The 1943 Sears News Graphic wrote that the Sears catalog, "serves as a mirror of our times, recording for future historians today’s desires, habits, customs, and mode of living."
- In 1896 the first Sears, Roebuck and Co. general catalog was produced, and it guaranteed low prices, money-back guarantees, and free rural delivery, which appealed to farmers.
- Sears customers were mainly from rural areas. Since Sears did a large amount of business in rural areas, the company began calling the catalog the "farmer's friend."
- Country storekeepers were very opposed to the catalogs, because when Sears first published its catalog people were delighted that a company could actually deliver merchandise to people's homes. Country storekeepers lost sales as a result of Sears's policy. Because of these problems, storekeepers began taunting Sears and Roebuck with the nicknames of "Rears and Sore-back" Rural newspapers refused to print Sears's ads.
- Between 1908 and 1940 Sears sold "mail-order homes." The kits were sold with more than thirty thousand parts, including manuals for plastering, plumbing, electrical work, and heating.
- These houses, priced between $2500 and $4650, were the dream houses of most customers of that time, because of the high price of homes in overcrowded cities.
- By 1910 Sears was marketing more than one hundred thousand items through its general catalog and some seventy special catalogs.
- A year later, Sears opened a testing laboratory to insure the quality of materials. This laboratory eventually became known as the "watchdog of the catalog."