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Sears Holdings Corp. has identified 80 of the 120 Kmart and Sears stores that will be closed in a bid to improve its business.  The Hoffman Estates, Ill.-based retailer has posted negative eight-week and year-to-date comparable-store sales for both of its banners, which the company attributes to such factors as decreases in the consumer electronics and apparel categories, and lower layaway sales.

The 80 Sears, Sears Grand and Kmart stores slated for closure are in 25 states.

“Given our performance and the difficult economic environment, especially for big-ticket items, we intend to implement a series of actions to reduce ongoing expenses, adjust our asset base, and accelerate the transformation of our business model,” said Lou D’Ambrosio, CEO of Sears, the nation’s fourth-largest broadline retailer, with more 4,000 full-line and specialty retail stores in the United States and Canada. “These actions will better enable us to focus our investments on serving our customers and members through integrated retail -- at the store, online and in the home.”

Additional measures to be taken by Sears include focusing on boosting gross profit dollars through better inventory management and more targeted pricing and promotion, reducing fixed costs by $100 million to $200 million, and carefully evaluating store performance going forward.

“While our past practice has been to keep marginally performing stores open while we worked to improve their performance, we no longer believe that to be the appropriate action in this environment,” Sears said. “We intend to accentuate our focus and resources to our better-performing stores with the goal of converting their customer experience into a world-class integrated retail experience.”