https://www.catalogperks.com/categories/catalog-history/Recent content in Catalog History on CatalogPerks.comHugo -- gohugo.ioenCatalogPerks.comSun, 28 Jun 2026 00:00:00 +0000https://www.catalogperks.com/post/sierra-trading-post-catalog-that-became-a-website/Sun, 28 Jun 2026 00:00:00 +0000https://www.catalogperks.com/post/sierra-trading-post-catalog-that-became-a-website/ <h2 id="sierra-trading-post-the-outdoor-catalog-that-became-a-website">Sierra Trading Post: The Outdoor Catalog That Became a Website</h2> <p>In December 1986, a husband-and-wife team mailed a 16-page hand-drawn catalog from a 500-square-foot office in Reno, Nevada to 100,000 strangers and waited to see who would call. The merchandise was discounted outdoor gear — brand overruns, closeouts, and surplus lots sold at a fraction of the original retail price. That catalog was the beginning of Sierra Trading Post, which over the following three decades grew into one of the most recognizable names in off-price outdoor retail, printed nearly 60 million catalogs a year at its peak, and was eventually acquired by TJX Companies in 2012 for roughly $200 million. Today, operating under the shortened name Sierra with 145 locations across the country, the model is no longer primarily a catalog business — but the deep-discount outdoor gear DNA that launched it from that Reno warehouse in 1986 remains intact. For a value-minded shopper, that heritage translates directly into opportunity at the cashback layer.</p>https://www.catalogperks.com/post/what-happened-to-the-sears-catalog/Sat, 27 Jun 2026 00:00:00 +0000https://www.catalogperks.com/post/what-happened-to-the-sears-catalog/ <h2 id="what-happened-to-the-sears-catalog-and-how-to-earn-today">What Happened to the Sears Catalog? (And How to Earn Today)</h2> <p>For most of the twentieth century, the Sears catalog was the way a large portion of American households shopped. Not browsed — shopped. Farm families in Iowa thumbed through its pages for work boots and seed planters. Suburban households in the 1960s ordered appliances from it. Children in December circled toy pages with red pens. At its peak the Sears Big Book ran to more than 1,000 pages, listed over 100,000 items, and was printed in quantities that rivaled the most widely distributed publications in the country. When Sears discontinued it on January 25, 1993, the company quietly closed a 105-year chapter in American retail history — one that began not with furniture or appliances but with a single-product mailer for watches.</p>