George Washington Eaton III

Death of the Big Book George Washington Eaton III

In Death of the Big Book, the author offers his memoir and perspective on a thirty three career with the Sears catalog division that highlights the actions taken that closed its 1,400 page general catalog (Big Book) and virtually abandoned a $4 billion catalog business with 2,300 selling units spread throughout America and a distribution network envied by the industry. The author describes how a retail philosophy minimized Catalog's contribution to the corporate coffers and failed to recognize its valuable synergism with the company's retail stores. By dismantling its catalog business, Sears lost its dominance in catalog marketing and failed to recognize the internet market's enormous potential that would be captured by Amazon.