I’ve always thought one of their biggest mistakes was buying K-Mart, which was already getting pretty awful.
Actually, Kmart bought Sears.
Sorry about reversing that, still waking up. Either way, bad move for Sears, since they got a good deal worse after that purchase, IMO.
I wonder if Service Merchandise went around buying up “catalog showroom stores” (not sure what to call them) circa 1985-1990? The New Orleans-area Service Merchandises were Wilson’s until ~1985. Looking up Wilson’s just now, I had not realized that they were founded in Louisiana (Baton Rouge).
My wedding ring and a bit of my wife’s jewelry came from Service Merchandise in the late 1990s. I can’t pinpoint the year our area lost Service Merchandise, but it was before 2010 – probably in the years immediately after Katrina.
I was surprised to learn in this very thread that Peaches Records and Tapes was not a standalone store based in New Orleans.
Our local Peaches is still going strong, being a local institution since the mid-1970s. I thought maybe Peaches was founded here and spread elsewhere, but nope – founded in Los Angeles in 1975. That means the New Orleans Peaches was a very early location.
The chain went bankrupt in 1981, so it apparently made a deep impression quickly. Immediately after the bankruptcy, Peaches had eight locations. I don’t know where the other seven were or when they closed up … but anyone nostalgic for Peaches can check out the last remaining location in uptown New Orleans if they ever swing through the city.
I’m a little surprised nobody has mentioned Montgomery Ward, later Jefferson Ward. It started in 1872 as a catalog/mail order outfit and expanded into physical stores somewhat similar to Sears and JC Penney.
It wasn’t anything wonderful and often derisively referred to as Monkey Ward’s, but at one time had a focus on store brand merchandise provided by a small set of suppliers. A Ward brand appeared on some surprisingly good quality items, including firearms and appliances.
I can’t find how many stores they had at their peak, but 250 at their demise in 2001.
We had a Service Merchandise as well, and I remember that conveyer belt. That’s what made the place special. They didn’t just bring you stuff from the stockroom in back–any old store could do that–but they sent your purchase to you on a conveyer belt! Oh, what a high tech miracle! Truly, we were living in an age when anything was possible!
The mention of catalogs above made me think of SkyMall. I don’t fly very often, but when I did I always enjoyed passing the time by paging through the SkyMall catalog. I never bought anything, of course, but by gosh some of those wacky products were fun to look at. They still have a website, but I haven’t seen a physical catalog on a plane in several years.
(my bolding)
You’re correct – and chasing down this fact lead to an understanding of just how retail changed between 1980-2000. And it wasn’t simply because of Internet shopping:
The catalog merchant has generally lower prices than other retailers and lower overhead expenses due to the smaller size of store and lack of large showroom space.[1]
There are a few key benefits to this approach. By operating as an in-store catalog sales center, it could be exempt from the “Resale price maintenance” policy of the manufacturers, which can force conventional retailers to charge a minimum sales price to prevent price-cutting competition; it also reduces the risk of merchandise theft, known in the industry as shrinkage.
…
The repeal of the resale price maintenance sanctioning law in 1980 meant that chain discounters such as Wal-Mart and KMart could set and change prices at will, in a more consumer-friendly environment where the customer can examine the goods and confirm availability before approaching sales staff. As a result, this retail sector went into decline in the 1980s. As big box stores and internet shopping became increasingly popular in the 1990s, the decline of the catalog merchant business accelerated.
(my ellipsis)
Back Yard Burger was popular in the Jackson, MS area 20-25 years ago, and there are apparently a few locations still there. The chain was founded in Cleveland, MS in the 1980s. In the early 2000s, Back Yard Burger came close to becoming part of the Yum! Brands coprorate family (KFC, Pizza Hut, Taco Bell, etc.) but the deal was never finalized.
Wikipedia says there are nine BYBs left as of this writing, down from over 30 five years ago. The company emerged from bankruptcy three months ago … we’ll see if they can make a go of it.
The big catalogue store in the UK, Argos, also has seen a downsizing and acquisition (by supermarket chain Sainsbury’s) in the past few decades, with most of its standalone stores closed (but several opening as concessions within Sainsbury’s branches). They’re still going and have an online business as well (which accounts for over half their sales now), but it’s not really viable as a shopfront business in many markets anymore.
Service Merchandise went under in 2002, a little too early to make a full jump to online sales (although they were an early adopter) and unable to compete with businesses like WalMart and Best Buy for housewares and electronics.
I assumed, for whatever reason that Peaches record stores came from Georgia.
Yum! had another hamburger chain called The 39 Cent Hamburger Stand. Their burger was an exact clone of the regular McDonald’s hamburger. Most of their locations were repurposed Wienersnitzels with the A-frame roof.
Since we’ve discussed Service Merchandise, I’ll mention Lechmere as well. They were one of the first electronics and appliance stores to use the “pick what you want and we’ll get it from the back” model. I was a college student in Boston when they were in their prime. They later turned into more of a department store. My earliest handheld calculators and stereo equipment came from Lechmere. Fond memories. If they advertised an item, they had it in stock. I was never disappointed.
I think Lechmere was owned by Montgomery Ward at the end, which is probably the reason it died.
I could’ve sworn that the one time I got to shop at a Peaches it was over Christmas 1990 when we were visiting my grandparents in Richmond, VA.
ETA: As a music fan who still collects physical media, losing virtually every music store around is painful. When I was a teenager, the Rideau Centre in Ottawa had a Sam’s, an A&A and a MusicWorld (same owner), and a Discus (which was taken over by HMV, I think). And department stores still tended to have music sections. Sam’s is mostly gone, A&A is kaput, HMV went under and even in the motherland there are only a handful left, and here in Ontario we’ve basically got Sunrise Records, where the prices are meh and you have to wade through a store full of t-shirts and Funko Pops to get to any actual music.
I remember them but, yeah, they kind of fall under the same umbrella as Venture or Zayre in my mind – places I have some nostalgia for since they existed in my youth but also places that just kinda sold “stuff” so no deep desire to see them come back with my One Wish. To be fair, some of those places might have excelled or been noteworthy for something but I never realized it as a 14 year old wandering around a department store.
The 1981 bankruptcy didn’t immediately shutter all the Peaches locations – eight remained afterwards. The Richmond, VA location apparently lasted until circa 1995-96 (hard to pinpoint, but some indirect evidence).
Along with Service Merchandise and Lechmere I’ll mention the Canadian equivalent, Consumers Distributing. I have fond memories of purchasing watches and electronics there.
But their red pepper relish was excellent!
We referred to them collectively as Bedspreads and Shit. We usually went to BBB though because we usually had a 20% off coupon.
I didn’t realize Peaches Records was a chain. They’re still going strong on Magazine St. in New Orleans, but it looks like it’s the only one left.