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Sears has another chance to avoid closing down

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Re: Sears has another chance to avoid closing down

#491

Post by rrdharan »

lscharen wrote: post #483
stinky613 wrote: post #289

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Very good points. I'd like to add that Amazon began in a time when the typical person didn't trust ANY online shopping options. To my recollection, Amazon and eBay were the two biggest players that found ways to give people confidence that they could safely shop online.

Re: Trust; I always found it a bit ironic back in the late 90’s/early 00’s that people would not trust ordering things over the Internet, but happily call a mail-order number and give a complete stranger (and anyone within earshot) their name, address and credit card number.

Were they wrong though? I'd wager far more credit cards have been stolen via the internet than by eavesdropping?

Re: Sears has another chance to avoid closing down

#492

Post by kevin_thibedeau »

nirvdrum wrote: post #356
acdha wrote: post #227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There was a significant gap between Amazon launch and having two-day shipping — it took years of behind the scenes development before orders started arriving notably faster than other retails. Sears' numbers include regular postal delivery in both directions so switching to online ordering would have cut them in half with no other changes (and don't forget the efficiency wins from orders arriving as validated electro…

One way Amazon was able to compete on price was by not having nexus in most of the country. Consequently, Amazon didn't collect sales tax on behalf of states and consumers, on the whole, never declare use tax. I still see that mentioned on most deal-hunter sites: "tax kills the deal" or "order from X and you don't have to pay tax." It's tax-free in the same sense that all tax evasion is tax-free. But, sales tax is le…

Mail order operations didn't collect sales tax either. Amazon didn't invent the interstate tax dodge. Sears did.

Re: Sears has another chance to avoid closing down

#493

Post by Bonooru »

dba7dba wrote: post #480
3pt14159 wrote: post #472

Ahh, I came to this thread far too late, but hopefully this won't be missed. In 1980 The Yankee Group (a tech consultancy) reached out to my dad to help them understand how Sears could respond to the growing tech phenomenon. For reasons too long to get into, Gates and my pops (a Canadian) knew each other and were even both covered in The Intelligent Machines Journal out of Palo Alto in the same issue during the wanin…

Haha, that's interesting to hear. So if Sears invested in Microsoft in 1980, Sears of today could've been like Yahoo, whose investment in Alibaba kept Yahoo afloat a few more years but ultimately continued down the downward spiral? I gather that the few people at Sears who were aware of the investment invite from Bill Gates may not even be alive, considering it was 39 years ago.

Yahoo was different though. People would buy Yahoo stock as a proxy for Alibaba since it wasn't publicly traded.

Re: Sears has another chance to avoid closing down

#494

Post by ksec »

stinky613 wrote: post #289
filmgirlcw wrote: post #283

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The pricing benefit really cannot be understated. Amazon was 40% less than list for books -- which was a massive amount, even if you lived in Barnes & Noble markets (and B&N wasn't as pervasive in 1996/1997 as your average mall bookstore was), where there were similar markdowns. And of course, you could get any book you wanted from Amazon. And then Amazon very quickly moved into media like CDs and DVDs. I used to ord…

Very good points. I'd like to add that Amazon began in a time when the typical person didn't trust ANY online shopping options. To my recollection, Amazon and eBay were the two biggest players that found ways to give people confidence that they could safely shop online.

>To my recollection, Amazon and eBay were the two biggest players that found ways to give people confidence that they could safely shop online.

This so much. I remember people's fear of filling in their Credit Card info online. And people who thought sharing Uber with a Stranger would be a no no.....

How time changes.

Re: Sears has another chance to avoid closing down

#495

Post by kalleboo »

Marsymars wrote: post #464
fireattack wrote: post #431

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Guess I should say outside North American.

As far as I can think of, the number of retailers with significant worldwide operations is very small. Costco and Walmart both have about 20% of their operations outside of North America. Uniqlo is 40% Japan, 30% PRC, 30% elsewhere. No real others come to mind.

How about Carrefour (53% outside of France), Aldi (owns Trader Joe's in the US)?

edit: 7-11?

Re: Sears has another chance to avoid closing down

#496

Post by ksec »

lscharen wrote: post #483
stinky613 wrote: post #289

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Very good points. I'd like to add that Amazon began in a time when the typical person didn't trust ANY online shopping options. To my recollection, Amazon and eBay were the two biggest players that found ways to give people confidence that they could safely shop online.

Re: Trust; I always found it a bit ironic back in the late 90’s/early 00’s that people would not trust ordering things over the Internet, but happily call a mail-order number and give a complete stranger (and anyone within earshot) their name, address and credit card number.

Because the Phone Number, Mail-In Order Catalog and the Human Voice from other side of Phone are all Real World Interaction. With traces to be made that relate to Real World. On the internet Everything is virtual.

Re: Sears has another chance to avoid closing down

#498

Post by ngcc_hk »

dba7dba wrote: post #480
3pt14159 wrote: post #472

Ahh, I came to this thread far too late, but hopefully this won't be missed. In 1980 The Yankee Group (a tech consultancy) reached out to my dad to help them understand how Sears could respond to the growing tech phenomenon. For reasons too long to get into, Gates and my pops (a Canadian) knew each other and were even both covered in The Intelligent Machines Journal out of Palo Alto in the same issue during the wanin…

Haha, that's interesting to hear. So if Sears invested in Microsoft in 1980, Sears of today could've been like Yahoo, whose investment in Alibaba kept Yahoo afloat a few more years but ultimately continued down the downward spiral? I gather that the few people at Sears who were aware of the investment invite from Bill Gates may not even be alive, considering it was 39 years ago.

May be it so negatively influence Microsoft it killed it. It is not a money deposit. You can run down your firm which core to your business you can run down other non-core business. Not many run mixed business work (GM in one stage but not even now).

Re: Sears has another chance to avoid closing down

#499

Post by JadeNB »

ascar wrote: post #481
JadeNB wrote: post #406

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Don't forget the reviews! Buying the right one is often more important than buying one today. Amazon itself seems to have forgotten this; reviews used to be very useful, but either they're not trying very hard to combat fake reviews or they're not up to the challenge, because they're almost useless now for big-ticket items.

In my experience the reviews are most useless for small items, where fake reviews can easily manipulate the reviews or are even the only reviews available.

> In my experience the reviews are most useless for small items, where fake reviews can easily manipulate the reviews or are even the only reviews available.

Yeah, 'big ticket' wasn't the right word; probably I meant 'commodity'. I meant to exclude things like reviews of obscure books, which sellers apparently usually don't bother trying to game, since they seem to be reasonably reliable (at least, last time I checked, which was a while ago …).

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