I didn’t really understand why Sears and JCP didn’t morph into what Amazon became. They were of the mindset for people to shop from home, you would have thought it would have been natural for them to come up with internet shopping in a big way.
Mail order really went out of fashion in the 70s and 80s. The age of the mall made mail order slow and outdated. By the time the 90s hit most mail order companies that didn’t have retail were dead. Amazon’s big innovation there was pretending it wasn’t mail order, they made it smell new. I don’t think an old catalog company could have done that.
Empire building executives refusing to adapt in favor of turf grip in their bloated overhead corner offices. At some point all high level management turns away exciting new things in favor of the comfort of that buggy whip.