Comment by red-iron-pine
4 months ago
there was a lot of skepticism, and from some heavy hitters.
Sears famously laughing at online orders is a great example. They already had the mail over market owned, and already had the distribution, sourcing, and utterly dominant brand recognition in that space. People used to order homes from Sears!
They just needed the online catalog. But the CEO was a psychopath Randian who thought the internet was a fad and now Amazon runs things.
Same with Toy R Us, and Radioshack, which did a lot of mail order.
Sears HQ walkthrough near Chicago before its demolition:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3yX9D3h2F_0
Ironic that Sears back in the day got started with mail order.
Seems like bad management is a cancer on a lot of organizations. Their size protects them for a while, but eventually they get outcompeted.