Kmart Corporation. Sears Holdings, the parent company of Kmart, declared Chapter 11 bankruptcy on October 15, 2018. S. S. Kresge, the founder of the company that would become Kmart, met variety-store pioneer Frank Winfield Woolworth while working as a traveling salesman and selling to all 19 of Woolworth's stores at the time. In 1897 Kresge invested $6,700 saved from his job into a five-and-dime store in Memphis, Tennessee. He jointly owned the first store with his former tinware customer, John McCrory. Kresge and McCrory added a second store in downtown Detroit the following year. These were the first S.S. Kresge stores.
Store brand Store brand Store brands, also called own brands, are private label brands managed solely by a retailer for sale in only a specific chain of stores. The retailer will design the manufacturing, packaging and marketing of the goods in order to build on the relationship between the products and the store's customer base. Store-brand goods are generally cheaper than national-brand goods, because the retailer can optimize the production to suit consumer demand and reduce advertising costs. Goods sold under a store brand are subject to the same regulatory oversight as goods sold under a national brand. Consumer demand for store