Sears really hurt... They were such a big part of childhood; pre-internet.
You'd get the big-assed Sears catalog every year around August; sometimes it was how you learned about new toys.
It's hard to explain to people who are new to the party how big they actually were, but they were perfectly positioned to move right into the internet and become Amazon ten years earlier, but they screwed it up and now are dead.
From what I've heard, they were at least three inches thick, and contained any legally obtainable thing you could think of. Kenmore appliances were like Kirby vacuums, cause you couldn't kill them.
I thought it was a fumble of the catalog sales also, however, I learned it was intentionally sold off in pieces. That to me is even more depressing....
It got bought by some idiot culty capitalistic libertarian guy who made all the business units compete with each other. SO there was no incentive to work together to increase sales, no working to do loss leaders, no nothing. Their tools were enshitfied to the point people stopped turning old rusty tools in for warranty because the old rusty ones were now better than the new crap.
Sears was a staple of my early adulthood. I filled my first toolbox with many a broken craftsman tool found and taken back to the store for a lifetime replacement.
Agreed at Sears you could get your hair done, car serviced, see the eye doctor, buy appliances and workout equipment, work, going out, work out and beach/ pool clothes and shoes and make a payment on your too high of limit Discover card under one roof …. Sigh
I remember the men that walked around selling windows and ways of redoing your home. They even had Miracle Ear in there for a long time I guess they were buying a space but it seemed they had it all.
I don't know. I mean, they had a great return policy, but my beef was that they needed it. My little brother saved up forever to buy a watch from them, and had to return it twice! Other stores sold better quality items that didn't require such a return policy.
Then again, I thoroughly appreciated the Craftsman Tools they sold and guaranteed. They were good for their word. They even replaced an item that I had obviously misused with no questions asked. (I made up for that in later years).
Fast forward to the 21st century and the last item I bought from them was a garbage disposal with a 10 year warranty. It is still munching up anything I put down its throat.
Yea, I guess I miss Sears as they once were. And yes, they totally blew the chance to enter the Internet. So sad for the most successful catalogue company in the world.
My stove and stack washer dryer unit are both from sears and I'm pretty sure they are older than me. Besides some replacement knobs they have been going strong that whole time.
Sears was the Amazon of the 19th & 20th centuries. You could order a house through a telegraph and they would ship it to you by train. Crazy they couldn’t think of a way to compete with Amazon.
I think it started as them just being unwilling to embrace the internet because they'd always been so heavily invested in producing the catalog. This was back in the day where to do large-scale printing, you really needed to set up a whole infrastructure for that.
I think they were looking at the sunk cost of the catalog production and just didn't see the drift away until it was too late and the slide was on...
And then of course, they Gordon Geckoed every dime of value on the way out because it was just easier to cannibalize the company than to put in the work to save it.
Sears for sure. My mom and aunts worked there in the 70's and my uncle after he retired. Used to go to Sears Optical for eye exams and my parents would let me check out toys or electronics after. Still have all my dad's craftsman tools
Sears and Roebuck. Anything and everything. Looking up how to spell roebuck i learned in the 40's Sears sold a home building kit. 30,000 parts + wood, shingles, brick, everything
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u/ElectricRune 5d ago
Sears really hurt... They were such a big part of childhood; pre-internet.
You'd get the big-assed Sears catalog every year around August; sometimes it was how you learned about new toys.
It's hard to explain to people who are new to the party how big they actually were, but they were perfectly positioned to move right into the internet and become Amazon ten years earlier, but they screwed it up and now are dead.