Mail-Order Catalogue Was Key for Ward Through Years

Shortly after the Civil War, Aaron Montgomery Ward began peddling his wares to country stores with some success.

But Ward decided that there was demand for better merchandise and more selection than these stores were offering, often at high prices.

As a result, he teamed up with his brother-in-law and began to sell his merchandise through the mail. In 1872, they mailed off a one-page price list to 500,000 members of the National Grange of Patrons of Husbandry--a farmers organization--and the first general merchandise mail-order catalogue was born.

Ward, who died in 1913, witnessed the growing popularity of his catalogue, which promised customers: “We guarantee all our goods. If any of them are not satisfactory after due inspections, we will take them back, pay all expenses and refund the money paid for them.”

After World War I, more and more Americans began to live in cities. Other mail order houses began to open up retail stores, but Montgomery Ward hesitated. Instead, the company opened up a “display store” in Chicago in 1926. Customers, however, could not buy any of merchandise on display--they still had to place an order and wait for delivery.

But after opening a display store in Plymouth, Ind., a persistent carpenter--attracted to a saw that was priced 75 cents cheaper than at any other store in town--managed to buy the saw off the shelf. Within a few days, the store was sold out of all its merchandise.

By 1930, Ward had opened 500 stores across the nation. In the last 10 years, the company closed some of those smaller, unprofitable stores, and moved to give its 315 larger stores the feel and look of several specialty stores under one roof.

And after 113 years, the company decided to shut down its catalogue in 1985.