Sears

Richard Warren Sears and Sears Company



Richard Warren Sears and Sears Company

Richard Warren Sears was born on December 7, 1863, in Stewartville, Minnesota. He was the son of James Warren and Eliza A. Sears, both English ancestries. His father led anything but a happy life. He failed in his search for gold in the California gold rush of 1849 and was a bitter soldier in the Civil War, which he accused the politicians. (Cohn, 1940)

He earned a considerable amount of money working as a blacksmith and wagon maker, but he lost it all in the company stock farm. Richard's father refused to shortly thereafter, leaving Richard to be the breadwinner of the family in the age of 16. Richard has worked in the general offices in Minneapolis and St. Louis Railway in Minneapolis, to support his family. Then he decided to move to Redwood Falls, Minn., where he thought he could make more money because of the small town setting. There he worked as an attendant station, a life for his advice and go to sleep in the attic of the railway station.

In his spare time, he learned how to mail-order business worked. Richard was able to get into the business of mail order in 1886, when a shipment of watches from a wholesaler of Chicago was denied in the town jeweler. Thus, the shipment was sitting in a railway station until Richard contacted the wholesaler, who invited him to watch twelve dollars each. He bought watches and sold them, sending letters to other station staff describe clock and offers them at a discount price of fourteen dollars each. He sold this watch and ordered more to sell. To sell these, he declared in a small way in the St. Paul newspaper. He made large profits from this operation (Cohn, 1940).

A few months later, Richard has made a profit, that he abandoned railroad business entirely and began his business by mail order under the name of RW Sears Watch Company. In one year he earned so much money that he was able to start advertising in magazines with the National lottery and move the business in Chicago. March 1, 1887, he created a shop on Dearborn Street in Chicago with the staff of three people, one to handle the accounting and correspondence, and two stenographers. Shortly after opening his new store, he discovered the need for a watchmaker to repair clock back customers. This is a watchmaker was a young man named Alvah Curtis Roebuck from Hammond, Indiana. Richard Sears was an even more successful, opening the huge rural market. Its advertising was directed at the farmer, who was an independent and stayed away from major companies. (Alfred 2005) He portrayed himself to them as fellow independent businessman, and was able to prove that its low prices and its willingness to send the clock on the approval for payment of deposits. He was also able to achieve success with the farmers, because he thought life in small towns with ...