting derelict employees in the aisles? But, then I realized: I really need to get some help for this.
So, I think I may leave Kmart for good. I can find Chex from a retailer who appreciates me for me, a retailer who respects me and keeps its promises. I get my battery (overpriced generic, I’m sure) installed tomorrow along with wiper blades and an oil change. Sorry, I couldn’t get a DieHard. Sears didn’t have them in stock either.
Something positive about Kmart? They stay open during the holiday season until 11 pm, so you can be neglected even late at night.