[Gamecock]

If they had vision they might have been in the role Amazon is in today.

[Buckeye McFrog]

If they had vision they might have been in the role Amazon is in today.

Service Merchandise could have been that company. They had all of the warehouse and shipping infrastructure in place, and IT systems that were WAY ahead of their time.

They did not because their CEO was an incredibly arrogant fellow who thought he knew better than all of the tech wizards he employed.

[Loyalist]

I’ve seen that claim made a lot, but I think it ignores the advantages Amazon started out with by not being a traditional retailer.

No Sears board of directors in the mid-90s would have countenanced running years of losses developing an unproven method of commerce at the expense of its existing brick-and-mortar business model.

Amazon had the freedom of not having to convince people with a vested interest in a profitable business model to blow it up and start over, and of getting to define its industry in the process, much as Sears had over a century before.

Sears could be Sears once, not twice.

[who_would_fardels_bear]

If they had eliminated all of their stores so they could get away with not collecting sales tax, then they might have had a chance against Amazon.

Life isn't fair ... especially when government picks winners and losers.

[Celerity]

“If they had vision they might have been in the role Amazon is in today.”

I have no clue how the publisher of the biggest distribution of catalogs in the WORLD could see the internet and say “Nah. Not for us.”

Year after year. They could have owned online retailing from 1991. They ignored it. They even ignored it 20 some odd years later when others were doing it.

[jpsb]

Idiot CEO did not realize that on line shopping was the future.