Amazing that Sears started as a catalog company, the 1800's equivalent of Amazon, but couldn't adapt to the internet age.
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- Thread starter tanman
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It's one of those things I always wonder about. Could they have beaten Amazon to the punch if they have the foresight.
When I had my internet company Jeff Bezos came to my office and met with me, he did not look anything like he looks now... well for that matter neither do it, I was skinny and he was fat... now I am fat and he is skinny. Anyways he came in and was just starting Amazon and his vision for it was to be America's Bookstore. We were one of the first ISP's to enter into an agreement with him and promote Amazons bookstore on our website.
Nobody say Amazon as a threat back then. Well Authors started to realize it, but big retail had no idea what was coming.
I think even that was too late. By the 2000's Sears was just a shell of itself and nobody was shopping there....other than competent management!
So do I. But as one of those who had foresight back then, I have always blamed Sears management for being asleep on the job. All they had to do was put their catalog online and ride the Internet explosion to come.
Sir Tim Berners-Lee had already invented the world-wide web in 1989. Marc Andrreeson invented Mosaic back in 1993, which was the same year they ended their catalog. So, Sears management should have had the foresight that everybody else had before they started keeling over. Remember Prodigy?
The problem was the pension debt...Sears and Kmart actually were good full time jobs back in the 60s, 70s and 80s..had awesome benefits and paid well..then the bean counters took over and wanted the mountain of cash in the pension plan..so they took it..
I remember Prodigy! I was a sysop on one of their forums....
I think that's actually pretty normal in business. It's usually hungry new start-ups who act as disruptors and re-shape an industry. The big, entrenched dominant businesses usually can't anticipate the future because they don't want to see it. They're playing defense, doubling down on what's made a fortune for them, scoffing at the start-up until it's too late. And frankly, they often simply don't have the internal resources, in terms of skills and corporate culture, that would allow them to successfully pivot and reinvent themselves.
Yep. Companies that thought they “ran steamships” losing a golden opportunity with aircraft.
If you don’t really know what business you’re in, you won’t be in it much longer.
If you don’t really know what business you’re in, you won’t be in it much longer.
Yeah, a lot of the value in the company exited through executive mismanagement. The internet didn't kill Sears -- it just pulled the sheet over the already dead corpse. Retail had already changed and Sears wasn't keeping up when e-commerce became a thing.
Nobody is keeping up e commerce...including Wal-Mart...sears had a huge warehouse for catalogue orders...they had thousands of cataloge stores..would have been almost perfect fit..but alas
Speaking of their catalog, I always found the female models in their catalog much more attractive than most supermodels. I honestly seem to find many regular models often more attractive than many supermodels, which makes me question the tastes of most of these individuals who recruit such supermodels.
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