
The Sears catalog had an even bigger impact in 1900 than Amazon has had today - ca98am79
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-05-08/the-long-hard-unprecedented-fall-of-sears
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tracker1
I think Sears _really_ dropped the ball in not putting its' catalog(s) online
in 1995-1996 or so. They, at the time, were one of the only companies around
with most of the infrastructure to handle that scenario... I think the K-Mart
merger was probably a bad decision as well.

Even if they'd put the catalog online, and established a "cart" where you had
to call to place the order, they could have done it well before CC processing
online was common.

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matheweis
Yes. Somewhere I read an excellent writup about how their CEO dismissed
e-commerce entirely at the time, saying no one would want to buy anything
online... and that if they had gone they way, Amazon wouldn't have been able
to move beyond books (remember when they were once just a bookstore!?).
Instead, they doubled down, paving the way for Amazon to break in.

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tracker1
Yeah, I actually recall a discussion with one of their very senior IT guys and
being rebuffed that the web was a fad, and it'd go the way of Prodigy. If
Sears had come in around 1996, they'd be the biggest retailer globally today
by a large margin... they already had most of the infrastructure ready. I
remember hearing on the news when they shut down their catalog dept, and
thinking to myself, "dumbass."

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jumpkickhit
Really surprising how Sears isn't bigger than even Amazon with how they
started with their catalog.

One of the downsides of not taking technology seriously. Though, there's a
flipside to it too. Colecovision failed too during the video game crash.

Colecovision was made by ​Connecticut Leather Company.

So jumping into technology isn't always a sure bet either.​

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chiph
Amazon just needs to sell DIY houses now.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sears_Catalog_Home](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sears_Catalog_Home)

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cr0sh
It'd be interesting if Amazon (or even Sears) did sell a "DIY House Kit"
system.

Imagine if the house came as a series of 3/4" plywood sheets, pre-marked with
cut lines; you cut out the pieces, then they are assembled slot/tab style into
a home using an instruction booklet (plus glue, nails, insulation, etc to
complete). Almost like a flat-pack home delivered in a 40 foot container or a
flatbed trailer.

That could be the "base model"; there could also be a model where you purchase
a custom 4x8' bed CNC router table. Feed it "blank" 3/4" plywood sourced
locally, and it cuts out the parts from plans "in the cloud" or in some other
manner. Parts are assembled in the same manner.

Final level (?) might be an on-site crew to assemble it, if you don't have the
skills or time to do so yourself.

Only thing you'd have to supply otherwise would be a foundation; this could
potentially be concrete slab, or maybe wood or other material raised above
ground on pylons cast from concrete or made of native materials (or, maybe it
too could be included in the kit?).

Kinda pie-in-the-sky, but the concept of building such a house has been
prototyped (first saw something like this in the book about the MIT Fab Lab),
the software and hardware all exist; in theory you could DIY this whole
solution if you wanted to today (you'd have to create your own custom home
design, though - that's where it would be tough).

There'd also be the maze and potential rejection of homeowner's insurance for
non-standard construction (similar to what people building straw-bale or
rammed-earth houses face), or rejection for the same due to strict codes on
construction allowances for the home site...

...which is probably why it hasn't been done yet.

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koverstreet
You're basically describing the Sears kit homes. They were quite successful;
it's a real shame Sears stopped making them.

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valuearb
The benefit the Sears catalog brought America are basically identical to the
ones Walmart did.

