Why sears or walmart

Post Office's decision in to bring door-to-door delivery in rural communities. By using mail-order, Sears was able to capitalize on another emerging, internet-like technology of its day: railroads. The connectivity brought about by the railroads made rural communities more accessible, and much like Walmart did nearly years later, Sears built the foundation of its retail empire on rural America.

After a new partner, Julius Rosenwald, joined Sears in , the company ramped up its product selection to things like bicycles, sewing machines, and buggies, and it appealed to customers with low prices and a wide selection, two strategies that served as a template for Walmart and Amazon. Sears' catalog had titles like Book of Bargains and The Great Price Maker , and the company valued customer satisfaction above all else.

In an echo of Amazon's mission to be "Earth's most customer-centric company," Sears told its customers in its catalog, "We solicit honest criticism more than orders. By , the company had a giant, three-million-square-foot distribution center in Chicago, and it put an illustration of it at the back of every catalog, essentially advertising its dominance.

More than a quarter of Americans received Sears' catalog then, which was sometimes titled Wish Book , a forerunner of Amazon's Wish List. As the country urbanized and automobiles began to replace the railroads, the company adapted, opening its first department store in Chicago in It expanded rapidly from there, with more than stores by Amazon has followed suit today with its acquisition of Whole Foods and opening of small stores like AmazonBooks and concepts like Amazon 4-star and AmazonBooks.

Sears managed to grow even through the Great Depression as bargain prices were a big part of its brand, a likely influence on Sam Walton, who promised Everyday Low Prices, and when it came to apparel, Sears focused on basics like socks and underwear, leaving fashion items for competitors, much like Walmart and Amazon have done.

Sears' store count doubled through the s, and it had stores by the s, expanding to Mexico and Canada as it became a standard mall anchor and a staple of postwar prosperity.

By the s, the American retail industry was beginning to shift. Strip malls began emerging to compete with traditional malls and department stores, and discounters like Walmart, Target , and Kmart expanded, chipping away at Sears' low-price advantage.

Like much of the department-store sector, Sears began to lose market share to the more nimble discounters as Walmart exploited the niche that Sears once dominated: rural America. By , Walmart topped Sears as the biggest U. Fast forward less than two decades later to when Sears was in so much financial hardship with declining sales and profits as well as mounting debt it filed for bankruptcy.

Now Sears has stores down from 3, stores only 10 years earlier. What a fall from grace. But what happened? Nothing that dominant goes down overnight, it took decades to seal the fate of the once iconic retailer.

But the problems Sears has faced from a lack of innovation to an inability to stay ahead of competitive threats are ones that beguile even the best organizations. As you mull over your own thoughts and ideas about what happened to Sears, take into consideration these five factors I believe ultimately led Sears to wear it is today.

When Sears came on the scene in it was the retailer others wanted to emulate. Richard Sears was a visionary. Consumers were finally given a way to access merchandise at much lower prices than what was available from nearby merchants. It was a runaway success. His next wave of brilliant insight? Retail stores. Sears correctly calculated that with the introduction of cars rural consumers that were once dependent on the Sears catalogue would have more access to other retailers.

When people arrived in the burbs Sears was ready for them. Sears was: "completely innovative. They were inventing consistently," says Katz. Sears did not stop innovating there. In Sears launched the Discover credit card the first of its kind to offer cash rewards based on the amount of purchases a cardholder makes. In only four years 20 million people had a Discover card. With all of this innovation Sears sounds less like a sleepy retailer and more like the Amazon of its time.

But like many companies that fall to the perils of time, at some point Sears stopped innovating. Can you think of an example of a retailer that was successfully turned around? Accessed Sept. AP News. The Wall Street Journal. Yahoo Finance. Penney Company, Inc. Sears Archives. Goldman Sachs. Washington Post. Comptroller of the Currency Administrator of National Banks. New York Times. Business Insider. Chicago Tribune. The New York Times. Company Profiles.

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Your Money. Personal Finance. Your Practice. Popular Courses. Business Company Profiles. Table of Contents Expand. Where Is Sears Today? A Tale of Retail Hubris. The First 90 Years. The Past 50 Years. Sears, Meet Kmart. Lampert Takes the Reins. Spins Off Assets, Cuts Staff. The Bottom Line. Sears Holdings spun off and sold many of its business units and brand names. Article Sources.

They have to be in a state of constant learning. Second, even large technological advantages for retailers are fleeting.

Sears was the logistics king of the middle of the 20th century. But by the s and s, it was woefully behind the IT systems that made Walmart cheaper and more efficient. Today, Amazon now finds itself in a race with Walmart and smaller online-first retailers. Jeff Bezos has invested in all sorts of emerging technology, many of which might lead to dead ends.

On this front, Amazon shows few signs of technological complacency, but the company is still only in its early 20s; Sears was overtaken after it had been around for about a century. Third, there is no strategic replacement for being obsessed with people and their behavior. Finally, adding more businesses is not the same as building a better business. When Sears added general merchandise to watches, it thrived.

When it added cars and even mobile homes to its famous catalogue, it thrived. When it sold auto insurance along with its car parts, it thrived.

But then it chased after the s Wall Street boom by absorbing real-estate and brokerage firms.