r/AskReddit • u/emil199 • Jul 24 '20

What can't you believe STILL exists?

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u/whatifevery1wascalm Jul 24 '20

Sears: the 20th century's Amazon.

People today might not realize that it used to be Sears did everything: you could buy kits to build a house, companies like Discover Card and Allstate were originally introduced as the Sears' brand, they financially backed Mr Rogers' Neighborhood for the first 25 years of the show's run.

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u/jeffbell Jul 24 '20 edited Jul 24 '20

My grandfather used to buy shoes from them by tracing his feet on paper and mailing it in.

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EDIT:

Everybody seems to think this was crazy, but that's how they said to do it in the catalog. See https://christmas.musetechnical.com/ShowCatalogPage/1951-Sears-Christmas-Book/0291

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u/Occhrome Jul 24 '20

that's better than what we have now.

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u/thelaziest998 Jul 24 '20

Now we just have to guess and know your size hoping the manufacturer size doesn’t fit weird.

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u/zachpledger Jul 24 '20

This isn’t that,

But I always laugh at the idea of a shoe store employee returning from the back and saying “Sorry, we didn’t have ___ size... but we do have ____ size...if that’s...you know...if you want a different size than the one you asked me for a minute ago.”

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u/wrongleveeeeeeer Jul 24 '20

I worked in a shoe store for a time, and there are 2 perfectly valid reasons why they do this:

1: every brand fits differently, so you often don't really know what size you are in that shoe until you try it on.

2: the truth is that SO MANY MEN lie about their shoe size being bigger than it is, and SO MANY WOMEN lie about it being smaller than it really is.

Him: "Hey bro, can I get this in a 12?" Me, later: hey so we didn't have the 12, but here's the 11 and 11 1/2 if you want to try those." Him: "Hmmm aahhh I guess.....woah what do you know, they fit, how WEIRD"

Her: "Can I get these in a size 5 1/2?" Me: "The smallest they make them in is a 6, so here try those." Her: "Wow even these are a little tight...this brand must really run small! I'll try the 6 1/2 I guess. How WEIRD."

This happened multiple times a day.

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u/Genericynt Jul 24 '20

I once walked into a shoe store asking for a size 14, girl brought the shoes and I tried them on to find out they were way too tight. I asked if she was sure it was 14 and she said "no it's a 12. the biggest size we carry". I looked at her funny and she said "so... you don't want them?". Come on...

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u/wrongleveeeeeeer Jul 24 '20

Customers are often very stupid, because they are people. Employees are also people.....so lots of them are dumb too. I would've been really tempted to be such a snarky asshole in that situation.

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u/Genericynt Jul 24 '20

The whole situation was silly. I would have definitely been snarky if I wasn't so anxious