Eaton's

“They made so much money that the government told them that they were too profitable.”

“Sales had exploded from twenty-two million in nineteen-oh-seven to one hundred and forty-one million in nineteen-twenty. The catalog alone brought in sixty million. They owned 60% of the entire country's department store sales.”

“Timothy Eaton built trust through consistency. Jack Eaton would build an empire through theater.”

“Need an entire house? Eaton's would ship you every single board and nail and window with instructions, and everything came with that revolutionary guarantee, goods satisfactory, or money refunded.”

“The family had fallen into a trap that still snares successful companies. They started serving customers like themselves, wealthy ones, forgetting that their wealth had come from serving everyone else.”

“At times of year when the catalog was being released, there was coordination between Eaton's and the postal service to employ more delivery people and schedule more trains to fulfill the expected demand.”

“While competitors embraced bank cards in the 19 fifties, Eaton's clung to their own system until 1981.”

“The giant that once owned 60% of Canadian retail had shriveled to less than 10%.”