Service Merchandise closing store in Las Vegas

Thursday, Feb. 18, 1999 | 11:39 a.m.

Service Merchandise Co. is closing one of its two Las Vegas stores.

Spokeswoman Laura Ellis said the store at 1095 East Twain in the Park Place shopping center will close in the next three to four months. It employs 51 people.

The closure leaves Service Merchandise with just one Nevada store on West Charleston Blvd.

The latest closure continues a trend of downsizing for the Tennessee-based Service Merchandise. In December it closed its lone Reno store and in early 1997 it closed its Southern Nevada distribution center in Henderson, which employed 85 people.

Based in the Nashville suburb of Brentwood, Service Merchandise announced plans last week to close 134 of its 347 stores nationwide. The stores typically sell jewelry and home products.

Founded in 1934, Service Merchandise flourished into the 1980s. But its merchandising program is now seen as obsolete against the likes of Wal-Mart and Kmart.

Analyst Kurt Barnard said Service Merchandise's outlook is "dim, at best."

"Consumers have no clear ideal of what it is and what it tries to do," said Barnard, president of Barnard's Retail Trend Report in Upper Montclair, N.J.

"If you want a toaster, for example, the first company you think of is Wal-Mart or Kmart," he told the Associated Press.