Sears As An iMac Retailer

could easily out perform Best Buy and maybe even CompUSA. Not because it has more stores but because of the generally greater care taken at the point of sale by Sears employees, especially if Sears makes the effort to train them that Best Buy did not. Sears is not really the old stodgy retailer that most big city folks see but a vibrant and growing enterprise that will open 17 new stores in 1999, many of which are in small town America like many of Sears established stores. The data presented by Steve Jobs in his WWDC keynote address shows that one-third of all iMac owners in the US are first time computer buyers, for nearly 90 percent of iMac owners, the iMac is their primary internet connection and for nearly 80 per cent the iMac was their first home internet connection. These are demographics consistent with Sears customers. Here's Sears 1998 Annual Report At A Glance for those interested in looking further. Sears describes itself as "...845 full-line stores, averaging 86,000 selling square feet, located primarily in the best malls in the nation...." [Dana Baggett]