Sears knew a major change was happening and did not become a top player in that change, it was inevitable.
Amazon will never get lazy like that, Amazon is a pure R&D machine.
But, once it's run by somebody who could move on to somewhere else next and has no particular attachment to this particular CEO job, it can go downhill no matter how high the hilltop you're on.
We haven't seen what Facebook, Amazon, or Google look like when a non-founder is in charge, but we know Apple nearly got run into the ground after they kicked out the founder. They are doing better now, but I notice that it took the return of the founder to put them back on track.
When it's just about the money, and you can move on to another company to loot it later, the company has very little protection from its own CEO.
I really don't know what the plan was if it wasn't to just bleed it dry. Because, as you point out, if they're scared to take a big hit, then they'll just survive and never go after a market or a competitor. You want to sell shitty tool-shaped objects and hope no one notices, or how about you got after Snap-On with your new Professional line that's 30% less but just as good (Craftsman ain't the only one riding on reputation)? And, yeah, Sears actually sort of did that about 20 years ago. How about "fuck Viking, Sub-Zero and their shitty, overpriced appliances. We make better ones, and they cost less. 'cuz Kenmore is back, bitches."? Or something, I dunno. What I do know is that I don't need a fancy MBA to tell you the end result of gradually eroding quality and not maintaining your stores.
Name one novel thing Amazon has done for those buying products over the last few years?
Amazon though makes most of their money from AWS, they found a way to reap ROI on R&D for their own supply/services chain. That is what really nailed it, this only came from an engineering focused research and development push that reinvested every dollar for a long time back into it, breaking all the rules of showing profits for a long time.
Walmart also is very good at supply chain and fulfillment. They have always been early to technology improvements there including pushing suppliers to EDIINT/AS2 and digital purchase orders and invoicing, up until 2003 everything in retail ordering was still really fax or e-mail orders. They were doing RFID in warehouses really early on. They got tons of improvements early on Target and other retailers moving on this early. Walmart Labs knows you have to reinvest in research and development.
Sears, without a competitor for a long time, and a lack of product/engineering driven leadership, got fat, happy and nappy, eventually was decades behind before they woke up.
Feels like most of their focus went to aws.
At least Sears has been consistently crappy for the last 20 years.
I’m starting to see Walmart delivery trucks everywhere now so they must be doing something right.
For perspective:
Walmart makes ~58.7m an hour
Amazon / Macy’s / Best Buy / Sears / Target / Gap / Big Lots/ Kohl’s / J.C. Penney / Nordstrom / Dollar Tree / Barnes & Noble / Bed Bath & Beyond
... make ~57.3m/hr combined
Amazon sells you counterfeit goods comingled with whatever manufacturers drop-ship to their warehouse. It's a totally different model.
Personally I think there's still room for brick and mortar retailers with some expertise and services that are reliable. Not sure it will scale the same as non-cog people / expertise are involved but not everything has to.