“Service Merchandise. As a kid, thought it was a cool store.”
Me too! Loved seeing the boxes come down the ramp from the upper level. Bought my first calculator there in 1978.
Service Merchandise had the best IT systems of any retailer that was around in the 90’s. They could have quite literally been Amazon. All that was needed was to add a webfront to the backend infrastructure they already had in place and it would be off to the races. They would have left Bezos in the dust.
They did not do this because their then-Chairman and CEO was an arrogant pr**k who refused to listen to advice from ANYBODY.