Operations are “business as usual” at BlueLight.com, the online unit of Kmart, according to a spokesperson. The parent company filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection Tuesday. BlueLight offers a wide variety of merchandise as well as providing Internet service. BlueLight was launched as a standalone business, but was purchased by Kmart in August 2001. To date BlueLight has kept up with payments to its vendors, Dave Karraker, BlueLight’s spokesman said. “All vendors are current and still providing us with product. There has been no change with product levels beyond the usual buying and selling.” The merchandise mix on BlueLight is substantially different from Kmart’s retail outlets, save for Martha Stewart’s offerings. Karraker estimates that less than 50% of the items available online are also on the chain’s shelves.
“Most of [BlueLight’s] merchandise is on the higher end,” Karraker said. “It has to make a margin quota that makes sense for it to be sold online. We aren’t selling dog food or paper towels through it.”
Karraker was not able to comment on whether BlueLight’s suppliers billed the online concern separately from the parent company, nor whether any delivery disruptions to Kmart would have an impact on BlueLight.
He did say that BlueLight had contacted local telecoms that support its online service offerings, and that there had not been anything out of the ordinary regarding the number of subscribers using BlueLight’s online service. BlueLight currently has 200,000 subscribers that pay $8.95 per month for Internet access.
Karraker also said that BlueLight did not expect any staffing changes as a result of the bankruptcy protection request, but he added that “We are pretty lean after the August purchase, when we reduced staff levels from 220 to 40 employees.”
