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Fatal Board · VIDEO ESSAY

The Tragic Fall of Sears: The $18B Retail Giant That Invented the Future Amazon, Then Erased Itself

Subscribe to the channel! https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCb0ps9eCp0y6yP1Xg4sDDFw?sub_confirmation=1 In 1969, one dollar in every hundred spent in the entire American economy was spent at Sears. Not one dollar in every hundred spent in shops — one in every hundred spent in the country. In any given three months, two Americans out of three walked into a Sears store. When the stock finally peaked in 1972, Sears, Roebuck and Co. was worth roughly $18 billion — about $135 billion in today's money. Nothing since has matched that share of American life. Not Walmart. Not Amazon. This is the full story of how Sears built the machine that Amazon would later be praised for inventing — the catalogue, the warehouse tuned to pick and pack a single item, the delivery network, the customer purchase record, the store credit line, the money-back guarantee — and then switched it off on purpose. It starts in 1886 at a railway station in North Redwood, Minnesota, with a crate of gold-filled pocket watches a local jeweller had refused, and a station agent named Richard Warren Sears who sold them down the line at a profit. It runs through Julius Rosenwald, the Springfield clothing manufacturer who bought in during 1895 and made the company count things, and through the 1906 Chicago mail-order plant on 40 acres in North Lawndale: seven buildings, three million square feet, the largest business building in the world, where an operations man named Otto Doering assigned every order to a specific shipping room in a specific fifteen-minute window — a working assembly line seven years before Henry Ford put one under a car. It runs through 70,000 mail-order houses sold between 1908 and 1940 for $107 to $3,506, still standing today. Through the Craftsman name, bought for $500 in 1927 from the Marion-Craftsman Tool Company and hung with a lifetime guarantee that needed no receipt. Through the Sears Tower — ground broken August 1970, 110 storeys, 1,451 feet, the tallest building on Earth for 25 years, built for 16,500 employees, opened in 1973, one year after the stock peaked and never recovered. Then the decision. On 25 January 1993, after a $3.9 billion loss in 1992 — the largest any North American retailer had ever posted — Sears announced it was closing 113 stores, cutting 50,000 jobs, shutting 2,000 catalogue sales offices and ending the Big Book after 101 years. The catalogue was still taking in $3.3 billion a year and losing roughly a million dollars a day. Arthur Martinez, freshly arrived from Saks Fifth Avenue, was right on the numbers in front of him: revenue climbed to $35 billion by 1995, profits rose to $995 million, the stock gained 71%. What went out of the building with the book was the fulfilment network and the customer list. Amazon was incorporated seventeen months later. TOP SOURCES Fortune — "Sears Could've Been Amazon. Here's How It Blew Its Chances" (1% of US GDP in 1969, two-thirds of Americans shopping there, the catalogue losing about $1m a day, $3.3bn in catalogue revenue, $6bn of buybacks against $3.3bn of store investment 2005-2012) — https://fortune.com/longform/sears-couldve-been-amazon/ Finaeon — "Sears: The Amazon of the Twentieth Century" (1906 flotation at $15 million and $50 a share, $775 million in 1929, the $18 billion peak market value in 1972) — https://finaeon.com/sears-the-amazon-of-the-twentieth-century/ Smithsonian Magazine — "Before Folding 30 Years Ago, the Sears Catalog Sold Some Surprising Products" (the 25 January 1993 announcement, the 1906 three-million-square-foot plant, the mail-order homes at $107 to $3,506, the 1950 Remington at $17.95) — https://www.smithsonianmag.com/innovation/before-folding-30-years-ago-the-sears-catalog-sold-some-surprising-products-180981504/ Wikipedia — "Prodigy (online service)" (Trintex founded 13 February 1984 by CBS, IBM and Sears; national launch 6 September 1990; more than $1 billion invested; sold for $200 million in 1996) — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prodigy_(online_service) Wikipedia — "Craftsman (tools)" (Arthur Barrows buys the name for $500 from the Marion-Craftsman Tool Company, trademark registered 20 May 1927, the no-receipt lifetime warranty, the $900 million sale to Stanley Black & Decker completed 9 March 2017) — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Craftsman_(tools) This channel is made by an enthusiast who loves business and technology history — nothing more. All videos are for educational and entertainment purposes only and reflect my personal views and interpretations. I research each story carefully using publicly available sources, but errors or omissions can happen. Nothing here is professional, financial, or legal advice, and this channel is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by any company mentioned.

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In 1969, one dollar in every hundred spent in the entire American economy was spent at Sears. Not one dollar in every hundred spent in shops — one in every hundred spent in the country. In any given three months, two Americans out of three walked into a Sears store. When the stock finally peaked in 1972, Sears, Roebuck and Co. was worth roughly $18 billion — about $135 billion in today's money. Nothing since has matched that share of American life. Not Walmart. Not Amazon.

This is the full story of how Sears built the machine that Amazon would later be praised for inventing — the catalogue, the warehouse tuned to pick and pack a single item, the delivery network, the customer purchase record, the store credit line, the money-back guarantee — and then switched it off on purpose.

It starts in 1886 at a railway station in North Redwood, Minnesota, with a crate of gold-filled pocket watches a local jeweller had refused, and a station agent named Richard Warren Sears who sold them down the line at a profit. It runs through Julius Rosenwald, the Springfield clothing manufacturer who bought in during 1895 and made the company count things, and through the 1906 Chicago mail-order plant on 40 acres in North Lawndale: seven buildings, three million square feet, the largest business building in the world, where an operations man named Otto Doering assigned every order to a specific shipping room in a specific fifteen-minute window — a working assembly line seven years before Henry Ford put one under a car.
It runs through 70,000 mail-order houses sold between 1908 and 1940 for $107 to $3,506, still standing today. Through the Craftsman name, bought for $500 in 1927 from the Marion-Craftsman Tool Company and hung with a lifetime guarantee that needed no receipt. Through the Sears Tower — ground broken August 1970, 110 storeys, 1,451 feet, the tallest building on Earth for 25 years, built for 16,500 employees, opened in 1973, one year after the stock peaked and never recovered.

Then the decision. On 25 January 1993, after a $3.9 billion loss in 1992 — the largest any North American retailer had ever posted — Sears announced it was closing 113 stores, cutting 50,000 jobs, shutting 2,000 catalogue sales offices and ending the Big Book after 101 years. The catalogue was still taking in $3.3 billion a year and losing roughly a million dollars a day. Arthur Martinez, freshly arrived from Saks Fifth Avenue, was right on the numbers in front of him: revenue climbed to $35 billion by 1995, profits rose to $995 million, the stock gained 71%. What went out of the building with the book was the fulfilment network and the customer list. Amazon was incorporated seventeen months later.

TOP SOURCES
Fortune — "Sears Could've Been Amazon. Here's How It Blew Its Chances" (1% of US GDP in 1969, two-thirds of Americans shopping there, the catalogue losing about $1m a day, $3.3bn in catalogue revenue, $6bn of buybacks against $3.3bn of store investment 2005-2012) — https://fortune.com/longform/sears-couldve-been-amazon/
Finaeon — "Sears: The Amazon of the Twentieth Century" (1906 flotation at $15 million and $50 a share, $775 million in 1929, the $18 billion peak market value in 1972) — https://finaeon.com/sears-the-amazon-of-the-twentieth-century/
Smithsonian Magazine — "Before Folding 30 Years Ago, the Sears Catalog Sold Some Surprising Products" (the 25 January 1993 announcement, the 1906 three-million-square-foot plant, the mail-order homes at $107 to $3,506, the 1950 Remington at $17.95) — https://www.smithsonianmag.com/innovation/before-folding-30-years-ago-the-sears-catalog-sold-some-surprising-products-180981504/
Wikipedia — "Prodigy (online service)" (Trintex founded 13 February 1984 by CBS, IBM and Sears; national launch 6 September 1990; more than $1 billion invested; sold for $200 million in 1996) — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prodigy_(online_service)
Wikipedia — "Craftsman (tools)" (Arthur Barrows buys the name for $500 from the Marion-Craftsman Tool Company, trademark registered 20 May 1927, the no-receipt lifetime warranty, the $900 million sale to Stanley Black & Decker completed 9 March 2017) — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Craftsman_(tools)

This channel is made by an enthusiast who loves business and technology history — nothing more. All videos are for educational and entertainment purposes only and reflect my personal views and interpretations. I research each story carefully using publicly available sources, but errors or omissions can happen. Nothing here is professional, financial, or legal advice, and this channel is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by any company mentioned.

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Subscribe to the channel! https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCb0ps9eCp0y6yP1Xg4sDDFw?sub_confirmation=1 In 1969, one dollar in every hundred spent in the entire American economy was spent at Sears. Not one dollar in every hundred spent in shops — one in every hundred spent in the country. In any given three months, two Americans out of three walked into a Sears store. When the stock finally peaked in 1972, Sears, Roebuck and Co. was worth roughly $18 billion — about $135 billion in today's money. Nothing since has matched that share of American life. Not Walmart. Not Amazon. This is the full story of how Sears built the machine that Amazon would later be praised for inventing — the catalogue, the warehouse tuned to pick and pack a single item, the delivery network, the customer purchase record, the store credit line, the money-back guarantee — and then switched it off on purpose. It starts in 1886 at a railway station in North Redwood, Minnesota, with a crate of gold-filled pocket watches a local jeweller had refused, and a station agent named Richard Warren Sears who sold them down the line at a profit. It runs through Julius Rosenwald, the Springfield clothing manufacturer who bought in during 1895 and made the company count things, and through the 1906 Chicago mail-order plant on 40 acres in North Lawndale: seven buildings, three million square feet, the largest business building in the world, where an operations man named Otto Doering assigned every order to a specific shipping room in a specific fifteen-minute window — a working assembly line seven years before Henry Ford put one under a car. It runs through 70,000 mail-order houses sold between 1908 and 1940 for $107 to $3,506, still standing today. Through the Craftsman name, bought for $500 in 1927 from the Marion-Craftsman Tool Company and hung with a lifetime guarantee that needed no receipt. Through the Sears Tower — ground broken August 1970, 110 storeys, 1,451 feet, the tallest building on Earth for 25 years, built for 16,500 employees, opened in 1973, one year after the stock peaked and never recovered. Then the decision. On 25 January 1993, after a $3.9 billion loss in 1992 — the largest any North American retailer had ever posted — Sears announced it was closing 113 stores, cutting 50,000 jobs, shutting 2,000 catalogue sales offices and ending the Big Book after 101 years. The catalogue was still taking in $3.3 billion a year and losing roughly a million dollars a day. Arthur Martinez, freshly arrived from Saks Fifth Avenue, was right on the numbers in front of him: revenue climbed to $35 billion by 1995, profits rose to $995 million, the stock gained 71%. What went out of the building with the book was the fulfilment network and the customer list. Amazon was incorporated seventeen months later. TOP SOURCES Fortune — "Sears Could've Been Amazon. Here's How It Blew Its Chances" (1% of US GDP in 1969, two-thirds of Americans shopping there, the catalogue losing about $1m a day, $3.3bn in catalogue revenue, $6bn of buybacks against $3.3bn of store investment 2005-2012) — https://fortune.com/longform/sears-couldve-been-amazon/ Finaeon — "Sears: The Amazon of the Twentieth Century" (1906 flotation at $15 million and $50 a share, $775 million in 1929, the $18 billion peak market value in 1972) — https://finaeon.com/sears-the-amazon-of-the-twentieth-century/ Smithsonian Magazine — "Before Folding 30 Years Ago, the Sears Catalog Sold Some Surprising Products" (the 25 January 1993 announcement, the 1906 three-million-square-foot plant, the mail-order homes at $107 to $3,506, the 1950 Remington at $17.95) — https://www.smithsonianmag.com/innovation/before-folding-30-years-ago-the-sears-catalog-sold-some-surprising-products-180981504/ Wikipedia — "Prodigy (online service)" (Trintex founded 13 February 1984 by CBS, IBM and Sears; national launch 6 September 1990; more than $1 billion invested; sold for $200 million in 1996) — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prodigy_(online_service) Wikipedia — "Craftsman (tools)" (Arthur Barrows buys the name for $500 from the Marion-Craftsman Tool Company, trademark registered 20 May 1927, the no-receipt lifetime warranty, the $900 million sale to Stanley Black & Decker completed 9 March 2017) — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Craftsman_(tools) This channel is made by an enthusiast who loves business and technology history — nothing more. All videos are for educational and entertainment purposes only and reflect my personal views and interpretations. I research each story carefully using publicly available sources, but errors or omissions can happen. Nothing here is professional, financial, or legal advice, and this channel is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by any company mentioned.

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