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Before Amazon.com, there was the Sears catalog. Founded as a mail order company in the late 19th century, Sears, Roebuck and Company has earned a reputation for its inflated and jam-filled catalogs that announce everything from underwear to home kits. During the holidays, families from all over the country circled the items of his legendary "Wish Book".
Sears stores are located throughout the country and sales have remained strong even during The Great Depression, while the company was spawning now famous brands, such as Kenmore, Craftsman and even Allstate Insurance.
But in the 1990s, Sears began to struggle with competitive discount department stores such as Kmart, Target, and Walmart, the economic hardships of the Great Recession, and the growing dominance of e-commerce. After 132 years of business, the former retail giant, Sears, declared bankruptcy in October 2018, announcing the closure of 142 unprofitable stores in the face of increasing competition from big box stores and, of course, , from Amazon.com.
The cover of Sears, Roebuck and Co. Consumer Guide, No. 110 circa 1900.
Bettmann Archive / Getty Images
Sears started with watches.
The story of Sears begins in 1886, when an agent at the Minneapolis, Minn., Railway station named Richard Sears, begins selling gold watches at $ 14 each. The following year, he settled with watchmaker Alvah Roebuck on Dearborn and Randolph Streets in Chicago. With the help of investor Julius Rosenwald, who joined the company in 1895, their mail order business quickly became a mail order company that delighted customers with its catalogs. bulky containing everything from clothes to toys, to household appliances.
Advertising for medical and veterinary supplies, circa 1897.
Fotosearch / Getty Images
& # 39; House of the cheapest supply on Earth
The first Sears catalogs were listed as the "world's cheapest home supply house" or "bargain book" and featured a breathtaking array of products, including medical and veterinary supplies (pictured here), music, guns, bicycles, machines and strollers. In 1894, the catalog numbered 322 pages. Richard Sears, who wrote almost the entire copy of the catalog until his retirement in 1908, used the motto "We can not afford to lose a customer" to ensure that Sears remains competitive in terms of price and value.
Advertisement for a coal oven, circa 1902.
CSU / Everett Archives
Customer service was the key to initial growth.
Sears' straightforward, friendly, service-oriented approach has made Sears stand out from the mail-order marketplace, such as Montgomery Ward and Hammacher Schlemmer. When Sears sold its shares to the public for the first time in 1906, the company was worth about $ 40 million, with annual sales of nearly $ 50 million and about 9,000 employees. In the same year, it built a 3 million square foot distribution complex in Chicago.
Sale of housing kits, around the 1920s.
HA! Creative Commons / CC Flickr / CC BY-NC-ND 2.0
Sears home kits are becoming a big seller.
Among the amazing offers of the giant catalog are home kits, which the company began to mark in 1908. The kits came in 447 different designs, from the big "Magnolia" ($ 5,140 to $ 5,972) to the more humble but popular "Winona" ($ 744 to $ 1,998). Sears announced the kits with the following promise: "We will provide all the equipment to build this [house design]. All pieces arrived (usually by train) pre-cut and ready to be assembled. From 1908 to 1940, Sears sold between 70,000 and 75,000 homes.
A page from the Sears, Roebuck and Co. 1908 catalog.
Patricia Wall / The New York Times / Redux
Sears is expanded by opening stores.
Mail order advertisement for Sears, Roebuck & Co., circa 1931.
Chronicle / Alamy
Profits did not stop during the Great Depression.
Even in the depths of the 1931 Great Depression, profits from Sears' catalogs, stores and stores totaled more than $ 12 million, or more than $ 201 million in 2018. That year, retail sales exceeded catalog sales. In 1932, the company opened its flagship flagship store on State and Van Buren Streets in Chicago's Loop neighborhood.
The Sears Fall / Winter catalog of 1957 featuring men in uniform.
Annie Wells / Los Angeles Time / Getty Images
A company based on the essential inexpensive.
While traditional department stores (Marshall Field's, Wanamaker's) sold high-end clothing, Sears earned a reputation selling less expensive but essential items such as socks, underwear, towels and bedding. which helped maintain sales, even during the crisis. In fact, by the end of the 1930s, the number of Sears retail stores had almost doubled, and by 1945 the company had surpassed the $ 1 billion sales mark for the first time.
The Sears 1956 Fall / Winter catalog shows women's clothing.
Patricia Wall / New York Times / Redux
Sears stores have anchored shopping centers.
By the 1950s, Sears had opened more than 700 stores in the United States and had expanded to Mexico and Canada, where it had partnered with a Canadian mail order company to become Simpson-Sears . While shopping malls have become ubiquitous across the country, Sears stores have served as familiar anchors, alongside chains such as J.C. Penney and Montgomery Ward.
A page from the 1957 Sears Christmas catalog.
1950s Unlimited / Flickr Creative Commons / CC BY 2.0
The "wish book" has reached 600 pages.
Sears published its first Christmas catalog in 1933, featuring such iconic items as a Mickey Mouse watch, a Lionel electric train, a Miss Pigtails doll and singing canaries. In the decades that followed, the catalog would be adorned with Christmas scenes, even if its pages were getting bigger. In 1968, when it was officially renamed "Wish Book", the catalog included 225 pages of toys and 380 pages of adult gifts, for a total of 605 pages.
A page from the 1962 Sears Christmas catalog.
Todd Rabbit / Flickr Creative Commons / CC BY-NC 2.0
Competitors emerge in the 1960s.
The 1960s brought more competition, in the form of new chains of discount department stores like Target, Walmart and Kmart. Annual sales reached $ 10 billion in the early 1970s and the company moved its headquarters to what was then the tallest building in the world, the Sears Tower in Chicago in 1973. But its competitors were gaining ground and , in 1991, Sears lost its crown as the nation's best-selling retailer in Walmart.
An advertisement for Sears products and services, circa 1961.
Neil Baylis / Alamy
The end of the Sears catalog era.
In 1993, Sears announced the closure of its catalog division, ending a historic era of finding bargains by correspondence and fulfilling wishes that began almost a century ago. Sears Tower was sold in 1994 and, the following year, Amazon.com released its first book. In 1998, the Sears Christmas catalog was first posted on Wishbook.com, a year before the launch of the Sears.com website. Despite a brief return to profitability after the merger with Kmart in 2005, Sears continued to struggle. By the time of the bankruptcy, Sears had lost more than $ 11 billion since 2011, even after trying to cut costs by closing hundreds of its retail stores across the country.
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