6 ms·

My first online shopping experience was with Sears over Prodigy in 1991. You could browse online, or order from the paper catalog (which is more likely what yo

My first online shopping experience was with Sears over Prodigy in 1991. You could browse online, or order from the paper catalog (which is more likely what you'd do because NAPLPS graphics didn't lend themselves well, or at all, to product depictions). Then they'd ship to you, or you could go to the order pickup area at your local Sears store. They had a touchscreen kiosk there where you'd punch in your order number, and be directed to a cubby where your stuff was waiting for you. They had today's "buy online, pick up in store" thing, but nearly three decades ago.

ams6110 8y ago
Being too early is as bad as being wrong.
- zymhan 8y ago
  The point isn't that they were too early, it's that they gave up too quickly. Buying online and picking up from a store really isn't that advanced of a concept.
  - reaperducer 8y ago
    Buying online and picking up from a store really isn't that advanced of a concept. You're right. Service Merchandise build an empire around it, just by mail or phone instead of computer. Other stores did it, too. JCPenny comes to mind. Even some local and regional chains. Amazon and others think they've invented something. But once again, it's just SV re-inventing something that worked last century.
    - ben1040 8y ago
      And by the early 90s Sears had a century of experience as a catalog fulfillment company and had pretty much become synonymous with the concept.
      - mark-r 8y ago
        That kind of experience breeds complacency. As noted elsewhere, they weren't prepared to offer delivery times that were competitive.
      - gregknicholson 8y ago
        Not everywhere. In the UK that would be Argos or Littlewoods. I've only heard of Sears in passing on American TV shows.
        reaperducer 8y ago
        And in America, nobody's ever heard of Argos or Littlewoods. So what's your point?
        gregknicholson 8y ago
        My point is that Sears is synonymous with the concept only in some countries. Amazon seems to be established in more countries. In absolute terms, perhaps Sears wasn't as huge as it seemed from your perspective.
      - onetimemanytime 8y ago
        >>And by the early 90s Sears had a century of experience as a catalog fulfillment company and had pretty much become synonymous with the concept. Probably an impediment, instead of being an asset. A newcomer can see things differently: pick the right things and discard the wrong ones. Good luck with a 100 year old company.
    - logfromblammo 8y ago
      Amazon introduced the ability to seamlessly and automatically blend counterfeit goods into their supply chain, from sellers that you never heard of before, and may never encounter again.~ But recall that Amazon started with books. The catalog for books is the size of the card catalog that used to be at your library. A row of cabinets, filled with rank and file of drawers, each filled with index cards. One could not ship out paper catalogs, listing every book, to every book-buying home. But delivering the catalog via the internet--and taking orders via web form rather than mail, fax, or phone--made that mail-order business viable. And starting from books, adding other items to the system was just scaling. If you can handle all the ISBN numbers in existence, adding every other consumer product isn't that much more. Amazon made a system that allows customers to order every item from every product catalog, from the same interface accessible form every couch, and--most importantly--captured their market share early. But now that omnibus e-commerce exists, competitors are going to chip away until their early-mover advantage is gone, and all they have left is their innovation since then. Aliexpress and Wal-Mart are going to hammer them from the price side, and individual stores that can actually keep the counterfeits, barely-suitable, and white-label garbage out of their catalog will hit them from the quality side. Amazon's innovation was bigger catalogs, easier ordering. And their early patents are expiring now. They didn't build the other pieces they needed for a 120-year business while they had the protection--like searching and filtering; honest, scam-resistant ratings; and advertising and recommendations. So they have this huge catalog that presents as a giant wall of useless crap that might have the thing you actually want somewhere in it, and not necessarily at the best price. Unlike Sears, they still have enough money in the bank to turn it around before it's too late. Probably not the leadership, though.
      - RhodesianHunter 8y ago
        Agree wholeheartedly with everything you said except: > They didn't build the other pieces they needed for a 120-year business while they had the protection I would argue they did with things like AWS.
        ben1040 8y ago
        Similarly (or more importantly, even) is they've now built out a proprietary fulfillment and last mile delivery infrastructure that runs parallel to USPS/UPS/etc. Any new entrant is going to have to compete with Amazon on shipping cost/time. Yet Amazon can do it using their own distribution and sorting hubs, from which gig workers use their own cars to do the deliveries.
    - mulmen 8y ago
      Amazon is not a SV company.
    - msla 8y ago
      And Service Merchandise didn't invent it, either. Once again, it's some 20th Century store re-inventing something which worked the previous century.
  - w8rbt 8y ago
    Walmart does this really well.
- TimTheTinker 8y ago
  Not if you’re big enough to create the necessary market effects for something to flourish. If Sears had stuck with it and had the the foresight to develop its technical chops like Amazon did, they could have done much better.
  - greglindahl 8y ago
    In an earlier era, Sears was the one with the technical chops.
    - TimTheTinker 8y ago
      Let those who are currently on top take warning.
- AndrewKemendo 8y ago
  I think it's worse honestly because there is the pain of watching it actually work and forever not (really) ever knowing why your version failed.
- drdeadringer 8y ago
  In the late 90s there was Bolt.com, a social network very similar to Facebook and similar sites we have today. It died in the early 00s. Within a couple years, MySpace and Facebook and others walked on stage and here we are.
mulmen 8y ago
My local grocery store had a drive-thru pickup back in the 90s. The strange part was you still had to pick your own items and check out conventionally. Then walk to your car and drive through the pickup area. They converted it to a cart return around the turn of the century. If they simply had a way to order ahead they would have been two decades ahead of the current industry.
- BareNakedCoder 8y ago
  Our local grocery had that in the 1960s. As a toddler, I was fascinated by the mini-railway consisting of noisy steel rollers. It ran inside along the front wall behind the check-outs, did a u-turn thru a small hole, then outside along the front wall. A worker on the inside packed your groceries in brown paper bags and placed them on the rails. Another worker outside would load the bags from the rails to your car trunk when you arrived. Wow, that neuron hasn't fired in a long while.
- spaceflunky 8y ago
  There use to retail chain called BEST where the whole store area was a "showroom" and the products were on display outside of their packaging. You were encourage to touch and interact with the product. There was no stock on the showroom floor. Once you made a decision you would go to the front to place an order, then go to another corner of the store where your item would come out on a conveyor belt. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Best_Products https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Best_Products Also, the people who owned BEST were really into art and had some pretty groovy looking stores. http://www.siteenvirodesign.com/content/best-products http://www.siteenvirodesign.com/content/best-products
  - mulmen 8y ago
    We had a BEST for a while. It’s an ice rink now. IKEA has a very similar experience.
  - Fins 8y ago
    Sounds very much like Service Merchandise https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Service_Merchandise https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Service_Merchandise

ams6110 8y ago

Being too early is as bad as being wrong.

zymhan 8y ago
The point isn't that they were too early, it's that they gave up too quickly. Buying online and picking up from a store really isn't that advanced of a concept.
- reaperducer 8y ago
  Buying online and picking up from a store really isn't that advanced of a concept. You're right. Service Merchandise build an empire around it, just by mail or phone instead of computer. Other stores did it, too. JCPenny comes to mind. Even some local and regional chains. Amazon and others think they've invented something. But once again, it's just SV re-inventing something that worked last century.
  - ben1040 8y ago
    And by the early 90s Sears had a century of experience as a catalog fulfillment company and had pretty much become synonymous with the concept.
    - mark-r 8y ago
      That kind of experience breeds complacency. As noted elsewhere, they weren't prepared to offer delivery times that were competitive.
    - gregknicholson 8y ago
      Not everywhere. In the UK that would be Argos or Littlewoods. I've only heard of Sears in passing on American TV shows.
      - reaperducer 8y ago
        And in America, nobody's ever heard of Argos or Littlewoods. So what's your point?
        gregknicholson 8y ago
        My point is that Sears is synonymous with the concept only in some countries. Amazon seems to be established in more countries. In absolute terms, perhaps Sears wasn't as huge as it seemed from your perspective.
    - onetimemanytime 8y ago
      >>And by the early 90s Sears had a century of experience as a catalog fulfillment company and had pretty much become synonymous with the concept. Probably an impediment, instead of being an asset. A newcomer can see things differently: pick the right things and discard the wrong ones. Good luck with a 100 year old company.
  - logfromblammo 8y ago
    Amazon introduced the ability to seamlessly and automatically blend counterfeit goods into their supply chain, from sellers that you never heard of before, and may never encounter again.~ But recall that Amazon started with books. The catalog for books is the size of the card catalog that used to be at your library. A row of cabinets, filled with rank and file of drawers, each filled with index cards. One could not ship out paper catalogs, listing every book, to every book-buying home. But delivering the catalog via the internet--and taking orders via web form rather than mail, fax, or phone--made that mail-order business viable. And starting from books, adding other items to the system was just scaling. If you can handle all the ISBN numbers in existence, adding every other consumer product isn't that much more. Amazon made a system that allows customers to order every item from every product catalog, from the same interface accessible form every couch, and--most importantly--captured their market share early. But now that omnibus e-commerce exists, competitors are going to chip away until their early-mover advantage is gone, and all they have left is their innovation since then. Aliexpress and Wal-Mart are going to hammer them from the price side, and individual stores that can actually keep the counterfeits, barely-suitable, and white-label garbage out of their catalog will hit them from the quality side. Amazon's innovation was bigger catalogs, easier ordering. And their early patents are expiring now. They didn't build the other pieces they needed for a 120-year business while they had the protection--like searching and filtering; honest, scam-resistant ratings; and advertising and recommendations. So they have this huge catalog that presents as a giant wall of useless crap that might have the thing you actually want somewhere in it, and not necessarily at the best price. Unlike Sears, they still have enough money in the bank to turn it around before it's too late. Probably not the leadership, though.
    - RhodesianHunter 8y ago
      Agree wholeheartedly with everything you said except: > They didn't build the other pieces they needed for a 120-year business while they had the protection I would argue they did with things like AWS.
      - ben1040 8y ago
        Similarly (or more importantly, even) is they've now built out a proprietary fulfillment and last mile delivery infrastructure that runs parallel to USPS/UPS/etc. Any new entrant is going to have to compete with Amazon on shipping cost/time. Yet Amazon can do it using their own distribution and sorting hubs, from which gig workers use their own cars to do the deliveries.
  - mulmen 8y ago
    Amazon is not a SV company.
  - msla 8y ago
    And Service Merchandise didn't invent it, either. Once again, it's some 20th Century store re-inventing something which worked the previous century.
- w8rbt 8y ago
  Walmart does this really well.
TimTheTinker 8y ago
Not if you’re big enough to create the necessary market effects for something to flourish. If Sears had stuck with it and had the the foresight to develop its technical chops like Amazon did, they could have done much better.
- greglindahl 8y ago
  In an earlier era, Sears was the one with the technical chops.
  - TimTheTinker 8y ago
    Let those who are currently on top take warning.
AndrewKemendo 8y ago
I think it's worse honestly because there is the pain of watching it actually work and forever not (really) ever knowing why your version failed.
drdeadringer 8y ago
In the late 90s there was Bolt.com, a social network very similar to Facebook and similar sites we have today. It died in the early 00s. Within a couple years, MySpace and Facebook and others walked on stage and here we are.

mulmen 8y ago

My local grocery store had a drive-thru pickup back in the 90s. The strange part was you still had to pick your own items and check out conventionally. Then walk to your car and drive through the pickup area. They converted it to a cart return around the turn of the century. If they simply had a way to order ahead they would have been two decades ahead of the current industry.

BareNakedCoder 8y ago
Our local grocery had that in the 1960s. As a toddler, I was fascinated by the mini-railway consisting of noisy steel rollers. It ran inside along the front wall behind the check-outs, did a u-turn thru a small hole, then outside along the front wall. A worker on the inside packed your groceries in brown paper bags and placed them on the rails. Another worker outside would load the bags from the rails to your car trunk when you arrived. Wow, that neuron hasn't fired in a long while.
spaceflunky 8y ago
There use to retail chain called BEST where the whole store area was a "showroom" and the products were on display outside of their packaging. You were encourage to touch and interact with the product. There was no stock on the showroom floor. Once you made a decision you would go to the front to place an order, then go to another corner of the store where your item would come out on a conveyor belt. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Best_Products https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Best_Products Also, the people who owned BEST were really into art and had some pretty groovy looking stores. http://www.siteenvirodesign.com/content/best-products http://www.siteenvirodesign.com/content/best-products
- mulmen 8y ago
  We had a BEST for a while. It’s an ice rink now. IKEA has a very similar experience.
- Fins 8y ago
  Sounds very much like Service Merchandise https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Service_Merchandise https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Service_Merchandise