Sears blew it another way, too. Years ago, during the dot com boom, everybody was putting everything on the internet. Pets.com, Cars.com, etc. This was when Amazon just sold books. A lot of these businesses did not translate well to online sales, (Think of Garden.com selling 50 pound bags of mulch).
Sears, however, was uniquely placed to be an internet giant -- they already owned the shop-by-mail industry and had been in catalog sales for over 100 years. All they had to do was put their catalog online. That has to be the biggest missed opportunity in forever.
Agree entirely. This is what I was referring to. Paraphrasing what someone else said on this thread, Sears were the Amazon of catalogue sales, and could have used this as a springboard to be an extremely successful online ‘store’. Someone in a boardroom somewhere in Sears history was probably challenged with this possible change in business strategy, and rejected it. Funny how big things hinge on what seem like relative small decisions at the time.