USA Kmart expanded into Australia decades ago in a 50% joint venture with the Australian supermarket chain Coles. US companies have a habit of divesting their assets here in tough times. Australian retail giant Wesfarmers purchased Kmart and made massive changes. Wesfarmers also owns the Target brand here but that was always just a brand, no US involvement. KMart just about wiped out Target and Wesfarmers seems to focus on developing Kmart and their Anko in store brand (Chinese manufactured stuff built to a price like everyone else).

Outside Australia they brand themselves as Anko. They had a small US trial in 2018-2020 where I think they were testing different concepts, not going for an expansion into the US market. They may be more interested in higher growth SE Asia as they apparently have stores in Manila.

[–] Salvo@aussie.zone 2 points 12 hours ago

Yes and is the most popular of three mainstream department stores. Big W is owned by Woolworths, but somehow is much more trusted that the Supermarket.

Kmart is different to the US Kmart due to the different demographic of Australia and New Zealand.

Target is the least popular; it is ironically known as “Targét” as parody of Popular Fashion trends and is on the decline.

[–] eatham@aussie.zone 7 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Unfortunately, yes. They also bought target and made them have a shit store layout aswell.

[–] tacosanonymous@mander.xyz 4 points 1 day ago (2 children)

Holy shit. They’ve actually done well enough to buy out Target. You guys are fucking wild down there.

[–] Ilandar@lemmy.today 6 points 1 day ago

Kmart didn't buy out Target. Both Kmart and Target are owned by Westfarmers, one of the largest Australian business conglomerates. The above comment was probably referring to a restructuring within Westfarmers around 10 years ago which combined the two into a single division called "Kmart Group".

To be clear, there is also no connection between the Australian companies and their US namesakes. They are completely separate companies and have never shared the same owners.

[–] budget_biochemist@slrpnk.net 1 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Didn't it happen the other way around in the US?

[–] tacosanonymous@mander.xyz 2 points 19 hours ago (1 children)

No. Kmart went bankrupt a long time ago, got bought out by Sears which also went bankrupt, and some random company picked up the remains of Sears. But the whole time Kmart stores were closing. I think there’s one left in Florida?

Target is a separate entity and that thing has blown up. They’re everywhere. They even made lil mini stores to stick in downtown areas.

[–] Tollana1234567@lemmy.today 1 points 56 minutes ago* (last edited 55 minutes ago)

target was originally everywhere in the west, but those direct stores, and some stores have since closed down, the mini-targets dint have traffic at all the whole time they were open, and some were so hit hard "5-finger discounts" it closed.

[–] huquad@lemmy.ml 1 points 1 day ago

Now that's a name I haven't heard in a long long time

[–] Taleya@aussie.zone 4 points 1 day ago

Kmart Australia is notoriously a very different beast from the dystopian wasteland the US ones are