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Richard Wagoner's avatar

I worked for a Sears Catalog Surplus (later Catalog Outlet) store for ten years, until 1989 ... shortly before they closed catalog down. That is when they lost their soul ... that catalog had EVERYTHING, and was a fabulous marketing tool - every house had one. When they shut down catalog (supposedly because they didn't want to pay future pensions for upcoming retirees; the catalog department was on target to be profitable after losing money for a few years) Sears became just another store. A store with great policies (employees may remember Bulletin O-277 - defining what it meant by Satisfaction Guaranteed) but even those would be gone soon. A REAL shame ... just prior to that, Sears was still the #1 retailer in the world. I have great memories still of working for Sears.

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On A Reach's avatar

Sears was our big family supplier late 60s-70s.

1. I remember the see dishwasher with the see trough front. My parents said they could set our strollers in front of it and keep us occupied watching

2. also the ball suspended on the stream of air from the vacuum cleaner on reverse. Another baby/toddler entertainment

3. My parents kept a legal pad with Sears catalog items to order. At least six columns with all the details necessary to call in the order. Seemed to take forever to dictate the order. including options, color, shipping weight.

4. Which then leads me to picking up the Sears order, which was usually a nightmare. Took forever. "Maam, are you being helped?" "Well, I handed my order # to someone and they went in the back, but that was 20 minutes ago"

5. Turquoise colored vans always in the neighborhood with deliveries or repairs

6. A vague memory of there being some mystery to what we were picking up. I guess backorders maybe. "Well lets go see what this order they called us about is"

7. The catalogs were great. I remember spending hours with the Wishbook, the general catalog and even a reproduction of an old catalog.

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