What's Sears? 
So, actually, I bought appliances at the Sears Appliance Outlet a couple years ago. Got a great deal. GE Range and Kenmore microwave. (I think matched kitchen sets are overrated - I would rather choose each item on its individual merits. To complete the ensemble, Bosch dishwasher and Fisher & Paykel fridge, both of which were shipped from New Jersey to San Diego at great cost saving vs buying locally...)
I don't think I've seen the inside of an actual Sears store since the 1980's when I bought some Craftsman tools to work on my car. The last Craftsman tools I bought I got at Ace Hardware. They had a great sale on them at Christmas last year.
My grandparents lived "in the country", and shopped out of the Sears, "Monkey Wards", "JC Pen-nay", and Spiegel catalogs. And "Mr. Cook" (Cook Coffee Company) came by once a month with samples and the previous month's order of coffee and cleaning supplies. (Mr. Cook even got Timmy's head out of the knothole. Timmy was a cat...) There was a Sears catalog center "in town" (Milford, Mi.) where you could see samples of some products, and pick up your order.
It wasn't really much different than today's online shopping, save for a couple days additional delay for the letter with your order form to get there. Of course, in the city, you went to your local big department store. (Which had their own delivery trucks.... My mother used to shop at J.L. Hudson's pantry department, and the poor deliver guy would drop off boxes of canned goods on our porch.)
It's kinda strange we've come back around 360 degrees and now we are catalog-shopping again. All these companies that started in the catalog business went wild opening retail stores, and somehow never got the second memo. They got the memo first time around, pivoting from catalog to brick and mortar chains, but let Amazon creep back into their original (actually, second? I think they were all originally brick-and-mortar department stores, but not chains) business model while they weren't looking.
Here in San Diego, our downtown shopping mall (Horton Plaza) is a shambles, and is going to be converted into mixed-use, with co-working space of course. It's an embarrassment, downtown tourists have to hop on the trolley and go to the Mission Valley characterless shopping malls (build a mall in a flood zone, and they will come - when it isn't raining, which at least is seldom - go figure...) - which are - however - still doing great business.
Let's hope we can get ahead of the demise of personal cars and figure out what to do with all the garage space. Next will be what to do with all that co-working space.
So, actually, I bought appliances at the Sears Appliance Outlet a couple years ago. Got a great deal. GE Range and Kenmore microwave. (I think matched kitchen sets are overrated - I would rather choose each item on its individual merits. To complete the ensemble, Bosch dishwasher and Fisher & Paykel fridge, both of which were shipped from New Jersey to San Diego at great cost saving vs buying locally...)
I don't think I've seen the inside of an actual Sears store since the 1980's when I bought some Craftsman tools to work on my car. The last Craftsman tools I bought I got at Ace Hardware. They had a great sale on them at Christmas last year.
My grandparents lived "in the country", and shopped out of the Sears, "Monkey Wards", "JC Pen-nay", and Spiegel catalogs. And "Mr. Cook" (Cook Coffee Company) came by once a month with samples and the previous month's order of coffee and cleaning supplies. (Mr. Cook even got Timmy's head out of the knothole. Timmy was a cat...) There was a Sears catalog center "in town" (Milford, Mi.) where you could see samples of some products, and pick up your order.
It wasn't really much different than today's online shopping, save for a couple days additional delay for the letter with your order form to get there. Of course, in the city, you went to your local big department store. (Which had their own delivery trucks.... My mother used to shop at J.L. Hudson's pantry department, and the poor deliver guy would drop off boxes of canned goods on our porch.)
It's kinda strange we've come back around 360 degrees and now we are catalog-shopping again. All these companies that started in the catalog business went wild opening retail stores, and somehow never got the second memo. They got the memo first time around, pivoting from catalog to brick and mortar chains, but let Amazon creep back into their original (actually, second? I think they were all originally brick-and-mortar department stores, but not chains) business model while they weren't looking.
Here in San Diego, our downtown shopping mall (Horton Plaza) is a shambles, and is going to be converted into mixed-use, with co-working space of course. It's an embarrassment, downtown tourists have to hop on the trolley and go to the Mission Valley characterless shopping malls (build a mall in a flood zone, and they will come - when it isn't raining, which at least is seldom - go figure...) - which are - however - still doing great business.
Let's hope we can get ahead of the demise of personal cars and figure out what to do with all the garage space. Next will be what to do with all that co-working space.
