An excellent recent article on Atlantic by Derek Thompson talks about how the History of Sears predicts nearly everything that Amazon is doing. I recommend this well-researched article as a great reading to understand Amazon in the context of how Retail business has changed over the years.
Interestingly, this has been a point I have been stressing about understanding Amazon in the Operations Strategy Class (OIDD 615) at Wharton at least for the last 5 years.
Here is the slide I typically show before beginning the Amazon discussion in OIDD 615 Class (the one below is from October 2016), while building up to the eventuality of Amazon opening more stores. I think that the theory is working out pretty well. Last year, a Wharton executive student even discussed some evidence about how Sears used to “ship houses”. More analysis in future posts.
