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.
The same thing with Sears: They had the catalogue thing going on for 100 years, but rather than expanding and exploiting their advantage, they stepped back from that model, tried to go upscale, and died. All they needed to do was develop a simple website, and they would be bigger than Amazon and Wally World combined/