Portrait of a Pioneer

Lesson learned: Clearly, customer loyalty was important to Sears. The company wanted its shoppers to enjoy the Sears catalog experience and then continue buying more products up and down the price-point scale.

• Free trial and free sample offers: Sears used free trial offers for items such as cream separators and horse clipping machines to help assure wary customers that the products truly would match the descriptions and drawings in the catalog. Sears also offered free swatches for apparel, wallpaper and carpets.