Earlier quoted context omitted.
The point isn't that they were too early, it's that they gave up too quickly. Buying online and picking up from a store really isn't that advanced of a concept.
Buying online and picking up from a store really isn't that advanced of a concept. You're right. Service Merchandise build an empire around it, just by mail or phone instead of computer. Other stores did it, too. JCPenny comes to mind. Even some local and regional chains. Amazon and others think they've invented something. But once again, it's just SV re-inventing something that worked last century.
But recall that Amazon started with books. The catalog for books is the size of the card catalog that used to be at your library. A row of cabinets, filled with rank and file of drawers, each filled with index cards. One could not ship out paper catalogs, listing every book, to every book-buying home. But delivering the catalog via the internet--and taking orders via web form rather than mail, fax, or phone--made that mail-order business viable. And starting from books, adding other items to the system was just scaling. If you can handle all the ISBN numbers in existence, adding every other consumer product isn't that much more.
Amazon made a system that allows customers to order every item from every product catalog, from the same interface accessible form every couch, and--most importantly--captured their market share early.
But now that omnibus e-commerce exists, competitors are going to chip away until their early-mover advantage is gone, and all they have left is their innovation since then. Aliexpress and Wal-Mart are going to hammer them from the price side, and individual stores that can actually keep the counterfeits, barely-suitable, and white-label garbage out of their catalog will hit them from the quality side.
Amazon's innovation was bigger catalogs, easier ordering. And their early patents are expiring now. They didn't build the other pieces they needed for a 120-year business while they had the protection--like searching and filtering; honest, scam-resistant ratings; and advertising and recommendations. So they have this huge catalog that presents as a giant wall of useless crap that might have the thing you actually want somewhere in it, and not necessarily at the best price. Unlike Sears, they still have enough money in the bank to turn it around before it's too late. Probably not the leadership, though.