Leon lcb11211@swbelldotnet wrote in news:QZOdnbpFJasTtvLFnZ2dnUU7-
:

On 1/5/2017 10:37 PM, wrote:

Sears didn't kill sears. Nor did Walmart. Nor did the Internet. The
North American Public killed Sears. And are the poorer for it, when
you get right down to brass tacks.

I believe it was merging with KMart that killed Sears. KMart had bad
deals going back in the early 90's.

KMart was the "coup de grace" - and a great lesson in how to
use bankruptcy court to avoid all your mistakes and make a
fortune from other people's money - but Sears's problems go
way back before that.

Sears was once what Amazon is today - you could buy anything
from them. Mail in your order, and in a week or two go down
to the Railway Express Agency(*) and pick up your package.
With the arrival of mall culture in the 50's and 60's, Sears
let the catalog business fade away, and became just like a
hundred other department stores (most of which have long
since disappeared). Come the revival of mail-order, and
instead of Sears sitting pretty with an order processing and
shipping system already in place, they have nothing - and
the new guys take over that space.

Is it fair to fault 70's Sears management for not having any
vision to be different from Penney's (or Mays, or Foleys,
or Burdines, etc etc etc)? No, but the result of the lack
of vision will predictably give them the same result as most
of their 70's competitors.

John

(* REA was to Sears as UPS is to Amazon)