From the storage revolution to the launch of the Discover Card, Sears was the Amazon of its time

Sears, the 125-year-old store where buyers could find everything from key rings, filed for bankruptcy Monday in New York.

The original "everything" store, which was in many ways the precursor of Amazon, intends to close 142 unprofitable stores by the end of the year.

Sears joins a long list of other retailers, including Toys R Us and Mattress Firm, who went bankrupt this year after losing their positions to Amazon and other online stores.

But in many ways, the bankruptcy of Sears marks the end of an era that has lasted for generations. Long before shopping malls and Amazon, here's how Sears changed the way Americans bought their purchases.

1886 – Richard Sears starts selling watches in a train station

At the age of 22, Sears, who worked as a station agent in North Redwood, Minnesota, began selling watches to other agents to supplement his income.

1886 – The mail order, the Amazon of his time

In six months, Sears' watchmaking business was in full swing. He left his post at the station and moved to Minneapolis, where he founded the RW Sears Watch company, expanding his clientele through a mail-order business, the equivalent of online shopping from the end of the Nineteenth century.

1893 – Sears, Roebuck and his company are formed in Chicago

How does a watch seller develop his business? By hiring someone who can repair the watches. Sears and Alvah Roebuck, a watchmaker, connected by newspaper ad in 1887. In 1893, they formalized their commercial partnership by launching Sears, Roebuck, and Co.

1906 – The first major retailer to go public

Buyers could not only buy from Sears, but also invest in the business. Sears was the first major US retailer to go public, raising $ 40 million. It was in 1906. On Monday, 112 years later, the value of Sears was close to $ 44 million.

1906 – The largest building in the world

Running all these commands required a lot of space. In 1906, Sears opened a 3 million square foot mail order facility in Chicago, which, according to the company, was the largest commercial building in the world at the time. That year, Sears also opened an office in Dallas, which would become a second mail order facility, offering Southwestern customers an added bonus: lower freight rates, faster receipt of their items, and more. a reduction of the risks of damage in transit. It was a century before Amazon Prime launched the expectations of consumers to receive their items in two days.

Early 1900s – Revolution of the Warehouse

Imagine ordering an item and receiving it five times in the mail. It was an occasional event, according to the Sears Archives. They decided to solve the problem with a scheduling system. When an order has arrived, it has been assigned an hour to be dispatched. Through a system of belts and chutes, the order had to be placed in the appropriate bin in the meeting room at the agreed time. The system allowed the Chicago plant to obtain the necessary orders and an expert at the time, which allowed Sears to handle 10 times more transactions.

1925 – The famous catalog

The Sears catalog was known as the "Consumer's Bible", with over 500 pages. But in 1925, customers saw this catalog come alive by visiting the first Sears store in west Chicago. Before the end of the year, Sears has opened seven other sites.

1927 – The Craftsman tool mark

Sears launched its Craftsman tool brand, reinforcing its reputation as an "all" store. By the end of the year, he was operating over two dozen bricks and mortar. Sears sold Craftsman in 2017 to Stanley Black & Decker.

1935 – Smart Store Design

The company began a retail strategy of building its stores around its floor plans, planning the location of the merchandise, the layouts and the width of the aisles before the construction of the structure properly. called. The first shop built from the inside was in Glendale, California, in 1935.

Early 1930s – Launch of Allstate Insurance

In his quest to offer just about everything a family needed, Sears created Allstate Insurance. When management discovered that the policies were selling only in small towns, where catalog trading was popular, they decided to open Allstate outlets in their traditional premises.

1973 – Sears Tower, the tallest building in the world

When the headquarters of the company was completed in 1973, it became the tallest building in the world and a Chicago monument. The 1,454-foot Sears Tower was sold in 1994 and is now known by another name, The Willis Tower. It was sold again in 2015 to the Blackstone Group for $ 1.3 billion.

1985 – The beginnings of the Discover Card

The economy and the retail trade were in full swing. Sears strengthened its financial services business in 1985 with the Discover Card, giving customers the opportunity to "put it on plastic".

2005 – Associate with Kmart

In order to compete with Walmart and other big box retailers, Kmart bought Sears for $ 11 billion. Many Sears stores, which have long been a traditional mooring store in shopping centers, have been closed in favor of the transformation of some existing Kmart sites with the Sears store concept. However, both chains continued to struggle. Together, the brands once operated more than 3,500 sites in the United States. This total is now in the low hundreds.

2000 – A new concept: online shopping

Long before Amazon asserted its dominance and before online shopping became a hot topic for most Americans, Sears launched a "major expansion" of its online business in 2000. In 2014, Eddie Lampert , the then president and CEO, announced that Sears would close its flagship store in Chicago when it migrated to online retail, a space dominated by Amazon and Walmart.