Sears Roebuck, and Co.

Sears Roebuck, and Co.

• Founders: Richard Sears and Alvah C. Roebuck.
• Distinction: World’s first mass-retailing network.
• Primary products: Apparel, home fashions, appliances, home improvement products, lawn and garden equipment.
• Annual sales: $41.071 billion.
• Number of employees: 324,000.
• Major competitors: Wal-Mart, Target, JC Penney.
• Chairman, president, and CEO: Alan J. Lacy.
• Headquarters: Hoffman Estates, Ill.
• Year founded: 1886.
• Web site: www.sears.com.


Not long ago, the arrival of a Sears catalog in any American home was an event rivaling Christmas itself. Mom paged through the thick “Wish Book” from cover to cover, carefully examining new clothes and household goods and circling those needed for the upcoming season. Dad eagerly checked out tools, and lingered over pages of auto, garden, and home improvement items. Younger kids went straight for the toys; older ones leafed through sections with fashions or sporting goods. When a must-have list was finally compiled, it was painstakingly copied onto the proper forms and slipped almost reverently into the official return envelope. After what seemed like ages, a big box (or two or three) was delivered, and the fun began anew.
In recent years, of course, the real-life equivalent of this admittedly stereotypical scene has not unfolded very often. The ever-evolving family and a hotly contested
retail arena—not to mention the changes in lifestyle and technology that have both spawned and drawn from them—help see to that. But while specific goods and sales methods have shifted over the years, Sears, Roebuck and Co. remains the secondlargest retailer in the world. It still reaches across vast distances to people in large cities and small towns. It still offers everything—from jewelry and shoes to fishing tackle and appliances. And it still engenders tremendous loyalty among its enormous customer base, although it must now share most of them with an increasing array of hungry competitors.
To keep up, the company has reached out to new and old shoppers alike in ways that probably would stun co-founder Richard Sears. He started things, after all, by simply peddling some gold-filled watches to coworkers along a Minnesota railroad line. Today, a mind-boggling selection of products and services is offered through some 850 mall-based stores, 1,400 specialty stores, and 650 small-town stores that mostly all bear his name. New high-tech sales tools and trendy advertising campaigns are consistently tested and deployed. And, for those who prefer to shop at home, there’s even a state-of-the-art Web site designed to match competitors in the newest marketplace of all.