Death of ‘Wish Book’ Spells End to Century of Americana
For millions of Americans, the hefty Sears catalogue was their “Wish Book,” arriving each Christmas season to offer a cornucopia of shopping possibilities. For many, especially in remote rural areas, it provided a link to the bustling world of commerce.
Touted in the 1894 edition as “The Cheapest Supply House on Earth,” it once rivaled the Holy Bible for first place among America’s most widely read books.
But after this year, the telephone-book-thick catalogue will cease publication, the victim of changing consumer tastes and intense competition. As part of a massive restructuring, Sears, Roebuck & Co. on Monday announced plans to discontinue doing business through the catalogue, which the company said has lost about $500 million over three years.
For the nation’s No. 3 retailer, which built its empire on the mail-order business founded by railroad station agent Richard W. Sears in 1886, the move is tantamount to cutting off its roots.
“It was by far the most difficult of all the decisions,” said Arthur C. Martinez, chairman of Sears Merchandise Group. “It is Sears. It’s how the company started and it was laden with a lot of emotion.”
In the end, Martinez said, there was no way to save the catalogue business without irreparably hurting the company.
“It was very painful,” he said.
For most of a century, the catalogue, which debuted in ‘big book’ form in 1896, thrived on filling the average American’s every need via the U.S. mail. But analysts said it was too slow to adapt to a modern era fraught with intense mail-order competition, home shopping channels, and the dominance of the precisely pinpointed marketing pitch.
While mounting costs and stiff competition made the catalogue business less profitable, 14 million Americans still order from the Sears tome each year--and many of them say they will miss it.
Among them is Michele Woltman, 34, whose mother outfitted her in Sears clothes throughout much of her childhood in rural Wisconsin.
“The closest department store was 35 miles away in Manitowoc,” Woltman explains. “There were four of us kids and only one car, so we didn’t get to go very much.”
Now living in Perry, Ohio, with the nearest mall still at least a half hour’s drive away, Woltman uses the Sear’s catalogue to order clothes for her own 10-year-old daughter. And at Christmas time, she shares it with two of her friends so that their children can all make their holiday gift lists from it.
“We’re going to miss it,” Woltman said. “It’s really a shame they’re shutting down the whole thing.”
For Woltman, the lack of a Sears catalogue will most likely mean a few extra trips to the store, or getting on the mailing list at J.C. Penney. But for generations of Americans, especially in rural areas, the catalogue was their sole access to the material culture emerging far away in the nation’s cities.
Ray Browne, 70, editor of the Journal of Popular Culture, says the catalogue “represented what the world could be” to people like himself--born and bred in the rural Alabama.
The once-ubiquitous catalogue served as a force for democratic capitalism, making goods from buggy whips to full-blown homes (customer-assembled) available at relatively affordable prices to Americans across the country.
And at the turn of the century, when short geographical distances still created a wide divergence in world views, the catalogue appealed to Americans’ enduring desire for conformity.
Said Browne, who ordered his first balloon-tired Elgin bicycle from Sears: “There was a kind of satisfaction that I was using the same bicycle that the corn huskers in Nebraska were using and the Wild West cowboys in Texas. A few dollars got you the sense of being part of the larger nation.”
But it was the catalogue’s determination to stick to mass appeal at a time when sophisticated marketers are targeting increasingly specialized demographic groups that presaged its downfall, industry observers say.
“A long time ago the Sears catalogue brought civilization to the consumer out on the prairie, but it stopped performing that function years ago,” said Jack Baer, a catalogue consultant in New York. “The Sears catalogue has become a synonym for something that is anachronistic and not valid in today’s market. It hasn’t changed.”
While sales have dropped off for Sears in recent years, the direct marketing business has been growing rapidly, with 55% of Americans shopping through catalogues in 1992, up from 40% in 1984, according to Simmons Market Research Bureau. The Sears catalogue had U.S. revenues of about $3.3 billion in 1992.
Boosted by the huge and growing amount of computerized information available about U.S. demographics and consumer buying habits, a host of specialty catalogues has been aimed at American consumers in recent years, allowing former small-fry companies, such as Land’s End, Eddie Bauer, and Lillian Vernon, to claim a larger stake of the market. Speigel and J.C. Penney, the nation’s two largest catalogue operators along with Sears, have also diversified their offerings, developing smaller catalogues for specially targeted groups of consumers.
Sears, by contrast, was slow to specialize, clinging to its bigger-is-better strategy almost until the end. While the catalogue made some efforts at modernization over the last decade--using model Cheryl Tiegs on its cover, for example, and more recently even offering some European-style clothes--analysts say it was too little, too late.
But while other mail-order businesses are flourishing, some industry observers say the end of the Sears catalogue may be the beginning of the end for others, as new forms of communications and retailing rapidly take shape.
Sears will retain and expand its “direct response” business, which allows consumers to order by mail with special coupons and brochures sent with credit card bills and special mailings. The company will accept orders for this spring’s final “big book” through the end of the year.
Still, some question whether the catalogue business in general might be in trouble.
“The Sears catalogue was the hi-tech of its day,” said Bruce Weindruch, head of The History Factory, a research and consulting firm that catalogues American business history. “It took advantage of the mails, it was able to process orders on a massive scale. But as our conduits of information have expanded, they’ve become less relevant.”
The Restructuring of Sears
These are the major restructuring elements announced Monday by Sears Roebuck & Co.
Will close 113 stores, including three in California. Most of these offer less than the full line of Sears merchandise. In addition, 35 women’s apparel stores called Pinstripes Petites, will be sold. The closures will be phased in.
Will slash 50,000 jobs, 16,000 full time and 34,000 part time.
Will discontinue the “big book” catalogue after nearly 100 years. That will mean closing about 2,000 catalogue stores, most of which are independently owned. The spring, 1993, catalogue will be the last, but customers can order until the end of the year. Will also close by early 1994 most of 91 catalogue outlet stores, which primarily offer close-out catalogue merchandise.
Will discontinue some of its auto-repair services, including tune-ups, electronics, radiator and air-conditioning services.
Will take a $1.7-billion after-tax charge against fourth-quarter 1992 earnings to pay for restructuring, which is expected to be completed by early 1994.
Will offer early retirement to about 4,000 salaried corporate and merchandise group employees.
Source: Times Wire Services
