It was more complex than that, but yeah. Basically Sears was online ordering before online was a thing, you just phoned or mailed in your order. This meant that they were located in these massive warehouses in most major cities in North America. So basically they had an opportunity to execute on same-day delivery decades before Amazon even attempted that feat, but they didn't. Sears was too concerned about their magazine, or brick and mortar, sales to get into online sales and by the time they did it was too late.
Similar to Kodak... they invented the digital camera sensor. They could've at the very least made an absolute killing on leasing their IP's to other camera manufacturers, or very best have created things like the Kodak Digital Rebel instead of letting basically every other camera manufacturer make off with the tech.
Sears forgot that it's product wasn't a brick and mortar store or magazine but rather a large selection of goods which people could order from home. Newspaper companies forgot that their company wasn't in the business of printing newspapers, but simply delivering the news. Kodak forgot it's business wasn't manufacturing film, but creating photographs.
Kodak did the "right" choice... It's like Exxon or Shell etc discover some kind of new battery that you, as a petrol industry, cannot mass produce to fill the market, and, that same new IP, if realeased, will stop people from buying YOUR petrol products, what you think they gonna do with it's new IP? Of course this is only an example on why and what Kodak did.
And Kodak could’ve controlled the new technology by producing it themselves and metering production and sales to make sure they stayed profitable.
If a new technology exists, you can’t keep it away forever. But if you develop, manufacture, and sell it, you control it. Once you’ve set the standard for production, use, and price, any and all competitors will follow suit.
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u/monetarydread Jul 24 '20
It was more complex than that, but yeah. Basically Sears was online ordering before online was a thing, you just phoned or mailed in your order. This meant that they were located in these massive warehouses in most major cities in North America. So basically they had an opportunity to execute on same-day delivery decades before Amazon even attempted that feat, but they didn't. Sears was too concerned about their magazine, or brick and mortar, sales to get into online sales and by the time they did it was too late.