In article 5bb738e7-7ee8-4c16-bd7e-e2a188f30248
@googlegroups.com,
says...

On Thursday, January 12, 2017 at 9:37:06 AM UTC-6, Jack wrote:

It's not hindsight, it is now. Sears could have easily shifted to
online sales at any time, but my guess is management had their
collective heads where the sun don't shine.

Amazon started from scratch, Sears had a long history of catalog sales.
They blew it big time by ignoring the CURRENT trends. How on earth could
a retail store with a history of catalog sales IGNORE Amazon? Brain
dead is what I think.

--
Jack

You seem to believe everything is so easy. Back in August Wal-Mart paid $3 BILLION for Jet.com online sales company. After spending years trying to increase online sales at Wal-Mart. Did all the fools at Wal-Mart have their head up their behinds? Why couldn't they just make online sales magically? Why? Wal-Mart is the largest retailer in the world. How could they not know how to sell online?

As for comparing catalog sales to online sales. Maybe they are similar, maybe not. Catalog sales for Sears started dying out in the 50s, 60s. They had physical stores so no need for catalog sales. And the US became far more urban, not rural, in the second half of the century. Today everyone almost lives in a city or near a city. So today almost everyone is close to a physical Sears store. Why would they use a catalog? Online sales you have 50 choices and prices.
Catalog you have 5. Are they the same? I have a tool catalog from Acme Tools on the shelf. I doubt I would order anything from it. I'd go to the store in town or use the internet. Is a catalog the same as online ordering, even in philosophy?

You really are looking at this from the wrong
perspective. A "catalog" is not a paper book,
it is a list of items offered for sale. When
you order from Amazon you are ordering from a
catalog. May not seem that way but when you
make something available for sale on Amazon you
have to provide the information about what you
are selling and how much you want to charge for
it and so on and it goes into Amazon's database
where it becomes visible to potential buyers.
That database is no different in concept from
the Sears Big Book--the only difference is that
it's electronic and dynamic rather than paper
and static.