Kmart’s blue light fades to black with the shuttering of its last full-scale US store

NEW YORK — Attention Kmart shoppers, the end is near!

The former retail giant known for its Blue Light Specials — a flashing blue orb attached to a pole that lures shoppers into a flash sale — is closing its last full-fledged store in the continental United States.

The store, located in posh Bridgehampton, New York, on Long Island, will close on Oct. 20, according to Denise Rivera, an employee who answered the phone at the store late Monday night. The manager was not available, she said.

That leaves just a small Kmart store in Miami. There are a handful of stores in Guam and the U.S. Virgin Islands.

Transform, The company that bought the assets of Sears and Kmart after Sears Holdings filed for bankruptcy in 2019 did not immediately respond to an email request for comment.

In its heyday, there were over 2,000 Kmarts in the US

Struggling to compete with Walmart’s low prices and Target’s trendy offerings, Kmart filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in early 2002, becoming the largest U.S. retailer to do so. The company also announced it would close more than 250 stores.

A few years later, hedge fund executive Edward Lampert merged Sears and Kmart, promising to return them to their former greatness. But the 2008 recession and the increasing dominance of Amazon helped derail that mission. Sears filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in 2018 and now there are only a few stores left in the US, where it once had thousands.