Sears Wish Book

The Sears Wish Book is a popular Christmas-gift catalog released by Sears Holdings Corporation, annually in August or September. The catalog contains toys and other holiday-related merchandise. The first Sears Wish Book was printed in 1933, [1] and was a separate big-book catalog from the annual Sears Christmas catalog.

Sears, Roebuck & Co.

In 1993, According to the Los Angeles Times, the Sears catalog offered customers around the US a chance to wear “city clothes” throughout its 97-year-history. [2]

In the same year, Sears discontinued publishing their big-book catalogs in the United States and the Wish Book noticeably started to diminish in size. [3] By 2005, Sears had completely abandoned anything resembling the original Wish Book and was producing the 2.5-by-2.5-inch Little Big Wish Book The mini-catalog was given to customers at Sears Auto Centers, placed inside packages that were purchased on Sears.com and Landsend.com, and was included inside the packaging of in-home deliveries.

In 2007, Sears once again created a holiday gift Wish Book called more reminiscent of its predecessor, however, it was still considerably smaller than the original Wish Book at only about 100 pages. This was a stark contrast to the 300-plus page catalog previously produced.[4] According to the Associated Press at that time, the Sears Wish Book was considered as a holiday treat in itself by generations of children who were hoping for the best [5] on Christmas morning.

In the 2007 edition of the catalog, half of the total number of pages was devoted to Christmas toys and the remainder focused on other store items including appliances, tools, clothes and jewelry. [6]

In the 2010 edition, Sears Christmas Wish Book went mobile [7] so customers would be able to access their catalog via smartphone devices.

Sears Canada

In Canada, Sears continues to distribute their big-book catalogues, including the Wish Book.[8] In 2012, Sears Canada chief Calvin McDonald hand-delivered Christmas catalogs [9] to mark the 60th Anniversary of the Sears Wish Book.[10]

Sears Canada launched an iPad app for the 2013 Christmas Wish Book which is currently ranked as the number one free iPad app in Canada in the Catalogue category.[11]

References

  1. ↑ History of the Sears Catalog
  2. ↑ Mourning the passing of Wish Book Era: Retailing: Sear’s Big book was more than a catalogue
  3. ↑ Sear’s Wish Book What Does its passing say about us?
  4. ↑ Todé, Chantal (2007-10-03). "New Sears Wish Book a blast from the past". Direct Marketing News.
  5. ↑ Holiday classic: Sears brings back Wish book
  6. ↑ Sears Wish Book Makes a Return
  7. ↑ Sears Wish Book goes mobile
  8. ↑ http://www.sears.ca/content/merchandising/2010/events/digital-wish/2010?extid=082410_ca_community_en_facebook_WishBookCovers__2010WishBook
  9. ↑ Sears Canada chief hand-delivers Wish Books on old route
  10. ↑ Sears Canada Launches 60th Edition of its Annual Wish Book
  11. ↑ Sears Canada launches its updated shoppable iPad application with the Christmas Wish Book

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