Kmart has greater visibility in store for home products - K Mart Corp.'s Levittown, New York store

Discount Store News, August 5, 1991

Kmart Has Greater Visibility In Store For Home Products

New Component Sets Standards For Future Prototypes

LEVITTOWN, N.Y. -- Home products categories were given greater square footage and visibility at the Kmart store opened recently in this Long Island community, and will be a component in future store openings.

Kmart chairman Joseph Antonini, and the chain's lifestyle and entertaining consultant Martha Stewart, welcomed customers into the full-line retailer's third Long Island location.

Ready-to-assemble furniture and crafts were among the categories with enhanced depth and selection.

RTA was expanded to include every dominant category supplier including Sauder, O'Sullivan, Bush, Rosalco, Gusdorf, Julie Pomerantz, Cosco and Rose Hill. A total of nine gondola runs of lifestyle and RTA furniture were brought together instead of scattered among the consumer electronics and housewares departments.

The crafts area was expanded to four gondola runs adjacent to silk flowers and lawn & garden. As in RTA, most major brands were represented including high recognition labels such as Wintuk, Jamie, Bucilla, Singer and Wright's. The category had previously consisted of one or two aisles tucked into the back of the domestics department.

The domestics area, including the Martha Stewart signature line, was also given greater prominence.

Martha Stewart noted that this fall her signature line will include an all-white percale bedroom collection. "I tried for four years for an all-white grouping," Stewart told DSN, "and the white will be our first 200-count." Stewart, who recently purchased a home on Long Island, commented, "I wanted to bring a truck here to load up on new tools."

PHOTO : Kmart chairman Joe Antonini and chain lifestyle consultant Martha Stewart welcomed Levittown area shoppers into a Kmart brimming with home goods merchandise. Stewart's signature domestics, supplies for sewing and RTA furniture were among the categories with greater prominence.