Word: roebuck
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...chairman of the board of Sears, Roebuck & Co., Robert Elkington Wood, 72, runs the biggest general store in the world. Last year Sears, Roebuck sold the astronomical number of 500,000,000 separate items-everything from a one-ounce sewing bobbin to a 2,200-lb.brooder house. But the biggest mail-order seller of all was, as usual, diapers. To Merchandiser Wood, this fact is significant. It illustrates his motto that a "business, to stay healthy, must grow with the nation...
Before long, so many defective watches were returned that Sears advertised for a repairman. Alvah Curtis Roebuck, 23, who had been earning $3.50 a week fixing watches in the corner of a delicatessen shop in Hammond, Ind., got the job. In 1891, Sears set up a partnership with Roebuck (Sears kept two-thirds control) and rapidly expanded sales by filling his catalogue with every come-on known to the sharp retailers...
Despite such tricks, Sears, Roebuck built a solid reputation for supplying high-quality goods at low prices. Its cream separators sold for $39.50 v. $125 for competing brands. A farmer could buy a Sunday suit for $4.98, a couch for $5.45, a stove for $11.96, a six-room house ("machine-made, ready-cut") for $972, and a "single dog power churn" for $14.70. Sears was indeed the farmer's friend-to the end and sometimes beyond. Once a woman returned some medicine intended for her husband, because he had died before it arrived. By return mail she received Sears...
Rosenwald came to the rescue again in 1895. The company was floundering and Alvah Roebuck, tired of the whirlwind, sold out to Sears for $25,000.* Rosenwald canceled some of Sears' debts to him and became a partner. He used his financial and merchandising talents to start putting Sears on its feet, and raised $40 million for expansion in a public stock issue. Then Rosenwald and Sears quarreled over Sears' selling methods. Rosenwald won out, and in 1908. Sears sold out his interest for $10 million to Goldman, Sachs, investment bankers. Sears retired and died six years later...
Slow Revisions. One reason why many merchants dislike night hours is that they boost overhead (overtime pay, supper money, extra shifts, bigger light bills). Richard H. Rich, president of Atlanta's Rich's, terms the move to expand night shopping "a lamentable trend." But Sears, Roebuck, with three thriving Atlanta stores, stays open two nights a week. Says Sears's Southern Vice President Charles H. Kellstadt: "If you've invested millions in a plant, the more hours you use it the more you can reduce costs." More than any other merchandiser, Sears, by its aggressive selling...