Sears had the DNA and definitely were the Amazon of the previous century, but they didn't have the fight left in them. By the time Amazon showed up they were al

Sears had the DNA and definitely were the Amazon of the previous century, but they didn't have the fight left in them. By the time Amazon showed up they were already being chewed apart by vultures for being fat, old, and complacent. There was already an LBO or three from private equity firms on their books and then the bad merger with K-Mart all with the intent of breaking Sears apart for pieces/scraps/brands anyway. Sears was already a walking corpse when Amazon came to fight. I feel like the wilder "DNA fight" that wasn't was "80's Sears/Amazon wannabe": Service Merchandise. They tried to recreate the Sears formula for the late 1980s/early 1990s and basically convergently evolved the Ikea model before Ikea grew any US presence as just big warehouses with smaller showrooms up front. They made a bunch of silly mistakes in the 90s trying to grow beyond their roots in primarily the US South region to more national regard/footprint, but if they hadn't made those mistakes they probably could have been a real interesting contender against Amazon.