Kmart's Ten Deadly Sins: How Incompetence Tainted an American Icon

Kmart's Ten Deadly Sins: How Incompetence Tainted an American Ico...

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Editorial Reviews

Advance Praise

"It’s not a pretty story, but it is a well-told story of the decline and fall of Kmart, the discount chain that pioneered the new category that brought us Wal-Mart. Every would-be entrepreneur should read this cautionary tale."
–Al Ries, Chairman, Ries & Ries

"A well-written comparative analysis of why Kmart failed and Wal-Mart continues to thrive. The management lessons found in the book can be widely applied."
–Eugene H. Fram, J. Warren McClure Research Professor of Marketing, Rochester Institute of Technology

Customer Reviews

A Muddled Amalgamation -

Reviewed by Loyd E. Eskildson, 2009-10-14

Learning from others' mistakes can be an important source of wisdom. However, this is difficult to accomplish if the information source lacks clear structure and conclusions - aka Turner's book on KMart. "KMart's 10 Deadly Sins" is largely based largely on a confusing collection of inconclusive anecdotes. Exceptions included Turner's point that KMart had lousy locations (it was only able to auction off 57 of the 283 it put up for bid after entering bankruptcy), and ignored store appearance (dingy, dirty interiors, acerbated by a lack of service). Turner also contended there were problems with brand management and not knowing its customers which I thought were true (eg. mixing Martha Stewart and Jaclyn Smith brands with a low-cost, dingy retail setting), but failed to make a clear case. Turner also undercut her allegations of inadequate information technology by failing to include numeric consequences of doing so; she did however, point out that its policy of allowing online purchases to be returned to stores (different pricing) created confusion.

Turner also reported that its CEO and CFO were guilty of financial mismanagement (the SEC has since charged both misrepresenting its problems prior to bankruptcy (partly due to loading up with $850 million in inventory). Subsequently KMart acquired Sears for $11 billion, though evidence to-date regarding the result of doing so is not impressive.

Bottom Line: Turner's idea (identify shortcomings) and target (KMart) were good; however, the execution was as confused as her subject seemed to be.

Solid and practical look at the fall of K-Mart

Reviewed by Lehigh History Student, 2009-09-16

K-Mart's rapid descent into a near corporate oblivion has been well captured by Turner in this excellent piece of business analysis. From a falling market share, poor store layout, employee dissatisfaction, customer trust lost, lack of vision in corporate strategy and marketing, as well as no advances in technical innovation for supply chain management led to the failure of the company. Each one of these problems is detailed in clarity with great examples and a wide range of both business and academic sources to supplement Turner's analysis. While there is no one quick fix for K-Mart (and in fact if there is any lesion it is that quick fixes need to stop) there is a clear need for improved strategy and technological integration of the supply chain (especially at the store inventory level). For those who really want a solid business analysis of K-Mart's problems this is an excellent place to start.

Ugg!

Reviewed by J. Leith, 2008-08-24

I shold have guessed from the title that this book would be totally one sided...but I didn't follow my gut. This book is written by Kmart nay sayers who have never even worked for the company and I don't think even looked too far into the real story before writing it. I loved working as a manager for Kmart for many years and even though I lost my job after the bankruptcy I am still a firm backer of the company and wish them the best.

An excellent read!

Reviewed by Jason S. Comely, 2007-06-10

If you're into retail marketing in any capacity, you owe it to yourself to read this book. At least twice. It's that good.

(Marcia, if you read any of your reviews, I want to know you wrote a fantastic, easy to read book. One of my favorites. Thank you!)

A well organized, reasonably researched and highly repetet

Reviewed by GavinFarrMedia, 2004-12-24

The Good: It has an almost crystalline structure to it. You could easily flip through it like a "what went wrong" reference manual for K-Mart, or any retail operation looking to see how it's making certain mistakes. Mostly large firms, yet a few small retail ones as well can cull some great common sense lessons by flipping through the book for chapters and headings they think will apply to them.

The Bad: The book, like most MBA-level powerpoint presentations these days, seems to focus far too heavily on WalMart vs. K-Mart, throwing in Target and (later in the book) Kohls more as excuses rather than well developed ideas. The concepts and key points are heavily repeated throughout, and towards the end of the book, there isn't much of anything new presented. The conclusions are self-evident after a while.

The Ugly: It's a good book to skip around and read in. It becomes unbearable to read it cover-to-cover. Has some great episodes for brief instruction purposes, but it's not a great "book".