Anyone Remember the Walmart vs. Kmart Battle?

CLAY: Are there Kmarts and Walmarts in Manhattan? Do you know?

BUCK: There’s not a Kmart in Manhattan and there hasn’t been for, I don’t know, a very long time.

CLAY: When you were a kid were there Kmarts? Like are you familiar with the idea?

BUCK: Yeah, of course. I spent summers at my grandparents’ place upstate, and we used to go to a place called Ames. Ames is like a little more humble version of Kmart. You ever even seen an Ames department store?

CLAY: I’ve heard of it. I don’t know that I’ve ever been in one. Well, this was one of the great battles in business of the 1980s, the 1970s, the early nineties. Who was win gonna win? Walmart, you know, this Bentonville, Arkansas, redneck. Let’s be honest, I can say that, I’m from the Southeast. Redneck store? Or Kmart?

And Kmart had an early lead, they were like super Midwest and Northeast based. There are no, Buck — I think there’s one Blockbuster video —

BUCK: I was gonna say they’ve gone full Blockbuster.

CLAY: Yeah. There are now only three Kmarts left in the entire United States. I bet that is a mind-blowing stat for anybody out there who remembers the war, the battle, the business battle between Kmart and Walmart.

BUCK: Do we have a consensus as to — is Target fancier than Walmart or basically the same as Walmart?

CLAY: Target —

BUCK: I’ve heard Target’s fancier than Walmart.

CLAY: Target’s way fancier than Walmart. Target managed to survive. They weren’t even really in the battle. They were kind of on the fringe. And now I think they’re thriving as a fancier version of Walmart. Like, they have a little bit more of an upscale mind-set than Walmart does. Not that there’s anything wrong with Walmart. But that’s the Target brand.

BUCK: I still remember going to Ames — they actually had a little place for the tractor supply stuff and they had little baby chicks and we’d always want to buy baby chicks. And my parents have to be like, “No, that’s so you can raise chickens for — they’re not pets.”

CLAY: Oh, wow.

BUCK: We had a different vibe with the baby chicks.