The history of Sears

Sears, Roebuck & co is an American chain of international department stores founded by Richard Warren Sears and Alvah Roebuck in the late 19th century.

Sears was a railroad station agent in North Redwood, when he received a shipment of watches from a Chicago jeweler which the local jeweler didn’t want. Sears purchased them himself and sold them with profit to other station agents. He started a business selling watches through mail order catalogues. He moved to Chicago where he met Roebuck who joined him in his business.

In the 19th Century Farmers only came to town to sell there crops, and to buy supplies from the local stores often at a very high price. In the Sears catalogue prices where clearly stated so customers new exactly what they bought and what they had to pay, the popularity grew rapidly.
By 1895 they where producing a catalogue with the largest variety of items that anybody back then could have thought.

The first Sears store opened in 1925, in1929 they took over the Becker-Ryan department store, in 1933 they tore it down and built the first windowless department store. In the 1930’s they started to diversify by starting to sell insurances, real estate and introducing the Discover credit card, the credit card operation was sold in 2003. Also in 2003, Sears opened a new concept store branded Sears Grand.

Sears Grand stores carry everything that a regular Sears carries, plus health and beauty, toys, baby care, cleaning supplies, home decor, pet food, cards and party supplies, books, magazines, electronics, music, movies, and an edited assortment of groceries. In 2004 Kmart merged with Sears, in 2005 some Kmart stores where converted to Sears Essentials, only to change them later to Sears Grand’s.
The company was the largest retailer in the US until the early 1980’s. In 1993 Sears stopped producing catalogues because of sinking sales and profits. This year Sears bought the search engine Delver.
Today sears is one of the biggets department stores in the United States with over 2300 stores and a annual revenue of $23.6 billion