TacticScale
Consumer Cyclical · Department Stores · KSS

What Kohls Does & How It Makes Money (KSS)

Updated October 2026 · reflects Kohls's latest reported financials

U.S. department store chain selling apparel, home goods, and beauty. Kohl's makes money by selling apparel, footwear, accessories, beauty, and home products to consumers through its physical stores and its website.

Kohls's story, moat and numbers — in a 3-minute visual book.

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How Kohls makes money

Kohl's makes money by selling apparel, footwear, accessories, beauty, and home products to consumers through its physical stores and its website. It uses a mix of its own private-label brands and brands licensed from designers.

What Kohls does

Kohl's Corporation is a U.S. omnichannel retailer, founded in 1988 and headquartered in Menomonee Falls, Wisconsin. It sells apparel, footwear, accessories, beauty products, and home products through its department stores and its website. A large part of its range is sold under private-label brands, including Apt. 9, Croft & Barrow, FLX, Jumping Beans, SO, Sonoma Goods for Life, and Tek Gear. It also carries designer-name lines such as LC Lauren Conrad, Nine West, and Simply Vera Vera Wang. Kohl's sits in the department stores industry, part of the consumer cyclical sector, so its sales tend to follow consumer spending.

Products & services

What is Kohls worth?

On an owner-earnings DCF, Kohls's most-likely value is about $71 versus a recent price near $20 (247% below fair value). But TacticScale only calls a stock undervalued when the price sits below its conservative no-growth floor (~$62) with a margin of safety — so the honest verdict here is “Deeply discounted.” Fair value earns its keep only at the extremes, not in the wide middle.

Verdict: Deeply discounted
Owner-earnings fair value · recent price ≈ $20
Fair value (most likely)
$71
Range
$69–$84
No-growth floor
$62
Price
~$20

On the financials alone, $20 is below even the no-growth floor ($62); the market's discount — expectations and sentiment beyond the numbers — is pricing in ≈ -22.9%/yr. A bargain only if that pessimism is overdone.

Analysis, not advice. Fair value is a margin-of-safety estimate from a deterministic owner-earnings DCF, not a price target or recommendation. See the full breakdown →

Sector Consumer Cyclical Industry Department Stores HQ United States Ticker KSS Official site

Related companies

Macy's (M) · The Kroger (KR) · The TJX Companies (TJX) · Lowe's Companies (LOW) · Ralph Lauren (RL)

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