The catalogue, which arrived in mailboxes in late August or early September, soon became a holiday tradition with warm, colorful Christmas scenes decorating the cover.
The Wish Book began to diminish in size during the late s and early s, as merchandizing shifted to online purchases. As increasing numbers of Americans moved to cities in the twentieth century, Sears faced the loss of rural consumers. City dwellers with easy access to a variety of stores had little need for huge mail order catalogues. Early Sears department stores typically opened in working class neighborhoods outside of the major city shopping districts. Sears was one of the first department stores to cater to men as well as women by selling tools and hardware.
Its merchandise emphasized durability and practicality over fashion, and its store layout allowed customers to select goods without the aid of a clerk. In the s and s, Sears began to shift its focus from urban to suburban markets. The Sears name soon became synonymous with the suburban shopping experience. Their large department stores anchored shopping malls all over the country, and Sears catered to suburban motorists by expanding their automotive services.
Sears announced plans to build a new headquarters in downtown Chicago in At the time, Sears was the largest retailer in the world with approximately , employees.
When it opened in , the story Sears Tower , at 1, feet in height, dominated the Chicago skyline as the tallest building in the world—a distinction it held for 25 years. In , the building was renamed Willis Tower after a London-based insurance broker that now leases a portion of the structure.
Sears, Roebuck and Company gave birth to several iconic brands over the years. Some of them include:. Kenmore Appliances: The brand name first appeared on a sewing machine sold in the Sears catalogue in Sears introduced the first Kenmore washing machine in and the first Kenmore vacuum cleaner in Throughout the s, Sears continued to expand its Kenmore brand to household appliances including refrigerators, freezers and air conditioners.
Craftsman: Sears acquired the Craftsman trademark and sold its first Craftsman tools in Craftsman later branched out into lawnmowers, electronic, portable power tools and even electric razors to serve a growing suburban base.
Allstate offered low rates on auto insurance to consumers through the Sears mail-order catalogue and later through sales booths in its retail stores. The company became completely independent in after Sears divested its Allstate stock to shareholders. Discover Card: Sears added financial services to its repertoire in the s. In , the company introduced the Discover Card.
It was the first to offer cash rewards to customers based on how much the credit card was used. Discover Card became wildly popular—within four years 20 million people had the card. The company sold off Discover Card and other financial operations in the mid-nineties.
Throughout the nineties, Sears faced increasing competition from numerous big-box stores that offered even lower prices than Sears. Big-box retailer Kmart bought Sears in Over the next decade and a half, Sears lost half its revenue and laid off nearly , people as it battled to keep up with the advance of online retailers. In alone, Sears Holdings closed more than Sears and Kmart stores nationwide, with an additional 60 to be closed in early Later that year, Sears announced a deal to sell Kenmore appliances through online retailer Amazon.
The Rise and Fall of Sears. ESL responded, saying the allegations in the lawsuit are without merit. It started by selling a single product category. But when it became clear that a sleepy, overpriced retail sector would crumble before it, there was nothing to stop the company from selling anything and everything. You could order from the comfort of your own home. You could pay a fair price. It would ship the goods right to you. Sales exploded, and if you'd picked up a big enough chunk of stock when the company went public, you'd never have to work again.
That description once applied to Sears, Roebuck, and Co. Having played the role of an upstart retail juggernaut in the s, Sears now finds itself in the same position as the rural general stores it used to drive out of business en masse.
On the other hand, Sears' demise is not all Amazon's fault, nor is it a simple circle-of-life parable. Sears made its share of mistakes. As of Oct. Penney has done even worse, but Lowe's, Best Buy, and Home Depot have all seen their share prices at least double. Amazon shares, on the other hand, are up nearly fold.
Even for a brick-and-mortar retailer in the digital era, Sears is struggling. In the mids, Richard Sears worked as a station agent for the Minneapolis and St. Louis Railway in North Redwood, Minnesota. He would sell lumber and coal on the side, giving him experience that came in handy when, in , a local jeweler rejected a shipment of gold-filled watches from Chicago.
Sears bought them himself, sold them at a profit, and ordered more. He founded the R. Roebuck, a watchmaker from Indiana. Both were in their twenties. They launched a catalog of watches and jewelry the following year and incorporated Sears, Roebuck, and Co.
Two years later, a Chicago clothing manufacturer, Julius Rosenwald, bought into the company. By that time, the mail-order operation branched out from watches. Farmers, fed up with understocked and overpriced general stores, flocked to Sears. The company sold stock in in the first initial public offering IPO for an American retail firm—the first to be handled by Goldman Sachs.
It opened a acre logistics center in Chicago that very same year. Henry Ford eventually made a pilgrimage to this "'seventh wonder' of the business world" to learn about the company's storied efficiency. Sears Holdings was delisted from the Nasdaq in Oct. Ford would throw a wrench in Sears' business model, as cars made chain stores more appealing and mail-order catalogs less crucial for rural customers. Sears adapted, opening retail stores in the s that outsold the catalog by The company began to introduce its own brands in the s, including Craftsman, DieHard, and Kenmore.
It began selling insurance through its Allstate subsidiary in In , Sears, the largest retailer in the world, began construction on the world's tallest skyscraper. The Sears' Tower's completion four years later may not mark the company's peak, but its retail dominance began to fade around that time.
In the s, it adopted a "socks and stocks" strategy, expanding into financial services beyond its existing insurance business. It launched Discover Card through Dean Witter in Built on a private network, it was distinct from the Internet but presaged it in many ways, offering email, games, news, weather, sports, and shopping.
It took parts of Dean Witter and Allstate public, then distributed the remaining shares to investors. Sears also sold Coldwell Banker, along with other financial services subsidiaries.
Sears discontinued its famous catalog in According to the company archives, it "returned to its retailing roots" by Investors began to worry that the earlys recession made credit card issuance too risky, and Sears sold the business to Citigroup C in At the turn of the century, Sears turned to the web in earnest.
A July press release boasted that sears. At that time, Sears' problem was not so much Amazon as it was Walmart, which became the nation's largest retailer in the s. The combined companies—to be headquartered in Chicago and called Sears Holdings—would operate around 3, locations.
Analysts expressed excitement at combining the fading giants' mainstays, cross-selling brands such as Sears' Craftsman and Kmart's Martha Stewart Everyday.
Lampert left Goldman to start a hedge fund in at the age of 25 and bought up Kmart's debt when the retailer declared bankruptcy in As chairman of the combined company—he took on the CEO role as well in —Lampert initially attracted breathless praise from the media. A Bloomberg Businessweek cover story called him "the next Warren Buffett. After launching the Kenmore brand appliances and Craftsman brand tools during the s, Sears even expanded into auto insurance , launching Allstate in That year marked the first year retail sales outstripped catalog sales.
By the s, Sears had opened more than store s in the United States, and had expanded into Mexico and Canada, where it joined forces with a Canadian mail-order company and became Simpson-Sears. As shopping malls became ubiquitous across the nation, Sears stores served as familiar anchors, along with fellow chains like J.
Penney and Montgomery Ward. In the decades that followed, the catalog would be adorned with Christmas scenes, even as its pages swelled. A page from the Sears Christmas catalog. The s brought more competition, in the form of new discount department store chains like Target, Walmart and Kmart. An advertisement for Sears services and products, circa In , Sears announced it was closing its catalog division , bringing to an end a storied era of mail-order bargain-hunting and wish fulfillment that had begun nearly a century earlier.
Sears Tower sold in , and the following year, Amazon. In , the Sears Christmas catalog went online for the first time at Wishbook.
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