In the eighties, customers could make orders via the Sears Catalog 1-800 number. You could even order replacement items based on the product number on the tag or stamped into the tool (this was how we replaced broken Craftsman sockets). That’s why I don’t understand why they didn’t make the simple step from catalog/phone to online. They even had a computer network for employees to enter the orders. My only guess is greedy, short-sighted executives who decided to liquidate before the “new-fangled internet” became a thing.
5 Likes
They were too far ahead of time with their Prodigy investment. Before the internet took off, all the big online players were walled gardens. AOL users couldn’t reach Prodigy users, who couldn’t reach CompuServe users, who couldn’t reach GEnie users, who couldn’t reach MSN users, and so on. They didn’t expect the internet to come along and eat Prodigy’s lunch, and they may have underestimated the internet’s potential given that there was a large crowd who never saw Sears’ first online presence.
5 Likes
I have fond memories of Eaton’s as well. I don’t remember if we had a Woodward’s here, but I do remember most of the department stores had restaurants. My mom would take us to eat at the restaurant in Sears’ when we made a big shopping trip there.
I also remember my father in law popping by unexpectedly as I was making supper about 15 years ago, offering to take me out to Zellers for supper. I declined as I was already making food and, well let’s be honest… it was Zellers. Not exactly top quality. Now, I wish I’d taken him up on it since both Zellers and he are no longer here.
2 Likes
What I absolutely hate is that Eddie Lampert basically ran K-MART into the ground, went bankrupt, then bought sears to screw it over too somehow. He is responsible, personally, for destroying two really, really large chunks of Americana. Not only are the businesses too far gone to save at this point, but the brands are probably too far gone too. And the sad thing is, had he not doubled down, the businesses probably could have been saved up until probably 2015 or so. But he destroyed everything he touched.
I really, really wish that all the Ayn Randites could just understand that she is a dismal failure, her ideas are stupid, anyone who follows her ideas are stupid, and that they just need to give it up. At the very least, the rest of us need to understand this: her brand of libertarianism is just plain wrong.
Goes double for Rand Paul.
10 Likes
There’s two kinds of folks that take Ayn Rand seriously: children and people who don’t read much beyond her drivel.
6 Likes
Not only that he seems to have personally made money of dashing two giant companies into the rocks.
Like if I had done that I’m sure I would have gotten fired before I was done destroying K-MART, not been given a chance to destroy something else too!
(I mean I don’t know what I could have done to save K-MART, I’m not a business genius, and that isn’t the kind of market I would be able to come up with a fresh take on…I have ideas on how Sears could have been saved, but not great or original ones, and nothing I expect I could execute on…Radio Shack I also had ideas for, maybe slightly original, and again something I couldn’t execute on…but K-MART? No idea how to save it, even with time travel (except liquidating it, using my future knowledge to buy stocks that will rocket up, and then setting up a new retailer with the same name? Even so what I know about how to run a retail business fits in a thimble, the kind with holes in it, so even with that huge wealth infusion I would still bankrupt it, but maybe the board would fire me when it still have enough of my magic future money for someone competent to save it?)
2 Likes
Ah, yes to both. The giant “W” in Vancouver . Always had interesting international magazines and food there, and Eatons … Now I’m going to go watch “The Sweater” 
2 Likes
Until I read this, I’d forgotten that the big shopping centre in downtown Vancouver (“Pacific Centre”) was known by locals as “Eaton Centre”.
Ah memories of wet cold feet, stomping in over the grates and feeling the warm blast of mall air.
3 Likes
In my first year at uni, they had “clubs days” where in one large hall, all the clubs would set up stalls you could peruse. Astronomy, medieval re-enactments, whatever. Whoever set up the floor plan had a sense of humour, because they put the Randian “Objectivist Club” next to the Trotskyite League.
Good times.
7 Likes
As a former Randite and as a mutualist this makes me smile. 
3 Likes
This topic was automatically closed after 5 days. New replies are no longer allowed.
