Shopko Open In Time For Christmas

With Pamida Stores being closed down for good across the state of Nebraska, Shopko has come to the city of Kimball.

According to Shopko Manager Marcus Wood, customers will see a big difference in the items the store carries.

“We have a much higher quality product now. We have name brand clothing, fishing and hunting supplies. We’ll also carry name brand electronics such as LG, and we’ll now carry name brand shoes such as Nike, New Balance, and Reebok. We’ll have a very good line of just about everything you would need,” Wood said.

The store has also changed in its layout making it more spacious and allowing multiple carts to fit down the aisles to make it more convenient for customers to shop, according to Wood.

Kids participating in the Shop with a Cop program will also benefit from the changeover through higher quality options for toys.

“We used to have about 24 feet of value toys, and now we only have about eight feet of them with the rest being name brand and newer toys that will last longer as kids play with them including a bigger Nerf section,” Wood said.

The reason for the changeover comes from the decision on the corporate level to merge the separate entities of Pamida and Shopko into one.

“We were owned by the same company, and to my understanding they said why keep us separate entities and shut down Pamida for good absorbing all the remaining Pamidas into the Shopko brand,” Wood said.

The final days of Pamida offered incredible clearance sales which were taken advantage of by the people of Kimball.

“We had the least amount of product to send back from any Pamida in Nebraska. We sold pretty much every bit of merchandise we had,” Wood said.

Though Shopko is currently open 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. through the holidays with their sections of consumables being fully stocked, there will be a soft opening on December 30 at which time the whole store will be fully stocked with all the new merchandise, and there will also be a grand opening on January 10, 2013 at which time the store hours will fall back to the usual 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. Monday through Saturday and opening on Sunday from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m.

Wood seems very optimistic about the benefits that this change will bring to the area of Kimball.

“I think this was a step in the right direction for everyone involved,” Wood said.