Montgomery Ward invented American mail-order retail. Aaron Ward started in 1872 with about $1,600 and a single printed sheet mailed to rural farmers, cutting out the local middlemen who marked prices up. Adding a money-back guarantee in 1875 — a radical idea at the time — earned the trust of customers across the Midwest. By the 1930s it was among the largest retailers in the country, and its thick catalogues were fixtures in farmhouses everywhere.
The decline set in after the Second World War, when CEO Sewell Avery sat on the company’s cash, convinced a depression was imminent, while Sears built stores across the new suburbs. Ward never caught up. It filed Chapter 11 in 1997, emerged under GE Capital in 1999, and still could not compete with Walmart and Target. On 28 December 2000 it announced it would close for good; by June 2001, 129 years of business had been liquidated.
Worth remembering
- In 1944 US Army soldiers physically carried CEO Sewell Avery out of company offices during a wartime labour dispute; the photograph of him being lifted from his chair ran on front pages nationwide.
- Ward's 1872 catalogue was a single printed sheet of 163 items; by 1913 it ran to hundreds of pages and the company was taking in around $40 million a year.
Sources
- Montgomery Ward pioneered the mail-order model, introduced a money-back satisfaction guarantee in 1875, and grew to about $40 million in annual sales by 1913. Encyclopaedia Britannica
- The company filed Chapter 11 in 1997, emerged under GE Capital in 1999, then announced closure on 28 December 2000 and liquidated by June 2001 with 37,000 job losses. Wikipedia
- Post-war CEO Sewell Avery refused to open new stores, hoarding cash for a depression that never came, letting Sears take prime shopping-centre locations. Wikipedia
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