Richard Sears hired Alvah C. Roebuck, shown here around 1890, as a watch repairman for his first company, the R. W.
Sears Watch Company. PHOTO: ©BETTMANN/CORBIS
Despite increasing competition from other watch companies and the difficulty of obtaining watches at prices that allowed him to undercut his competition, Sears’ advertising copy, his willingness to send watches on approval with only a small deposit, and his guaran- tee of satisfaction kept orders pouring in. Within a year, business was so good that Roebuck was working seven days a week with eight additional watch repairmen operating under his supervision. Late in 1888, the R. W. Sears Watch Company opened a branch office in Toronto, Canada, and that same year, the company began advertis- ing watches and jewelry by catalog.
In spite of his company’s success, Richard Sears soon became restless and decided to sell the R. W. Sears Watch Company (except for the Toronto branch, which he sold to Alvah Roebuck) to a Chicago business concern for $72,000 (about $1.7 million in today’s dollars). Afterward, he bought a farm in Iowa and retired. Soon, however, the lure of the business world drew the ambitious Sears back to Chicago, where he founded a new business in 1889 called Henry Hoverson and Company. (The sale of his former com- pany prohibited him from going into business under the Sears name for three years.) Before the year was out, he had moved back to Minneapolis and started yet another new watch company called the Warren Company. In 1891, after some success with this company, which also sold watches by catalog, he sold the company to Roebuck and retired again.
After only a week in retirement, however, Sears once again decided to reenter the business world and persuaded Roebuck to give him a one-half interest in the Warren Company, which was now called A. C. Roebuck. Before long, Sears managed to gain owner- ship of two thirds of the business on the promise that he would invest more capital (a promise Roebuck claimed he never kept).
T H E E L K S M A G A Z I N E 67
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