From: FZC@CU.NIH.GOV (Paul Robinson)
Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom
Subject: Sears Kills Catalog After 95 Years
Date: 26 Jan 93 23:19:36 GMT
Reply-To: TDARCOS@MCIMAIL.COM
Organization: TELECOM Digest
X-Submissions-To: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu
X-Administrivia-To: telecom-request@eecs.nwu.edu
X-Telecom-Digest: Volume 13, Issue 47, Message 1 of 11

What is probably one of Pat Townson's biggest neighbors is closing its
doors today.

Sears Roebuck & Company's Mail Order Catalog Division is closing after
more than 95 years.  It was the use of telecommunications that built
the business and it was the failure to use telecommunications that
killed it.

"Wait," you might say, "more than 95 years means it was operating back
in the 1890s.  How could they be using 'telecommunications' then?  And
how does it affect them now?"

Think about it for a moment.  'Telecommunications' is the method of
communicating over long distance.  When we use it it normally refers
to things like telephones, satellites, cable TV and Internet E-Mail.
But Telecommunications also includes the methods by which other forms
of communications are transported.

Where the mail can reach, or where trains can go, you can communicate
or you can ship goods.  And that is what created Mr. Sears' business:
the ability of the trains to reach out into 'the middle of nowhere'.
Also, the supposedly 'new' idea of 'easy credit' where someone could
buy something on time payments.

Now look at the Sears Catalog office that closed, and see why:

  - The company that pioneered a means to reach customers in the
middle of nowhere, now had no easy way for customers to reach it.
Until last year, incredibly enough, SEARS CATALOG DID NOT HAVE AN 800
NUMBER.  There are companies that do 1/1000 of the business Sears does
who do have one.  But not the largest mail order company in the
country.

  - The company that pioneered allowing people to order on credit or
return goods which were unsatisfactory, would not take any plastic
except its own.  Even JCPenney takes Visa and Mastercard, and JCP even
takes Sears' Discover card, too.

Sears failed to keep up with technology, and as a result, the company
that was created by 'high technology' was killed by failure to stay
with the technology needed to keep it alive.  Larger companies get fat
and slow, they usually need the technology to compete with the little
people a lot more than the small companies who have to use the
technology just to stay alive.

"Telecommunications" gave birth to Sears Catalog.  And it was
telecommunications that pulled the plug.

(And bad management helped grease the skids, too.)


Paul Robinson -- TDARCOS@MCIMAIL.COM
These opinions are mine alone.


[Moderator's Note: The demise of the Catalog was in all the papers
here today. That's another 4000 people to be unemployed here. It also
appears the R.R. Donnelley Company, printers of the catalog for the
past 80 plus years will be out of business as well, since the Catalog
was about 40 percent of their business. Sears began here in the late
1800's, but they closed their downtown store many years ago about the
same time downtown Chicago and State Street died. Their big block-long
six story building at State and Van Buren Sts. has sat vacant for ten
years now I guess. In its heyday earlier this century, Sears had its
international headquarters in Chicago in a building on the (then) very
white and very Jewish west side, on Homan Avenue. In the 1920's, they
employed about half the west side neighborhood in some capacity or
another. Some of you may recall that Jacob Franks, father of the
fourteen year old Bobby Franks who was murdered by Leopold and Loeb
was a vice-president at Sears. In his generosity, Mr. Sears before his
death left a huge amount of money to the Young Men's Christian Assoc-
iation of Metropolitan Chicago. Because of prudent investments, the
Sears YMCA still has most of its endowment. Sitting across the street
from the ancient and abandoned former Sears HQ on Arthington Street
and Homan Avenue in what is now one of the worst ghetto areas in
Chicago, the Sears YMCA provides tutoring and recreational programs
for black children and teenagers. I am reminded of the time when IBT
cut over a stepper CO to ESS about 1974. Sears Catalog and Central
Credit facility shared a five-position cord board which had very heavy
traffic all the time on 312-WABash-4600. My office number then was
WEbster-9-4600. When IBT made the cut, some damn-fool got 922 and 939
mixed up in the tables ... for two days I lived with constant wrong
numbers (a couple hundred calls each day) until I convinced IBT to
correct the error.  Sears never even missed the calls, I'm sure. PAT]