Something I think people should know upon watching this video is that in recent months, Target in Australia has started stocking "Anko" branded products, which has been Kmart's homebrand for many years. Almost everything in Kmart Australia has this branding, so it's weird to see it appearing in Target. Both stores at this point are essentially the same now, main difference being the clothes sold.
Yup and it's alive and kicking.. so much so the whole company changed its name from Progressive Enterprises to Woolworths. And they're spending millions rebranding the Countdown supermarkets to Woolworths across NZ - 10 years after changing some of them which were originally Woolworths!!!!!!
Kmart Australia actually is the most successful discount department store in Australia and took over some of the Target stores recently and created a small town division called K-Hub’ for small footprint regional towns under 20,000 people.
@@KegOfMeat 100%. They basically took over many of the former Target Country stores. In Victoria Target Country in Colac, Castlemaine and Woodend all became K-Hubs. Other Target Country stores were closed down. I assume it was similar in other states. The Target stores that stayed opened seemed to be the huge mall based ones.
Fascinating! I seem to recall reading (long, long ago) that 1979 was the year when the Aussie Kmart stores broke off from the original American company... am I correct?
I am from Australia, at least to my interpretation/observation, K-Mart is more at the discount end of the market, while Target tries to position itself as a (slightly) more premium brand, although as of late, Target is starting to sell the same in-house brand products as K-Mart. And more often than not, both K-Mart and Target would be present in the same shopping mall.
Can confirm. Kmart sell the cheapest things possible. You go there for your cheap 8 dollar shorts, and 1 dollar bags of lollies. Target sell 70 dollar pants, and more long lasting, slightly higher quality things. You'd be hard pressed to find any clothing besides maybe socks and jocks for under 20 bucks in target. Kmart you'll probably find dozens
I've noticed kmart has only had its in-house brand and a very small selection from other brands for the better part of a decade now, while target still stocks a variety of brands. They used to both have many outside brands
From what I was told by my dad who worked at K-mart for a long while as a store manager, K-mart is more successful due to them cutting out the middle-man of brands and working with manufacturers directly for their clothing, and while name-brand is nice the quality difference is way smaller than you'd assume. Sometimes it's even the exact same manufacturer for the name-brand stuff that they work with. While you still aren't buying suits from K-mart, these sorta things are too niche to run a business on when everything else Target sells is already sold by K-mart, plus if you were going for high quality fancy apparel there are other stores that offer higher quality. For the parent company it doesn't make sense to have two incredibly similar retail chains when one has a lower operating cost and higher revenue whilst the other's only niche has to be sacrificed for it to remain competitive. Better to merge the two under the more successful business. Apparently Target's eventual decline was obvious to predict a while ago, and K-mart brand clothing making their way into Target was apparently also pretty easy to see coming.
Target Aus used to be a client of mine, and I was told there is a piece of paper kept in a safe from the US company in the 60’s, agreeing they could use the name here.
Given the reputation of Kmart Tyre and Auto for being money hungry scamming slime balls. It is not surprising it was sold off at an extremely discounted price to Continental. My Car fortunately has earned a better reputation with my 1 experience with them being very positive.
@@yourmateitch3215 Ironic, because the American Target chain originally had automotive service garages, but those shut down (with the empty space being turned into extra merchandise storage) way back in 1985!
Another interesting fact about Australia: Burger King is called Hungry Jack's down there, since the trademark for Burger King was taken in the 1960s for an Adelaide-based drive-in restaurant chain, so the Canadian-American businessman-turned-Burger King franchisee Jack Cowin and Burger King parent company Pillsbury/Burger King Corp. had to operate the American Burger King chain under a different name in the big city of Perth, in the Australian state of Western Australia starting in 1971, utilizing the Hungry Jack brand, making it a possessive (as if Jack Cowin owned it), opening the chain as Hungry Jack's. In 1986, Hungry Jack's would expand into the Australian state of Victoria through the purchase of a bankrupt Australian franchisee of the American Wendy's Hamburger restaurant chain, a chain started by Dave Thomas in the American state of Ohio, which struggled in most global markets in the 1980s, 1990s and 2000s against the more well-established and uniform McDonald's and Burger King franchises...
Yeah the story of this one swung back and forth 3 or 4 times. They kept rebranding for a while, and even got into a heated competition weirdly, followed by a period where they’d branded the same but had subtly different menus. All I remember for sure was that the original expansion (viewed from Sydney where I live) took off in the 1990s after a stalemate was broken, to do with someone owning the whole country franchise and deciding not to use it, just sitting on it, meanwhile the whole world was booming in fast food.
On the east coast it was called Burger King for many years, then finally rebranded to Hungry Jacks. The name Hungry Jacks is too iconic now, to be changed to Burger King. Personally I prefer Burger King as I always thought the name Hungry Jacks sounded kinda odd.
@@rick_terscale1111It went back and forth. There was a Hungry Jacks in Parramatta (Western Sydney) in the 80s and 90s, then the franchise expanded and rebranded as Burger King but reverted to Hungry Jacks pretty quickly.
@@rick_terscale1111No, it’s more complicated than that. In the late nineties and early 2000s Burger King decided they want to come to Australia directly, so franchised Burger Kings, including around Sydney, stepping over Hungry Jack’s. The two chains had different menus and specials, so was kind of insane. This didn’t last long as Hungry Jacks sued Burger King and WON! Most of the Burger King stores eventually became Hungry Jack’s stores. The case has its own Wikipedia page “Burger King Corporation v Hungry Jack's Pty Ltd”
It gets a little more complicated again. The South Australian Burger King chain of the 1960s, was actually bought out by Burger King US, but got everything except the name.
I always thought whenever illd see those listings that it was just organized as an american tour. To make it easier for them. Like how we say paracetamol and Americans say Tylenol. We say bus and they say grayhound
It's kinda like the downfall of Bi-Lo where I remember seeing ads for it and seeing it show up a lot in suburbs and shopping centers, and now it's gone and Coles took their place.
Another difference is that Australians still go out, shop, eat and socialise in malls. In the US, it's a ghost town apart from some tourist hotspots. Americans prefer to live life via a keyboard.
not really, australia usually has mini malls in every town centre that comes with grocer, meaning mall traffic is often populated by grocery shoppers first. as malls are full, stores in malls are also full and would you look at that, kmart and target are large stores in malls, getting decent foot traffic. also america isn't just a bunch of keyboard laybacks...
@@yukko_parra yes, supermarkets and everything else you need are located in malls. Retail in the US is dead, town centres are deserted, nobody goes out. The keyboard is king.
If Americans built their malls within their suburbs with short driving distances/adequate public transport and they had grocery stores, drug stores, salons/barbers, butchers, fruit markets, banks inside them then their malls wouldn't be dying. However in regards to Kmart USA, they have Wal-Mart to compete with in the US. There is no Wal-Mart in Australia, so even if malls weren't dying it probably wouldn't have saved Kmart in the US.
@@TopFix Australia's Walmart equivalent is the Big W discount store chain, since their stores are similarly downmarket to Walmart, and they also have a similar blue/white color scheme throughout the stores...
Wes farmers has given up on the target brand. That’s why they are now stocking Kmart home brand products. This is rather ironic, given that when wesfarmers first acquired the Coles-Mayer group, Kmart was struggling and target was the starl
Kmart Australia has gotten rid of a lot of name brands in favour of its own in-house brand which allows them to keep costs down and seam cheaper than other places even if the product is of poorer quality.
That'll only last until the first lease expires. I'm sure the Kmart in Camberwell Victoria only took over the Target floorspace to get better value from the lease.
Apparently the boardroom decision was Kmart for the large greater metropolitan capital cities and Target for town and country. Canberra must have confused the hell out of the corporates. A capital city that goes out of its way to look like town and country. They gave up and you have both. Hilarious!
@@jdheryos4910 A lot of the places here where they coexist come more from them being around for ages than anything. The Hyperdome (I refuse to call it South.Point lmao, what a dumb name) that OP was talking about only had Target, Kmart, and Myer for the longest time, it only got the Big W that's there now in 2013 I want to say? The choice of department stores in shopping centres here is weird, anyway. Only the Hyperdome in Tuggeranong and Westfield Belco have all three major chains, while everywhere else has one or two choices.
Target is declining here in Australia because of their prices. They have become in a sense more of an up market store while KMart has stayed much more budget friendly with a huge range of decent quality products.
@@chucky110I bought a toaster from Kmart 10 years ago, have used it almost every day and it still works great. My cousin got an expensive one from a European manufacturer as a gift that broke within 3 months!
It was always that way. Back in the day when ColesMyer owned them both, it was Kmart for the lower end, Target was the mid range, and Myer was the top end of the market.
As Kmart and Target in Australia have the same parent company, as the Target brand in Australia has declined, many former Target stores have in recent years been converted into either Kmart stores or the smaller KHub stores.
As an Australian, this was a very interesting video! I remember 10+ years ago when Target was considered the "fancier Kmart", but now Kmart's quality and presence has risen so much that they are very similar in my opinion. Target still does have a few higher quality items though. As another commenter has stated, Target has also started selling Kmart's in-house brand "Anko" and I've even seen Target stores close to make way for Kmart stores. My local shopping centre has had both Kmart and Target there since it's opening in the 80s, with both undergoing various re-modellings. It's very surreal to know that two stores I shop at very often are almost completely dead in the USA.
Something to note as well, is that Kmart stores were failing here as well. And they made some changes to improve Kmarts rep that was more successful than anyone could have imagined. And it basically cannibalised Target, which it didn’t mean to do. So now they have a problem where they want Target to still succeed as it captures a different market than Kmart. I was an employee at Kmart when the shift began and remember the higher ups briefing on the unexpected popularity of Kmart’s rebrand.
There's also a Target in New Zealand with almost identical branding that trades primarily as a furniture store. It's separate to both the US and Australian Target.
Kmart Australia opened up a store called Anko in the Seattle area. I was told it was an experiment. I liked it. But it had a kind of weird selection. Ultimately, it failed.
AU Kmart and Target were both fully owned by Coles Group Ltd when Wesfarmers Ltd bought Coles Group. Afterwards Wesfarmers demerged the Coles businesses (including Officeworks, Coles Express, Liquorland and Vintage Cellars). Eventually Wesfarmers went on to relist the Coles supermarkets business on the stock exchange but kept the Kmart, Target and Officeworks businesses. Wesfarmers is the owner of Bunnings, the most successful big-box home hardware store in the country, which defeated Masters (a Lowes backed company that tried to enter the market). Since Wesfarmers has owned Kmart, its gone from financial strength to strength, despite the products they sell becoming cheap plastic crap. I rarely shop there except for dog toys. Target on the otherhand has really struggled. Their clothing and homewares were quality items but now I couldn't even tell you where a Target store is. Wesfarmers has boosted Officeworks to become like Bunnings. The US equivalent of an Officeworks would be a Staples store. Officeworks has also had a decline in quality of their stationery items with a home brand but they still stock some quality items. Fortunately the tech they sell is difficult to switch to home brands.
Masters was a partnership between Lowes and Woolworths. The chain later failed because what worked for Lowes in the US didn't work for the Australian market and Woolworths failed to listen to the owners of the Australian hardware stores they took over (such as Mitre 10 and Home Hardware) to start Masters.
Kmart AUS in house brand "Anko" which is also being sold in the Target AUS stores that didn't close down has expanded and is available in Canada from "Zellers"
About 10 - 15 years ago I think Kmart Australia was struggling and had a bad image, but a change of direction has made Kmart "Cool" offering trendy homewares, clothes, accessories etc at a cheap price. They are constantly bringing out new ranges to keep with the times and its now the go to for people wanting affordable products. I even remember never wanting to shop at Kmart but these days it's my go to if im looking for something cheap but decent
If Americans built their malls within their suburbs with short driving distances/adequate public transport and had grocery stores, drug stores, salons/barbers, butchers, fruit markets, banks inside them then their malls wouldn't be dying. However in regards to Kmart USA, they have Wal-Mart to compete with in the US. There is no Wal-Mart in Australia, so even if malls weren't dying it probably wouldn't have saved Kmart in the US.
@@Gypsycat19 if walmart sells practically everything, then they can be compared (lego, barbie, animal food, animal basic amenities, beauty product, clothes, shoes, chocolates of all sorts, bedding, and always has christmas trees on the center isle with seasonal items at the front
seeing that our Wendy's is coming back from the brink of death and us Wendy's is planning on expanding here soon the next few years are going to be... interesting
@@FozzyBBear we once had Wendy’s the American hamburger chain here in Australia in the 1980’s. Remember eating there. They opened a couple of dozen stores but don’t think it was too successful and they sold out. Our Wendy’s became a KFC
@@xr6lad The franchise that operated the American Wendy's Hamburger chain in Australia went bankrupt in 1986, and most of the restaurants were sold and converted into Hungry Jack's later that same year...
Oddly enough, even though Tower Records went out of business in the States in 2006, there is still Tower Records in Japan, same yellow and red logo and everything.
There's two reasons for that. The first being that, just like Kmart in Australia, the local management bought out the entire rights from the original company, with TR Japan buying the rights in 2002, four years before the main Tower Records went bankrupt. The other reason is that physical music media is still massively popular in Japan, with CDs, Cassettes, and Vinyl records all having a major footprint in the Japanese market, as they're all seen as important manners of getting up and coming talent in the country major exposure. TR Japan even has their own subsidiary record label specialized in idol performers, which helps strengthen their retail business, because it gives them even more product to sell and promote.
@@trentpettit6336 Mister Donut is basically Japan's version of Dunkin, since they're owned by the same company. Dunkin is a more well known brand here, so Mister Donut had been all but completely phased out (with one location remaining in Godfrey, IL), while Dunkin had tried in Japan, but wasn't successful, so all locations outside of US military bases were rebranded as Mister Donut. Two sides of the same donut, so to say.
A funny story is that Lowes did try to expand to australia but it failed completely for so many reasons, the most famous being that they supplied goods at the same time and for the same climate as the US, such as selling snow shovels in the middle of summer
Yep, Bunnings, Target and Kmart are all owned by Westfarmers. Bunnings wanted to expand into the UK and purchased their Homebase stores. It was a disaster and cost the company one billion dollars.
@@maxmackinlay618 But Bunnings has been the classic "category killer" in Australia - dominating the hardware market and wiping out other brands like Mitre 10 and BBC. It also beat off that start-up that was designed to take them on. (Masters or somethiing?)
@@VanillaMacaron551Yep, Masters was a short-lived attempt by a joint venture of the Australian Woolworths and the US Lowe’s to break into the Bunnings market. It went… poorly.
Alongside Kmart and Target we have BigW. Kmart and BigW are going strong. Target has partially merged with Kmart, as in you can buy certain Kmart items at Target.
Most of the target stores I knew of changed to Kmart not long ago. Some of our Kmarts are 24hrs. We also had a grocery store chain called Safeway which about 20 years ago changed their name to Woolworths. I think the us may also have Woolworths and Safeway stores but with no affiliation. Also a hell of a lot of our maccas are 24hrs which I have been told is not like that all over the world.
From 4:17-4:28 I can recognise where that closed Target country store was located, that was a traralgon store. I know as I used to reside there, and I can see from the window reflection of the kfc menu board and the large gumtree that was across the road that was next-door to Shell servo.
In aus we don’t have Walmart or any of those big box stores. Kmart is also known for being a budget friendly store so it’s good for lower middle class and middle class families. Kmart is hugely popular here. Target still has a couple stores here and there but a lot of them are starting to get run down compared to Kmart. Target was more up market but more expensive whereas Kmart is cheaper and has more variety
When I was growing up in Australia in the 80s and 90s, Kmart stores had decent quality name brands, a cafe inside the store, and even a plant nursery department. They were still cheaper stores than the upmarket department stores. But they had a lot of quality goods. Many clothing items were made in Australia. The toy aisle even had some high quality hobby grade goods like model train accessories. The LEGO section even had a display case featuring built LEGO sets on display. I clearly remember seeing the LEGO space monorail of the late 80s - built and running, at Kmart. Today’s Australian Kmart is a pale imitation of what it used to be - selling almost nothing but generic cheap garbage under one brand called “Anko”. And no actual brands, other than a few in the toy section (like LEGO). Its success has come from consumers who only want whatever the cheapest item is. But since nothing is made to last (like “fast fashion” clothing) they have to keep buying it over and over. Further boosting Kmart’s success. Well done, everyone. I actually used to love going to Kmart. Now, I visit once every 2 years. And am always shocked at how inferior it is, to what it used to be.
The reason the American Kmart failed is because of mismanagement. Instead of investing in updating their stores, they bought competing retailers. Kmart stores begin to look outdated and old/run down. Then when after going bankrupt in 2003, Kmart made the huge mistake of buying Sears. Eddie Lambert than ran both stores to the ground, focusing on the real estate side and not the retail side. The combined Sears holdings declared bankruptcy in 2018.
Target Australia has not gone out of business. Yes they had some financial difficulty and slimed down closing some stores and rebranding others as Kmart. But it’s still alive and operating over 120 stores.
Woolworths which has had a overseas stores that had their origins and business from FW Woolworth (UK, Germany, Mexico, Canada). While in South Africa and Australia the shops that operate under Woolworths name have no relationship with the original American company and who's stores are very different from the five and dime department stores. Also while the original American Woolworths now operates as Footlocker. The German and Mexican chain are still in business while the UK and Canada stores ceased to be years ago.
Woolworths also used an American company name. In 1985 they purchased Safeway Australia from the American owners and ownership of the name in Australia was part of the deal. Safeway America is still trading and listed on the NY stock exchange. The Woolworths corporate colours and slogan the "fresh food people" was adopted. It was a further 20 years until Safeway stores started to be renamed Woolworths.
Whilst they are similar, Kmart and Target occupy different niches. Kmart is for general discount goods including clothing whereas Target has a more high-end discount image with much more emphasis on clothing. Target is also currently being usurped by Kmart from parent company Wesfarmers with the only Target stores existing where a Kmart already resides and/or in successful locations. Source: My family has nearly 30 years combined experience working there (myself included) and have been shopping from both for many years.
The killer for Target Australia wasn't 2020 and the pandemic, although that certainly made things worse. But the decline started in 2016/17 with some truly boneheaded decisions. The store had always had its primary identity and market as affordable clothes for low income earners, as well as manchester and also general box store stuff. And then they decided to try and chase wealthier patrons with more expensive clothes, losing existing customers trying to chase new ones, didn't go well. Around the same time they stopped selling their BIG range of clothes for those of larger girth, and in country stores they stopped selling men's clothing altogether. Oddly enough, shutting out 50% of your customer base was a bad idea. Oh and they also stopped selling DVDs, only a small percent of overall revenue, but when they cut them the revenue oddly dropped by the same amount of money the DVDs used to make. And then to ice the cake they decided to move their corporate headquarters from the rural city where it has been for nearly a century; about an hours drive from the capital; to the capital itself. Building a brand new HQ in the capital, where real estate is amongst the most expensive in the world, well it cost the company Billions. The Pandemic hitting while they were still reeling from those dumb decisions did not help. But there is hope that they can recover.
I mean they weren’t going to compete with Kmart for the cheap clothes by that point because Kmart had shed its brand name stuff and switched to stuff made in Bangladesh by then, the old old setup when they were all part of the same group back in the 90’s before the group sold off and split up was that Kmart and Target were kind of competing with each other at a similar price point, while Myer was their expensive franchise, while they had Coles and Bi-Lo competing on the supermarket side. After they ditched most of the Bi-Lo stores (another terrible decision since the rebrand to Coles locations diluted the business) they made the switch to turn Kmart into the cheap store, and seemed to try to situate Target as the middle ground between Kmart and Myer which nowadays is a niche that doesn’t really exist (for a similar reason Big W has been struggling for years)
@Goatcha_M (3 mo later) Great read. I always enjoyed seeing the smiling faces of the Mr Big models in Target catalogues. One guy in particular got a lot of work. I guess they looked happy from doing just a little gym work and not being on super restricted diets! Where was Target's corporate HQ that you refer to? And where did they move to?
Owning both Kmart and Target, a decision was made to progressively close Target stores when they were located close to a Kmart. The remaining Target stores are in premium locations and have gone a little upmarket. Kmart also renovated their stores at this time, moving the checkouts from the store exit to in the middle of the store. I think the preference for Kmart stores came because Kmart had a lot of 24 hour stores which were on their own. Target lacked this type of presence. Kmart was bigger, so it remained. Target switched to selling more premium items and kept a small number of ideal locations.
Interesting video! I originally heard of the Australian Kmarts and Targets from some toy-related (mostly Thomas) videos from Leokimvideo since he's from Australia. Hearing about the Targets vanishing from Australia is like an alternate universe if the same thing happened in the US. I miss the American Kmarts, but I'm just alright with the American Targets.
Target stores in Australia are set to rebrand into Kmarts in some areas, and close in others. It sucks because while the stores are very similar, I’ve always thought of Target as a bit higher quality than Kmart. It also means that in shopping centres with both stores, it’s likely that there will be a lot of empty floor space once the Target closes.
I think one of the reasons K Mart has remained successful in Australia is that our supermarkets never pivoted into a Walmart style business model. From my understanding (correct me if I'm wrong) Walmart sells not only all the packaged food and produce that you would find in our supermarket chains, but also clothes, homewares, toys and electronics. These are things that you would not find in our major supermarkets, and would instead go to K Mart to get. This gives them a strong reason to continue exisiting in the Australian retail market.
@@WayStedYou Surprisingly, trying to compete against an aggressively established incumbent by locating your stores next to the incumbent, with pricing not as good as the incumbent and brands that aren't as established DOESNT lead to retail success
@@prussianpolydactyl836I'd love to be able to visit some of the sales and marketing presentations that preceded the arrival of Masters. They might have moulded the data to meet their ambitions! Meanwhile, Bunnings management would have been having 'war cabinet meetings'. Licking their lips while conducting spy operations. The Masters twenty minutes from us was snapped up pretty quickly by Bunnings.
Coles Myer is no longer a thing. Myer was sold off in 2006 and Wesfarmers bought Coles Group in 2007. Coles Group became a separate entity in 2018 but Wesfarmers kept Target and Kmart
Remind me to take you to Kmart when you're finally down in NZ. Got one at North City Mall, Porirua. Kmart in Australia/NZ markets itself as an Australasian IKEA.
I remember a few years back, there was news that the parent company wanted to replace a lot of the Kmart stores with Target. Of course there was backlash, but they didn't really address it. But look where we are now.
INACCURACIES: - Kmart was bought by Myer, not Westfarmers. Coles merged with Myer in the 1980s, but Myer was spun off in the 2000s while Coles would look for a buyer. Coles was bought by Westfarmers then itself would be spun off in the late 2010s but without the group except the liquor assets. Coles and Kmart did run a joint subsidiary around the 1980s called Super Kmart but it failed and all the stores were converted to Kmart plazas with Coleses in them. Myer, a full format department store, is also struggling. - I think Kmart found its footing in the late 2000s, retargetting itself as a discout chain that sells a lot of Anko label stuff for cheap. I think I heard Anko itself expanded to SE Asia. Coles was thinking of merging Kmart to itself but Westfarmers cancelled it. - Lowes ran a partnership with Woolworths called Masters, to answer Coles' Bunnings Warehouse, but it completely failed and was sold to new consortium HomeCo to turn them into big box plazas. - Kmart Tyre and Auto Service was sold to Continental and renamed to MyCar. - Woolworths also exists as an unrelated supermarket (originally a variety store, which would later become Big W to compete with Kmart, again also struggling) and was originally called Wallworths but they found out they can't be sued.
Spent time in both chains. Kmart is booming and Target is still around albeit only in the country towns mostly and their focus shifted to more of an online homeware specialty.
I used to work for Target in 2011 in Perth. Was my first job. It was seen as a more upmarket than Kmart. Generally their goods are better than Kmart, but the pricing of items in Kmart was so much better. Cheaper items and more products. Then we had social media influencers who are also dedicated Kmart lovers. Also cheaper than Kmart. Target lost its popularity after some mishaps over the years. People opted for the cheaper sister, Kmart. Now that same Target in Perth is now a Kmart.
@F100fNOOdle 😁 I'm enjoying working my way up the comments here (2 mo later). Yours is the best so far. I live fifteen minutes from a 24 hour K-Mart. This is one place Richard Attenborough would go to study our species !
A few years ago Kmart and Target in Australia became one company (at the corporate level) and have two separate store brands. Target is struggling and will be fazed out. It looks like they are only still operating due to expensive retail leases. Once these leases expire the Target store will be shut down. There's no point rebranding Targets to Kmart when there's one of each store in the same shopping centre.
Target USA, K-Mart USA and Walmart all started at the same time about in 1962. At the time there were many 1-store or regional chains of 'discount stores' that were becoming very popular in the fast growing suburbs of America. Walmart mainly expanded in 'small town' locations, K-Mart quickly became a national chain mainly in the suburbs. Target was mainly regional but expanded nationally in the 1980's and 1990's. Target USA was originally a division of Minneapolis, Minnesota based Dayton department stores. Dayton's would later merge with Detroit, Michigan Hudson's Stores to form Dayton-Hudson, the department stores were later sold off and became Macy's Department Stores. The Target Australia was apparently a rip off of the USA Target, taking advantage of the lack of filing for trademark protections in Australia and NZ. K-Mart was a spinoff of S.S. Kresse variety stores (and a one time competitor to Woolworth's). Eventually the variety stores were phased out and K-Mart retained. As noted, the Australia K-marts were originally a licensing of the trademark brand and partial ownership of stores there (via Coles) but seemed to have abandoned it over time in Australia. As to Woolworth's. it was originally a NY City, USA based company of 'variety' stores that eventually expanded around the world, including the UK, Europe and Australia. Woolworth's then evolved into groceries and discount general merchandise 'superstores' in Australia but as in the USA (and Canada) also operated in the 1970's and 1980's, larger discount stores. Woolworth's Australia eventually became a separate company from the USA parent. Woolworth's evolved into what later became 'Footlocker' athletic shoe stores and at one time discount clothing stores, getting rid of the 'variety' stores.
Woolworths Australia has always been separate to the US one, starting as a variety store in Sydney. It transitioned into food only in the 1960s, and developed a discount department store brand BigW that competes with KMart and Target, gradually closing the old variety stores. Over the years it's had a relationship with Walmart sharing some senior execs and board members.
I live in Australia and we went to Target just the other day. Kmart is more popular for the people who have less money to spend and can't afford quality goods. Also, Kmart no longer has video games, while Target has not as many as they used to. Mainly because EBGames and JB-HiFi are a thing nowadays, since they provide a full range and are mostly accessible Australia wide. Also, Australia still has pay phones and shopping centres, unlike the US from what I keep hearing.
The end may indeed be nigh for Aussie Tarzhay. How do I know? Kmart home brand (currently known as "Anko", as a play on its previous name, "&co") products being rolled out to Target stores instead of Target branded or big name branded products.
I am from Australia and honestly didnt know that our kmart and targets are different. I thought i was crazy for never having seen those red balls in my life. I guess this video just explained everything I never would've known otherwise.
Kmart (NZ) is hugely popular here in Aotearoa. Stores are well managed, fresh and modern. Kmart also offers a high quality, competitively priced 'in store' brand (Anko) which I believe sets it apart from competitors like Briscoes and The Warehouse.
Thanks for the like. I know I sounded like an infomercial. But that is my experience with the whole Warehouse vs. KMart drama. i used to be an exclusive "WareWhare" shopper (kiwis will know at that means) but the last couple of years I've found the KMart shop so much more 'human'. The prices are better, the experience is better. Take Note, Warehouse!
We had The Warehouse for a while here in Australia. My brother worked there when it first opened, back in 2002 if I remember correctly. It didn't last long though. I think the thing with Kmart is that it looks and feels more upmarket than your regular "discount store". Hell it didn't even cross my mind that kmart could be classed as such until watching this video. Like sure it's not David Jones or Myer, but it isn't Crazy Clarks or The Reject Shop either.
@@sharielane That would be right, early 2000's when The Warehouse tried to make a push into Australia. I think that move almost bankrupted the company. Like you say, the expansion didn't last long...the Aussie market is a hard one to crack!
I could be wrong but I've heard that there's a home depot being built (or has been) in a town close to the one I live in (it also has a taco bell) although I'm not sure if it's american home depot or some australian home depot like target australia.
Something I think people should know upon watching this video is that in recent months, Target in Australia has started stocking "Anko" branded products, which has been Kmart's homebrand for many years. Almost everything in Kmart Australia has this branding, so it's weird to see it appearing in Target.
Both stores at this point are essentially the same now, main difference being the clothes sold.
They have been converting targets to Kmart's too.
all owned by blackrock corp the evil corp.
@@gavincrispin1436😂😂😂😂
I always thought that Kmart was owned by Coles and Target by Woolworths, or it could be Big W idk
@@Emzo123 bigdub by woolies
There’s another Australian store that bares the name of an American store that’s not around anymore: Woolworths
Yup and it's alive and kicking.. so much so the whole company changed its name from Progressive Enterprises to Woolworths. And they're spending millions rebranding the Countdown supermarkets to Woolworths across NZ - 10 years after changing some of them which were originally Woolworths!!!!!!
Don't forget Safeway!
Woolworth's is still around in America. They changed their name...to Foot Locker!
Also Britain - famously had Woolworths for a very long time, and they find it funny we still have it
@@TheLIMREPORTNo. it was always Woolworths in Australia. There’s been no name change. Maybe NZ.
Kmart Australia actually is the most successful discount department store in Australia and took over some of the Target stores recently and created a small town division called K-Hub’ for small footprint regional towns under 20,000 people.
K-Hub must be the K-Mart version of Target Country.
Target is now selling kmart brands, but with more clothes
@@KegOfMeat 100%. They basically took over many of the former Target Country stores. In Victoria Target Country in Colac, Castlemaine and Woodend all became K-Hubs. Other Target Country stores were closed down. I assume it was similar in other states. The Target stores that stayed opened seemed to be the huge mall based ones.
yes our target country recently changed to a khub
There's a k-hub in Katoomba
Australia's K Mart and Target have actually been under the same ownership since 1986, when their respective owners merged.
Coles Group (the former owner of Kmart AU) and Myer Ltd. (the former owner of Target AU) merged into Coles-Myer Ltd. in 1986...
The Kmart Group merger was a little more recent than thag
That makes sense since they all use the Flybuys loyalty card.
Fascinating! I seem to recall reading (long, long ago) that 1979 was the year when the Aussie Kmart stores broke off from the original American company... am I correct?
I am from Australia, at least to my interpretation/observation, K-Mart is more at the discount end of the market, while Target tries to position itself as a (slightly) more premium brand, although as of late, Target is starting to sell the same in-house brand products as K-Mart. And more often than not, both K-Mart and Target would be present in the same shopping mall.
Yeah, particularly in the clothes they sell, kmart is casual clothes, whereas Target is for your business/corporate get up
Can confirm. Kmart sell the cheapest things possible. You go there for your cheap 8 dollar shorts, and 1 dollar bags of lollies. Target sell 70 dollar pants, and more long lasting, slightly higher quality things. You'd be hard pressed to find any clothing besides maybe socks and jocks for under 20 bucks in target. Kmart you'll probably find dozens
I've noticed kmart has only had its in-house brand and a very small selection from other brands for the better part of a decade now, while target still stocks a variety of brands. They used to both have many outside brands
From what I was told by my dad who worked at K-mart for a long while as a store manager, K-mart is more successful due to them cutting out the middle-man of brands and working with manufacturers directly for their clothing, and while name-brand is nice the quality difference is way smaller than you'd assume. Sometimes it's even the exact same manufacturer for the name-brand stuff that they work with. While you still aren't buying suits from K-mart, these sorta things are too niche to run a business on when everything else Target sells is already sold by K-mart, plus if you were going for high quality fancy apparel there are other stores that offer higher quality. For the parent company it doesn't make sense to have two incredibly similar retail chains when one has a lower operating cost and higher revenue whilst the other's only niche has to be sacrificed for it to remain competitive. Better to merge the two under the more successful business.
Apparently Target's eventual decline was obvious to predict a while ago, and K-mart brand clothing making their way into Target was apparently also pretty easy to see coming.
@@icantthinkofagoodusername4464 Most of it's made in china anyway.
Target Aus used to be a client of mine, and I was told there is a piece of paper kept in a safe from the US company in the 60’s, agreeing they could use the name here.
Interesting! Funny how both chains use the same iconic "bullseye" logo, but two completely different "wordmark" styles!
K Mart Tyre And Auto no longer exists, it was bought out by Continental and is now called My Car.
No loss.
We just use ours as another stock room now lol
Given the reputation of Kmart Tyre and Auto for being money hungry scamming slime balls. It is not surprising it was sold off at an extremely discounted price to Continental. My Car fortunately has earned a better reputation with my 1 experience with them being very positive.
@@yourmateitch3215 Ironic, because the American Target chain originally had automotive service garages, but those shut down (with the empty space being turned into extra merchandise storage) way back in 1985!
Worked at a mycar, would highly recommend against ever using them unless you ABSOLUTELY need to. Also contys are shit, squishy tyres.
Another interesting fact about Australia: Burger King is called Hungry Jack's down there, since the trademark for Burger King was taken in the 1960s for an Adelaide-based drive-in restaurant chain, so the Canadian-American businessman-turned-Burger King franchisee Jack Cowin and Burger King parent company Pillsbury/Burger King Corp. had to operate the American Burger King chain under a different name in the big city of Perth, in the Australian state of Western Australia starting in 1971, utilizing the Hungry Jack brand, making it a possessive (as if Jack Cowin owned it), opening the chain as Hungry Jack's. In 1986, Hungry Jack's would expand into the Australian state of Victoria through the purchase of a bankrupt Australian franchisee of the American Wendy's Hamburger restaurant chain, a chain started by Dave Thomas in the American state of Ohio, which struggled in most global markets in the 1980s, 1990s and 2000s against the more well-established and uniform McDonald's and Burger King franchises...
Yeah the story of this one swung back and forth 3 or 4 times. They kept rebranding for a while, and even got into a heated competition weirdly, followed by a period where they’d branded the same but had subtly different menus. All I remember for sure was that the original expansion (viewed from Sydney where I live) took off in the 1990s after a stalemate was broken, to do with someone owning the whole country franchise and deciding not to use it, just sitting on it, meanwhile the whole world was booming in fast food.
On the east coast it was called Burger King for many years, then finally rebranded to Hungry Jacks.
The name Hungry Jacks is too iconic now, to be changed to Burger King. Personally I prefer Burger King as I always thought the name Hungry Jacks sounded kinda odd.
@@rick_terscale1111It went back and forth. There was a Hungry Jacks in Parramatta (Western Sydney) in the 80s and 90s, then the franchise expanded and rebranded as Burger King but reverted to Hungry Jacks pretty quickly.
@@rick_terscale1111No, it’s more complicated than that. In the late nineties and early 2000s Burger King decided they want to come to Australia directly, so franchised Burger Kings, including around Sydney, stepping over Hungry Jack’s. The two chains had different menus and specials, so was kind of insane. This didn’t last long as Hungry Jacks sued Burger King and WON! Most of the Burger King stores eventually became Hungry Jack’s stores. The case has its own Wikipedia page “Burger King Corporation v Hungry Jack's Pty Ltd”
It gets a little more complicated again. The South Australian Burger King chain of the 1960s, was actually bought out by Burger King US, but got everything except the name.
Similarly, the Greyhound bus company in Australia has nothing to do with the American one.
But Gray Line a coach bus company is related to the US one, Gray Line, but I believe this company is out of Europe. What a mess lol.
I always thought whenever illd see those listings that it was just organized as an american tour. To make it easier for them. Like how we say paracetamol and Americans say Tylenol. We say bus and they say grayhound
@@internationalparam Unless it’s a regular city bus, then we say….bus.
@@MirzaAhmed89 Greyhound US is now just Flixbus anyway.
@@TransitAndTeslas but like we always thought its because americans only trust brands
Worth noting, in recent years the in Australia, both Kmart and Target now share the same CEO and have merged the backend of the business
Surely won't be long before they become one brand.
LOL Northland Preston shopping centre has both stores. I guess the only difference is branding.
It's kinda like the downfall of Bi-Lo where I remember seeing ads for it and seeing it show up a lot in suburbs and shopping centers, and now it's gone and Coles took their place.
Shopping at Kmart be a whole event in Australia.. you never really go to buy a "few things" haha
FYI, “Coy.” is an old abbreviation for ‘company’. The modern equivalent is ‘Co’.
Another difference is that Australians still go out, shop, eat and socialise in malls. In the US, it's a ghost town apart from some tourist hotspots. Americans prefer to live life via a keyboard.
not really, australia usually has mini malls in every town centre that comes with grocer, meaning mall traffic is often populated by grocery shoppers first.
as malls are full, stores in malls are also full and would you look at that, kmart and target are large stores in malls, getting decent foot traffic.
also america isn't just a bunch of keyboard laybacks...
@@yukko_parra yes, supermarkets and everything else you need are located in malls. Retail in the US is dead, town centres are deserted, nobody goes out. The keyboard is king.
If Americans built their malls within their suburbs with short driving distances/adequate public transport and they had grocery stores, drug stores, salons/barbers, butchers, fruit markets, banks inside them then their malls wouldn't be dying.
However in regards to Kmart USA, they have Wal-Mart to compete with in the US. There is no Wal-Mart in Australia, so even if malls weren't dying it probably wouldn't have saved Kmart in the US.
Also we don't call them malls, they are just called Shopping Centres
@@TopFix Australia's Walmart equivalent is the Big W discount store chain, since their stores are similarly downmarket to Walmart, and they also have a similar blue/white color scheme throughout the stores...
Wes farmers has given up on the target brand. That’s why they are now stocking Kmart home brand products. This is rather ironic, given that when wesfarmers first acquired the Coles-Mayer group, Kmart was struggling and target was the starl
Kmart Australia has gotten rid of a lot of name brands in favour of its own in-house brand which allows them to keep costs down and seam cheaper than other places even if the product is of poorer quality.
And Kmart Australia sells those products in the U.S. online.
Yep and has even moved a lot of them into Target
Those answers seem as sharp as the seam on my pants.
Kmart has absolutely nosedived over the past 10 years. The shop layout is completely bizarre and everything is cheap and nasty
Anko superiority
I live in the southern suburbs of Canberra Australia. Our local major shopping center has both Kmart and Target.
Oh so you'll know about Goodberry's. 9 stores in North Carolina and 3 in Canberra and thats it.... nowhere else in the world!
That'll only last until the first lease expires. I'm sure the Kmart in Camberwell Victoria only took over the Target floorspace to get better value from the lease.
Apparently the boardroom decision was Kmart for the large greater metropolitan capital cities and Target for town and country.
Canberra must have confused the hell out of the corporates.
A capital city that goes out of its way to look like town and country.
They gave up and you have both.
Hilarious!
@@jdheryos4910 A lot of the places here where they coexist come more from them being around for ages than anything. The Hyperdome (I refuse to call it South.Point lmao, what a dumb name) that OP was talking about only had Target, Kmart, and Myer for the longest time, it only got the Big W that's there now in 2013 I want to say?
The choice of department stores in shopping centres here is weird, anyway. Only the Hyperdome in Tuggeranong and Westfield Belco have all three major chains, while everywhere else has one or two choices.
Target is declining here in Australia because of their prices. They have become in a sense more of an up market store while KMart has stayed much more budget friendly with a huge range of decent quality products.
HAHA. Decent quality products. Far from it.
@@chucky110 I've purchased plenty from Kmart and it has lasted very well. Purchased things from Target at times too that has not held up as well.
@@chucky110
Decent in some areas... Garbage in others.
@@chucky110I bought a toaster from Kmart 10 years ago, have used it almost every day and it still works great. My cousin got an expensive one from a European manufacturer as a gift that broke within 3 months!
It was always that way. Back in the day when ColesMyer owned them both, it was Kmart for the lower end, Target was the mid range, and Myer was the top end of the market.
As Kmart and Target in Australia have the same parent company, as the Target brand in Australia has declined, many former Target stores have in recent years been converted into either Kmart stores or the smaller KHub stores.
As an Australian, this was a very interesting video! I remember 10+ years ago when Target was considered the "fancier Kmart", but now Kmart's quality and presence has risen so much that they are very similar in my opinion. Target still does have a few higher quality items though. As another commenter has stated, Target has also started selling Kmart's in-house brand "Anko" and I've even seen Target stores close to make way for Kmart stores. My local shopping centre has had both Kmart and Target there since it's opening in the 80s, with both undergoing various re-modellings.
It's very surreal to know that two stores I shop at very often are almost completely dead in the USA.
Lol Kmart Australia would’ve had the same fate as the American one if it weren’t for Westfarmers.
Target is not dead in the US. K-mart is. It's so sad seeing that store.
Something to note as well, is that Kmart stores were failing here as well. And they made some changes to improve Kmarts rep that was more successful than anyone could have imagined.
And it basically cannibalised Target, which it didn’t mean to do. So now they have a problem where they want Target to still succeed as it captures a different market than Kmart.
I was an employee at Kmart when the shift began and remember the higher ups briefing on the unexpected popularity of Kmart’s rebrand.
There's also a Target in New Zealand with almost identical branding that trades primarily as a furniture store. It's separate to both the US and Australian Target.
Kmart Australia opened up a store called Anko in the Seattle area. I was told it was an experiment. I liked it. But it had a kind of weird selection. Ultimately, it failed.
AU Kmart and Target were both fully owned by Coles Group Ltd when Wesfarmers Ltd bought Coles Group. Afterwards Wesfarmers demerged the Coles businesses (including Officeworks, Coles Express, Liquorland and Vintage Cellars). Eventually Wesfarmers went on to relist the Coles supermarkets business on the stock exchange but kept the Kmart, Target and Officeworks businesses. Wesfarmers is the owner of Bunnings, the most successful big-box home hardware store in the country, which defeated Masters (a Lowes backed company that tried to enter the market). Since Wesfarmers has owned Kmart, its gone from financial strength to strength, despite the products they sell becoming cheap plastic crap. I rarely shop there except for dog toys. Target on the otherhand has really struggled. Their clothing and homewares were quality items but now I couldn't even tell you where a Target store is. Wesfarmers has boosted Officeworks to become like Bunnings. The US equivalent of an Officeworks would be a Staples store. Officeworks has also had a decline in quality of their stationery items with a home brand but they still stock some quality items. Fortunately the tech they sell is difficult to switch to home brands.
Masters was a partnership between Lowes and Woolworths.
The chain later failed because what worked for Lowes in the US didn't work for the Australian market and Woolworths failed to listen to the owners of the Australian hardware stores they took over (such as Mitre 10 and Home Hardware) to start Masters.
I'm from Australia and I have been to those two stores since I was a child.
Kmart AUS in house brand "Anko" which is also being sold in the Target AUS stores that didn't close down has expanded and is available in Canada from "Zellers"
ngl, anko brand sucks ass
@@senpai_mangue6141no it doesn't. I've never had an issue.
About 10 - 15 years ago I think Kmart Australia was struggling and had a bad image, but a change of direction has made Kmart "Cool" offering trendy homewares, clothes, accessories etc at a cheap price. They are constantly bringing out new ranges to keep with the times and its now the go to for people wanting affordable products. I even remember never wanting to shop at Kmart but these days it's my go to if im looking for something cheap but decent
If Americans built their malls within their suburbs with short driving distances/adequate public transport and had grocery stores, drug stores, salons/barbers, butchers, fruit markets, banks inside them then their malls wouldn't be dying.
However in regards to Kmart USA, they have Wal-Mart to compete with in the US. There is no Wal-Mart in Australia, so even if malls weren't dying it probably wouldn't have saved Kmart in the US.
Big W is slightly like walmart went to walmart in new jersey both have that blue vibe but not related
@@Gypsycat19 if walmart sells practically everything, then they can be compared
(lego, barbie, animal food, animal basic amenities, beauty product, clothes, shoes, chocolates of all sorts, bedding, and always has christmas trees on the center isle with seasonal items at the front
Reminds me of Wendy's - the Australian food-court hot dog and milkshake chain, not the American drive-thru burger chain.
seeing that our Wendy's is coming back from the brink of death and us Wendy's is planning on expanding here soon the next few years are going to be... interesting
@@FozzyBBear we once had Wendy’s the American hamburger chain here in Australia in the 1980’s. Remember eating there. They opened a couple of dozen stores but don’t think it was too successful and they sold out. Our Wendy’s became a KFC
@@xr6lad The franchise that operated the American Wendy's Hamburger chain in Australia went bankrupt in 1986, and most of the restaurants were sold and converted into Hungry Jack's later that same year...
@@Justin-Hill-1987 Funny because the "proudly Canadian" TIM HORTONS donut chain was once owned by Wendy's, but is owned by Burger King today!
i had a wendys in my shopping center but they vanished💀
Oddly enough, even though Tower Records went out of business in the States in 2006, there is still Tower Records in Japan, same yellow and red logo and everything.
Yes, the flagship Tower Records store in Japan is in Shibuya, not far from where Lost in Translation was filmed in 2002. 🇯🇵
MISTER DONUT also continues in Japan!
There's two reasons for that. The first being that, just like Kmart in Australia, the local management bought out the entire rights from the original company, with TR Japan buying the rights in 2002, four years before the main Tower Records went bankrupt.
The other reason is that physical music media is still massively popular in Japan, with CDs, Cassettes, and Vinyl records all having a major footprint in the Japanese market, as they're all seen as important manners of getting up and coming talent in the country major exposure.
TR Japan even has their own subsidiary record label specialized in idol performers, which helps strengthen their retail business, because it gives them even more product to sell and promote.
@@trentpettit6336 Mister Donut is basically Japan's version of Dunkin, since they're owned by the same company.
Dunkin is a more well known brand here, so Mister Donut had been all but completely phased out (with one location remaining in Godfrey, IL), while Dunkin had tried in Japan, but wasn't successful, so all locations outside of US military bases were rebranded as Mister Donut.
Two sides of the same donut, so to say.
A funny story is that Lowes did try to expand to australia but it failed completely for so many reasons, the most famous being that they supplied goods at the same time and for the same climate as the US, such as selling snow shovels in the middle of summer
We have a Lowes here already. They sell clothes mostly things for blue collar work and you can buy uniforms there for whatever high school is near by.
@@sloppynyuszi oh yeah lowes clothing, I’ve never seen school unis there but definitely Hawaiian shirts for fat blokes
@@sloppynyusziDifferent companies. That’s why the Australian Lowes operation was called “Masters”.
Imagine if Kmart Australia decided to take over the operation of the remaining American stores.
Also, the sale of firearms and ammunition in a country where many of our more (and less) dangerous pests can be handled by spraying them.
Lowe’s and Home Depot’s Aussie equivalent is Bunnings
In Australia, Lowes is a clothing store.
Yep, Bunnings, Target and Kmart are all owned by Westfarmers. Bunnings wanted to expand into the UK and purchased their Homebase stores. It was a disaster and cost the company one billion dollars.
@@maxmackinlay618 But Bunnings has been the classic "category killer" in Australia - dominating the hardware market and wiping out other brands like Mitre 10 and BBC. It also beat off that start-up that was designed to take them on. (Masters or somethiing?)
@@VanillaMacaron551Yep, Masters was a short-lived attempt by a joint venture of the Australian Woolworths and the US Lowe’s to break into the Bunnings market. It went… poorly.
Don't you mean Hammerbarn? ;)
Target is doing well in the US, but K-mart is suffering from bankruptcy. It's so sad seeing one here.
Alongside Kmart and Target we have BigW.
Kmart and BigW are going strong.
Target has partially merged with Kmart, as in you can buy certain Kmart items at Target.
Big W is part of the Woolworths group, not associated like Kmart and Target.
Myer and David Jones are Australia’s department stores
Most of the target stores I knew of changed to Kmart not long ago. Some of our Kmarts are 24hrs. We also had a grocery store chain called Safeway which about 20 years ago changed their name to Woolworths. I think the us may also have Woolworths and Safeway stores but with no affiliation. Also a hell of a lot of our maccas are 24hrs which I have been told is not like that all over the world.
From 4:17-4:28 I can recognise where that closed Target country store was located, that was a traralgon store.
I know as I used to reside there, and I can see from the window reflection of the kfc menu board and the large gumtree that was across the road that was next-door to Shell servo.
In aus we don’t have Walmart or any of those big box stores. Kmart is also known for being a budget friendly store so it’s good for lower middle class and middle class families. Kmart is hugely popular here. Target still has a couple stores here and there but a lot of them are starting to get run down compared to Kmart. Target was more up market but more expensive whereas Kmart is cheaper and has more variety
We have Costco
@@robman2095 true but Costco isn’t as common as other supermarkets
We also have Big W.
@@rtyt2007 theres like 2 costcos near my area recently, they showing up quicker than spot fires
Myer and David Jones
When I was growing up in Australia in the 80s and 90s, Kmart stores had decent quality name brands, a cafe inside the store, and even a plant nursery department. They were still cheaper stores than the upmarket department stores. But they had a lot of quality goods. Many clothing items were made in Australia. The toy aisle even had some high quality hobby grade goods like model train accessories. The LEGO section even had a display case featuring built LEGO sets on display. I clearly remember seeing the LEGO space monorail of the late 80s - built and running, at Kmart.
Today’s Australian Kmart is a pale imitation of what it used to be - selling almost nothing but generic cheap garbage under one brand called “Anko”. And no actual brands, other than a few in the toy section (like LEGO). Its success has come from consumers who only want whatever the cheapest item is. But since nothing is made to last (like “fast fashion” clothing) they have to keep buying it over and over. Further boosting Kmart’s success. Well done, everyone.
I actually used to love going to Kmart. Now, I visit once every 2 years. And am always shocked at how inferior it is, to what it used to be.
The reason the American Kmart failed is because of mismanagement. Instead of investing in updating their stores, they bought competing retailers. Kmart stores begin to look outdated and old/run down. Then when after going bankrupt in 2003, Kmart made the huge mistake of buying Sears. Eddie Lambert than ran both stores to the ground, focusing on the real estate side and not the retail side. The combined Sears holdings declared bankruptcy in 2018.
Ed Lampert had played a big part in the sabotaging of retailers Kmart and Sears...
@@Justin-Hill-1987 yes, however both retailers were struggling before Eddie Lambert got control of them
@@davinp Do you suppose Sears would still exist, if Kmart never bought them?
@@trentpettit6336 I am not sure they would have. They were already struggling even before Kmart & Sears merged
There is a retail chain called Lowes in Australia. But I doubt it has any affiliation.
No. It has lots of inflation.
Lowes is a menswear chain, but Masters Home Improvement I think was a joint venture with the other one.
Target Australia has not gone out of business. Yes they had some financial difficulty and slimed down closing some stores and rebranding others as Kmart. But it’s still alive and operating over 120 stores.
Woolworths which has had a overseas stores that had their origins and business from FW Woolworth (UK, Germany, Mexico, Canada). While in South Africa and Australia the shops that operate under Woolworths name have no relationship with the original American company and who's stores are very different from the five and dime department stores.
Also while the original American Woolworths now operates as Footlocker. The German and Mexican chain are still in business while the UK and Canada stores ceased to be years ago.
Woolworths also used an American company name. In 1985 they purchased Safeway Australia from the American owners and ownership of the name in Australia was part of the deal. Safeway America is still trading and listed on the NY stock exchange.
The Woolworths corporate colours and slogan the "fresh food people" was adopted.
It was a further 20 years until Safeway stores started to be renamed Woolworths.
Whilst they are similar, Kmart and Target occupy different niches.
Kmart is for general discount goods including clothing whereas Target has a more high-end discount image with much more emphasis on clothing. Target is also currently being usurped by Kmart from parent company Wesfarmers with the only Target stores existing where a Kmart already resides and/or in successful locations.
Source: My family has nearly 30 years combined experience working there (myself included) and have been shopping from both for many years.
Kmart was struggling for a while in Australia and almost went under but Westfarners brought in a managing director who was able to turn things around.
Such a nice video, thanks from Australia. Love to see American perspectives of other countries - it’s almost always the other way around only.
I remember Australian Target stopped selling video games ever since a GTA V controversy. Never been since.
they sell games in target now, BUT KMART DOESN'T SELL THEM FOR SOME DUMB REASON!!
The killer for Target Australia wasn't 2020 and the pandemic, although that certainly made things worse.
But the decline started in 2016/17 with some truly boneheaded decisions.
The store had always had its primary identity and market as affordable clothes for low income earners, as well as manchester and also general box store stuff.
And then they decided to try and chase wealthier patrons with more expensive clothes, losing existing customers trying to chase new ones, didn't go well.
Around the same time they stopped selling their BIG range of clothes for those of larger girth, and in country stores they stopped selling men's clothing altogether.
Oddly enough, shutting out 50% of your customer base was a bad idea.
Oh and they also stopped selling DVDs, only a small percent of overall revenue, but when they cut them the revenue oddly dropped by the same amount of money the DVDs used to make.
And then to ice the cake they decided to move their corporate headquarters from the rural city where it has been for nearly a century; about an hours drive from the capital; to the capital itself.
Building a brand new HQ in the capital, where real estate is amongst the most expensive in the world, well it cost the company Billions.
The Pandemic hitting while they were still reeling from those dumb decisions did not help.
But there is hope that they can recover.
I mean they weren’t going to compete with Kmart for the cheap clothes by that point because Kmart had shed its brand name stuff and switched to stuff made in Bangladesh by then, the old old setup when they were all part of the same group back in the 90’s before the group sold off and split up was that Kmart and Target were kind of competing with each other at a similar price point, while Myer was their expensive franchise, while they had Coles and Bi-Lo competing on the supermarket side. After they ditched most of the Bi-Lo stores (another terrible decision since the rebrand to Coles locations diluted the business) they made the switch to turn Kmart into the cheap store, and seemed to try to situate Target as the middle ground between Kmart and Myer which nowadays is a niche that doesn’t really exist (for a similar reason Big W has been struggling for years)
@Goatcha_M (3 mo later) Great read. I always enjoyed seeing the smiling faces of the Mr Big models in Target catalogues. One guy in particular got a lot of work. I guess they looked happy from doing just a little gym work and not being on super restricted diets! Where was Target's corporate HQ that you refer to? And where did they move to?
Owning both Kmart and Target, a decision was made to progressively close Target stores when they were located close to a Kmart. The remaining Target stores are in premium locations and have gone a little upmarket. Kmart also renovated their stores at this time, moving the checkouts from the store exit to in the middle of the store.
I think the preference for Kmart stores came because Kmart had a lot of 24 hour stores which were on their own. Target lacked this type of presence. Kmart was bigger, so it remained. Target switched to selling more premium items and kept a small number of ideal locations.
Great video mate. Always wondered about this
Interesting video! I originally heard of the Australian Kmarts and Targets from some toy-related (mostly Thomas) videos from Leokimvideo since he's from Australia. Hearing about the Targets vanishing from Australia is like an alternate universe if the same thing happened in the US. I miss the American Kmarts, but I'm just alright with the American Targets.
Targets haven’t vanished from Australia. They are still alive. They have certainly downsized.
US Targets sell fresh food and groceries. Australian Targets don't - just clothes, homewares, electrical, toys, sports and garden stuff.
I have noticed that alot of targets near me recently have been replaced by kmarts
We have a Lowes as well, but they operate small discount mens clothing shops, not box stores.
Target stores in Australia are set to rebrand into Kmarts in some areas, and close in others. It sucks because while the stores are very similar, I’ve always thought of Target as a bit higher quality than Kmart. It also means that in shopping centres with both stores, it’s likely that there will be a lot of empty floor space once the Target closes.
I miss jelly sprinkled with coconut when Australian Kmarts had food courts
They had the best pies, chips and gravy lunchtime deals and the jelly cups with whipped cream
i was kinda shocked to hear that kmart isnt in the us anymore considering the juggernaut of department stores it is down under
Kmart Tyre and Auto (KTAS) has been gone for many years - renamed to MyCar and sold off in 2018
I think one of the reasons K Mart has remained successful in Australia is that our supermarkets never pivoted into a Walmart style business model.
From my understanding (correct me if I'm wrong) Walmart sells not only all the packaged food and produce that you would find in our supermarket chains, but also clothes, homewares, toys and electronics. These are things that you would not find in our major supermarkets, and would instead go to K Mart to get. This gives them a strong reason to continue exisiting in the Australian retail market.
I’m Australian and I love these
There’s also Woolworths which is different to the US and UK businesses of the same name and Wendy’s which is also different to the US business.
Lowes did have a minor stake in a JV with Woolworths Limited to create 'Masters', a big box store to rival that of Bunnings, also owned by Wesfarmers.
I bet they regretted that decision.
didnt rival anything since it went out of business in like 18 months
@@WayStedYou Surprisingly, trying to compete against an aggressively established incumbent by locating your stores next to the incumbent, with pricing not as good as the incumbent and brands that aren't as established DOESNT lead to retail success
@@prussianpolydactyl836I'd love to be able to visit some of the sales and marketing presentations that preceded the arrival of Masters. They might have moulded the data to meet their ambitions! Meanwhile, Bunnings management would have been having 'war cabinet meetings'. Licking their lips while conducting spy operations. The Masters twenty minutes from us was snapped up pretty quickly by Bunnings.
Actually, Lowe's is a very successful Australian retail chain. It's a cheap menswear store.
I love our Aussie Kmart, so cheap!
Target is more expensive but both are owned by Coles Myer
Coles Myer is no longer a thing. Myer was sold off in 2006 and Wesfarmers bought Coles Group in 2007. Coles Group became a separate entity in 2018 but Wesfarmers kept Target and Kmart
It’s not GJ Coles and Coy
It’s GJ Coles and Company
Coy is an Australian business term short for “company” ……..
You will find the former on old signs.
K-mart and Target are combining soon, at least in Victoria, Australia.
Remind me to take you to Kmart when you're finally down in NZ. Got one at North City Mall, Porirua. Kmart in Australia/NZ markets itself as an Australasian IKEA.
its australian no asian down there
Which is amusing to IKEA which has a significant presence in Australia…
IKEA doesn’t do much in the clothing line unlike KMART.
@@mattschehr163 I dont think you understand what Australasia means
We have a Lowe's in Australia but Australian Lowe's is a Clothing store not a home development store
My kmart as a kid had a kmart restaurant in its back…go shopping then go out to dinner….
"Co.y." in the "G.J. Coles and Co.y. Ltd." name is an old-fashioned abbreviation for "Company".
I remember a few years back, there was news that the parent company wanted to replace a lot of the Kmart stores with Target. Of course there was backlash, but they didn't really address it. But look where we are now.
INACCURACIES:
- Kmart was bought by Myer, not Westfarmers. Coles merged with Myer in the 1980s, but Myer was spun off in the 2000s while Coles would look for a buyer. Coles was bought by Westfarmers then itself would be spun off in the late 2010s but without the group except the liquor assets. Coles and Kmart did run a joint subsidiary around the 1980s called Super Kmart but it failed and all the stores were converted to Kmart plazas with Coleses in them. Myer, a full format department store, is also struggling.
- I think Kmart found its footing in the late 2000s, retargetting itself as a discout chain that sells a lot of Anko label stuff for cheap. I think I heard Anko itself expanded to SE Asia. Coles was thinking of merging Kmart to itself but Westfarmers cancelled it.
- Lowes ran a partnership with Woolworths called Masters, to answer Coles' Bunnings Warehouse, but it completely failed and was sold to new consortium HomeCo to turn them into big box plazas.
- Kmart Tyre and Auto Service was sold to Continental and renamed to MyCar.
- Woolworths also exists as an unrelated supermarket (originally a variety store, which would later become Big W to compete with Kmart, again also struggling) and was originally called Wallworths but they found out they can't be sued.
I used to work for Wesfarmers. There is no T.
@@fionaj77 oh yeah
Spent time in both chains. Kmart is booming and Target is still around albeit only in the country towns mostly and their focus shifted to more of an online homeware specialty.
KMart Wagga Wagga was in the top 5 $$ profitable stores in NSW in the 80's and 90's, why? It had no competition!
Wesfarmers later spun off Coles into a separate company so Coles is no longer associated with Kmart.
As an Australian, I am sad to see lots of Targets closing down
And today i just learnt that kmart isn't really a thing in America
Australia also has Lowes but its mean wear at an “affordable” price and that’s it.
I used to work for Target in 2011 in Perth. Was my first job. It was seen as a more upmarket than Kmart. Generally their goods are better than Kmart, but the pricing of items in Kmart was so much better. Cheaper items and more products. Then we had social media influencers who are also dedicated Kmart lovers. Also cheaper than Kmart. Target lost its popularity after some mishaps over the years. People opted for the cheaper sister, Kmart. Now that same Target in Perth is now a Kmart.
As an aussie, kmart is awesome. Full of stoned mates buying maltesers and nerf guns at 2 am
@F100fNOOdle 😁 I'm enjoying working my way up the comments here (2 mo later). Yours is the best so far. I live fifteen minutes from a 24 hour K-Mart. This is one place Richard Attenborough would go to study our species !
Our local Target got replaced by a Kmart.
What's freakier is that every-single-thing in Kmart now is made by one supplier comany...
I used to work in Target in Australia but as of recent, a lot of the target stores have been turning into Kmarts
It’s GJ Cole’s & Co(ompany). Co is an old abbreviation for company 😂
A few years ago Kmart and Target in Australia became one company (at the corporate level) and have two separate store brands. Target is struggling and will be fazed out. It looks like they are only still operating due to expensive retail leases. Once these leases expire the Target store will be shut down. There's no point rebranding Targets to Kmart when there's one of each store in the same shopping centre.
Target USA, K-Mart USA and Walmart all started at the same time about in 1962. At the time there were many 1-store or regional chains of 'discount stores' that were becoming very popular in the fast growing suburbs of America. Walmart mainly expanded in 'small town' locations, K-Mart quickly became a national chain mainly in the suburbs. Target was mainly regional but expanded nationally in the 1980's and 1990's.
Target USA was originally a division of Minneapolis, Minnesota based Dayton department stores. Dayton's would later merge with Detroit, Michigan Hudson's Stores to form Dayton-Hudson, the department stores were later sold off and became Macy's Department Stores. The Target Australia was apparently a rip off of the USA Target, taking advantage of the lack of filing for trademark protections in Australia and NZ.
K-Mart was a spinoff of S.S. Kresse variety stores (and a one time competitor to Woolworth's). Eventually the variety stores were phased out and K-Mart retained. As noted, the Australia K-marts were originally a licensing of the trademark brand and partial ownership of stores there (via Coles) but seemed to have abandoned it over time in Australia.
As to Woolworth's. it was originally a NY City, USA based company of 'variety' stores that eventually expanded around the world, including the UK, Europe and Australia. Woolworth's then evolved into groceries and discount general merchandise 'superstores' in Australia but as in the USA (and Canada) also operated in the 1970's and 1980's, larger discount stores. Woolworth's Australia eventually became a separate company from the USA parent. Woolworth's evolved into what later became 'Footlocker' athletic shoe stores and at one time discount clothing stores, getting rid of the 'variety' stores.
Woolworths Australia has always been separate to the US one, starting as a variety store in Sydney.
It transitioned into food only in the 1960s, and developed a discount department store brand BigW that competes with KMart and Target, gradually closing the old variety stores.
Over the years it's had a relationship with Walmart sharing some senior execs and board members.
I live in Australia and we went to Target just the other day. Kmart is more popular for the people who have less money to spend and can't afford quality goods. Also, Kmart no longer has video games, while Target has not as many as they used to. Mainly because EBGames and JB-HiFi are a thing nowadays, since they provide a full range and are mostly accessible Australia wide.
Also, Australia still has pay phones and shopping centres, unlike the US from what I keep hearing.
The end may indeed be nigh for Aussie Tarzhay. How do I know? Kmart home brand (currently known as "Anko", as a play on its previous name, "&co") products being rolled out to Target stores instead of Target branded or big name branded products.
Oh dear.
Pity. I much prefer Target for choice than Kmart
I am from Australia and honestly didnt know that our kmart and targets are different. I thought i was crazy for never having seen those red balls in my life. I guess this video just explained everything I never would've known otherwise.
Myer and David Jones are department stores in Australia
Bathurst used to have a Kmart, then it rebranded to a target, and in the last five or so years it rebranded back to a Kmart.
I got a Walmart ad before the video.
They also have Sears in Mexico
Woolworths Australia blatantly stole it's name from the US store
I like your videos! Thanks
Kmart (NZ) is hugely popular here in Aotearoa. Stores are well managed, fresh and modern. Kmart also offers a high quality, competitively priced 'in store' brand (Anko) which I believe sets it apart from competitors like Briscoes and The Warehouse.
Thanks for the like. I know I sounded like an infomercial. But that is my experience with the whole Warehouse vs. KMart drama. i used to be an exclusive "WareWhare" shopper (kiwis will know at that means) but the last couple of years I've found the KMart shop so much more 'human'. The prices are better, the experience is better. Take Note, Warehouse!
New Zealand
We had The Warehouse for a while here in Australia. My brother worked there when it first opened, back in 2002 if I remember correctly. It didn't last long though.
I think the thing with Kmart is that it looks and feels more upmarket than your regular "discount store". Hell it didn't even cross my mind that kmart could be classed as such until watching this video. Like sure it's not David Jones or Myer, but it isn't Crazy Clarks or The Reject Shop either.
@@sharielane That would be right, early 2000's when The Warehouse tried to make a push into Australia. I think that move almost bankrupted the company. Like you say, the expansion didn't last long...the Aussie market is a hard one to crack!
Where is Aotearoa? Is it part of NZ?
Fun Fact: When Wesfarmers bought The Coles group, they didn't want Kmart.
Australia also has a Lowe's
Kmart also used to be called super k mart here in my home town anyway
I could be wrong but I've heard that there's a home depot being built (or has been) in a town close to the one I live in (it also has a taco bell) although I'm not sure if it's american home depot or some australian home depot like target australia.
2:10 That's Yass, a town I've been to that's famous for its McDonald's sign. Yes, THAT McDonald's sign.
Then there's just Big W existing somewhere in the room.
Yeah there 29 stores in Victoria and that is not enough stores in Victoria, we need to grow Big W to least at 50? Stores in Victoria
Yeh so the target at my shopping centre got changed to a woolworths and others are getting changed to other stores
The only thing left of target is the name. They now only sell kmarts home brand . Exact same prices also.