Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, May 28, 1993 TAG: 9305280214
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: A1 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: SANDRA BROWN KELLY STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Blinds and ladies' slacks were among the few items still available when the Sears Telecatalog Center in Roanoke took the final phone orders from the Sears "big book."
Thus ended a 107-year-old piece of Americana that began in 1886 when Richard Sears of North Redwood, Minn., started selling jewelry.
No more orders shipped to the Montana woman who lives 100 miles from the nearest town. No more bulk purchases of boys' white shirts and navy slacks by the parochial school families in New York.
No more plaid jackets for retired Roanoke Mayor Noel Taylor.
Taylor placed the first order to the Roanoke center around 11 a.m. July 15, 1988.
"It was a splashy plaid," said Frank Scherrep, a customer service manager. "I remember it was on sale, and he said, `Praise the Lord.'"
Taylor, a minister, still has the coat.
Beginning this morning, callers to the national order number, 1-800-366-3000, will get a recording telling them the catalog is no more and referring them to a customer service number.
The 800 or so permanent workers who remain at the center will field customers' questions on the new number, 1-800-758-8449, for three weeks.
Seven hundred temporary employees hired to help stage the "Sale of the Century" to liquidate catalog items had to turn in their identification badges by Thursday.
In the final days, only about 20 percent of the items in the 1,600-page catalog still were available.
But the center was answering 45,000 or so calls a day.
At one point in the afternoon, 344 calls came in simultaneously; 137 had to be put on hold.
As they waited, customers heard a message that the catalog was sold out of "computers, telephones, cameras, jewelry and all video games, including Nintendo."
Also gone, like most of the merchandise, are some of the photographs from the center's "Perfect Attendance 1992" bulletin board. Workers took their pictures when they left for other jobs.
Many colors of balloons bobbed above desks in the center on Thirlane Drive Northwest as staff tried to make the end as festive as possible.
The workers have faced the finish since January, when Sears, Roebuck and Co. said its U.S. catalog business had after-tax losses ranging from $135 million to $175 million in each year since 1990.
The restructuring that included the elimination of the large catalog is expected to cut 50,000 jobs and save the company about $300 million a year.
By Thursday, all 11 telecatalog centers had closed or been converted to service centers except in Mobile, Ala., and Roanoke. Mobile stopped taking calls early in the evening to make Roanoke the last center.
But, today there are no more "Roanokies."
"That's the name corporate pinned on us when we kept beating the other centers at everything," Scherrep said.
But Scherrep, and many of the center's other workers, still haven't been beaten.
They said they hope the operation can be sold intact to another company.
by CNB