Richard Warren Sears And Sears, Roebuck, & Company :: essays research papers

Richard warren Sears and Sears, Roebuck, & CompanyRichard Warren Sears was born on December 7, 1863, in Stewartville,Minnesota. He was the son of pile Warren and Eliza A. Sears, both of Englishancestory. His father led anything but a happy life. He had failed in his questfor gold during the California fortunate Rush of 1849 and was a bitter soldier in theCivil War, which he blamed on politicians. He had earned a siz equal bring of moneyworking as a blacksmith and a wagonmaker, but he lost it all in a stock-farmventure. Richards father gave up before long laterwards, leaving Richard to be thefamily breadwinner at the age of 16.Richard worked in the general offices of the Minneapolis and St. Louis line in Minneapolis to support his family. He then decided to move sequoiaFalls, Minnesota, where he thought that he could earn more money because of the secondary t possess setting. There he worked as a station attendant, doing chores for his bill and sleeping in the loft of the rail road station. In his spare time, helearned how the mail-order line of descent worked.Richard got his opportunity to get into the mail-order business in 1886when a shipment of watches from a Chicago wholesaler was refused by a townjeweler. Therefore, the shipment sat in the railroad station until Richardcontacted the wholesaler, who offered him the watches for twelve dollars each.He bought the watches and sold them by sending letters to other stationattendants describing the watches and offering them at the discount price offourteen dollars each. He sold those watches and ordered more to sell. To sellthese he advertised in a flyspeck way in St. Paul newspapers. He made a giantprofit from this operation.In a few months Richard made such a profit that he abandoned the railroadbusiness entirely and started his own mail-order business under the name of theR.W. Sears Watch Company. In one family he made so much money that he was able tobegin advertising in magazines with a national circulation and move the businessto Chicago.On March 1, 1887, he set up a knock off on Dearborn Street in Chicago with astaff of triad people, one to handle bookkeeping and correspondence and twostenographers. Soon after the coal scuttle of his new shop, he found a need for awatchmaker to repair watches returned by customers. This watchmaker was a young earth by the name of Alvah Curtis Roebuck from Hammond, Indiana.Richard Sears became even more successful by opening up the huge ruralmarket.