In Indiana, we used to have a store called Service Merchandise. It was like a brick and mortar Amazon. It didn’t have as much as Amazon. I liked the store, but they went out of business here.
We had a Service Merchandise here, too.
Great store. Sorry to see them go out of business.
We had a Service Merchandise here in Dedham, MA back in the early 80’s.
Cool place, basically a catalog store with an example of each item they sold shown on a shelf.
I bought a Technics receiver and tape deck from them.
Still got them both out in the garage somewhere...
I once worked for Service Merchandise. They could have been Amazon. Their IT and distribution systems in the early 90’s were state of the art. All they had to do was connect all that to this newfangled thingy called the Internet and off they’d go.
Did not happen because their CEO, Raymond Zimmerman, was about a 47 on a 1-10 arrogance scale. If it wasn’t his idea it was crap, and since he didn’t think of it he rejected all suggestions to do this out of hand.
I had the displeasure of meeting him once. A more disagreeable chap you could not find.
A company calling itself Service Merchandise does exist.
It is an online-only jewelry store. After the bankruptcy Raymond Zimmerman bought the internet domain from the bankruptcy court, nearly two decades after rejecting employee input that the internet was real.
“Service Merchandise”
i still remember buying stuff from service merchandise as well as a similar outfit called LaBelle’s, both being catalog showrooms ... they came along just a few years before the internet ... had limited selection but the stuff was very high quality with good prices ... still have a teak salad bowl set from one of them ...
That was a good place.
My mother still has a large television cabinet we got from there on a Black Friday sale.
Good memory.