Sears, Then and Now - Page 4

Imaoldhippie · ‎06-10-2015

My brother and I would "shop" the Sears catalogs at Christmas for what we wanted from Santa. My 2 kids did the same thing. So sad that something so simple and fun has gone away just like everything else.

LIFE IS TO SHORT TOO FOLD FITTED SHEETS

gardenman · ‎03-09-2010

If you go back thirty or so years, Sears sold everything. Their catalogs held a vast amount of merchandise and if you couldn't find something in their big catalog they had specialty catalogs that you could buy stuff from. They had specialty catalogs for hunting, fishing, boating, tools, and much, much more. They quite literally sold everything from car parts to wedding gowns. If you needed something, the first place you'd go look would be the Sears catalog. They were the Amazon.com of their time.

Then they saw the rise and spread of Walmart, KMart, Target, etc. and decided that model made more sense. The catalogs went away, their distribution centers, catalog stores, and the variety of merchandise they sold shrunk as they went for a low inventory, high volume of sales model.

This opened the door for lots of other businesses to sneak in and steal the old Sears customers. The old Sears hunting, fishing and boating customers migrated to companies like Bass Pro Shops and Cabela's. Auto parts stores started to multiply as Sears got out of that line of business. Home Depot and Lowe's started to steal the tool and hardware business from them.

Sears was a catalog version of Amazon.com and nicely positioned to transition to become an online retailer much like Amazon is today. They had the massive warehouses, the distribution network, the fleet of delivery trucks and the range of products that Amazon has now, but they opted out of the model that had been successful since the start of the company to try and follow the newer Walmart/KMart/Target model instead. Had they been able to retain their old business model and transition smoothly from catalog to internet, they'd likely own the world by now.

As it is, their abandoning so many markets opened the door for a lot of other retailers to fill the void left behind and create new opportunities. Sears was the 800 pound gorilla of retail and pretty much owned every market they competed in, but a few bad decisions and market forces now have them clinging to life. It would be kind of ironic if Amazon bought out Sears to establish more of a brick and mortar retail presence. They've largely become what Sears was thirty plus years ago.

Amazon could use brick and mortar retail stores to showcase their products and make items immediately available and with their data they know what already sells well in various markets. It could be an interesting marriage that could shake up the retail world in a fairly dramatic fashion.

Fly!!! Eagles!!! Fly!!!

Cumbercookie13 · ‎05-06-2016

When I was a little girl I loved going through the Sears Wish List at Christmas and circling what I wanted to get. And Sears as well as JCP partnered with drug stores where you could have orders shipped there for pick up if you couldn't get to the store. My grandmother would get things sent to Eckard's Pharmacy all the time. I still get Woman Within and Roamans catalogs and at Christmas I order my gift bags from the Lakeside catalog.

I'm not sure if the Sears closest to me is slated to close but the last few times I've been in there, it looks like they're going out of business and a lot of their items are marked down pretty low. I hope not, I've found some bargains there when it comes to clothes for my niece.

stevieb · ‎03-10-2010

@sabatini wrote:
My main memory of the old Sears catalogue was that after it was used, some people would fold every single page down about half way, then fan the catalogue backwards, and use it as a doorstop.
It kinda looked like a yurt.

My neighbors did that.
They also had plastic furniture covers & carpet runners, and the mom made jello creations as entrees.
The one I vividly recall was a molded green jello with ground beef in the center.

Ewwwww... @sabatini... That just sounds gross...

In my pantry with my cupcakes...

Yardlie · ‎03-10-2010

@Imaoldhippie wrote:
My brother and I would "shop" the Sears catalogs at Christmas for what we wanted from Santa. My 2 kids did the same thing. So sad that something so simple and fun has gone away just like everything else.

We did that also! All of our main Christmas presents were things that we had circled in the Sears catalog...the special Christmas catalog. It was so much fun.

My aunt said when she was a little girl, she would make homemade cut outs from the women's section of the catalog. She cut out a model...pasted it on cardboard, and then proceeded to cut out clothing for the model. I wonder if today's kids even know what cut outs were.

A kind gesture can reach a wound that only compassion can heal. ~~ Steve Maraboli

redbird · ‎03-24-2010

type in wishbookweb with the usual before and after....sears and other companies wish books from days gone buy to look at online...

redbird · ‎03-24-2010

the catalogs above run from 1937 to 1996

151949 · ‎03-09-2010

We never got a Sears catalog but we did get a J C Penneys catalog twice a year and I would read every page.

faeriemoon · ‎03-14-2010

@sabatini wrote:
My main memory of the old Sears catalogue was that after it was used, some people would fold every single page down about half way, then fan the catalogue backwards, and use it as a doorstop.
It kinda looked like a yurt.

My neighbors did that.
They also had plastic furniture covers & carpet runners, and the mom made jello creations as entrees.
The one I vividly recall was a molded green jello with ground beef in the center.

I mentioned on another thread that someone posted the post of the day. This would be my second choice... Hilarious! Had to look up yurt, trying to picture a folded up Sears catalog as a doorstop, and the green Jello with ground beef in the center has me giggling like a loon and feeling nauseous at the same time...

~What a terrible era in which idiots govern the blind.~ William Shakespeare

sabatini · ‎06-29-2015

LOL, @faeriemoon!!

I did finally find something online about those folded doorstops. Apparently, people used old phone books to make them, as well as Sears catalogues. LOL!

I'd forgotten that they were lacquered too.

Haha!

I'm attaching a pic of the doorstop, as well as a pic of a yurt, just for you...but no green hamburger jello.

Here's a snippet from Genealogy.com:

Re: Door Stops and Door Knobs

I remember, as a boy, making door stops from Sears-Roebuck Catalogs.The pages were folded so that when you were finished you had a round stop the height of the catalog.When you finished folding the pages you glued the first page to the last page, completing the round.You then laquered it to give it a hard surface. This was in the late 30's and early 40's. Mom was always trying to keep us busy.

Muddling through...