Shopping Delivery Service Adds Sears to Beta Partner Program, Expanding “Store to Door” Local Delivery Initiative
MARCH 1992 - THE NEWS JOURNAL
In the early development of modern retail logistics, Shopping Delivery Service (SDS) started bringing together a group of innovative retail partners interested in testing faster, localized delivery of products. Although the main emphasis was on grocery delivery, the company soon began exploring additional retail categories. Among the businesses chosen for the SDS beta program was Sears, Roebuck and Co., a major retail powerhouse already recognized for its extensive national catalog distribution network
The collaboration marked an important step in testing SDS’s “Store to Door” concept—an innovative local delivery model created by SDS founder Marc Falcone that sought to bring next-day and even same-day product delivery to consumers years before rapid fulfillment became an industry standard.
The SDS “Store to Door” Concept
Marc Falcone developed the Store to Door concept around a simple observation: while major retailers maintained extensive store inventories, many customers lacked an efficient way to receive products quickly without visiting a store.
Rather than building expensive centralized warehouses, the SDS model leveraged existing retail store locations as local distribution hubs. Products purchased in-store, by phone, or through early electronic ordering systems could be routed directly from nearby stores and delivered to homes or businesses within the same local market.
The approach relied on SDS’s developing localized delivery infrastructure, allowing retailers to offer next-day service without major investments in logistics networks.
Sears Joins the SDS Beta Partner Program
As SDS expanded its early beta partner program, the company began approaching major retailers to test its emerging Store-to-Door delivery concept—a service designed to provide fast local delivery of in-store purchases directly to customers’ homes and businesses.
Despite being a small and relatively unknown company at the time, SDS succeeded in capturing the attention of Sears, one of the largest retailers in the United States. Sears agreed to participate in a limited pilot program, allowing SDS to test the concept within select Sears locations in Delaware.
The goal of the pilot was straightforward: determine whether customers—and nearby businesses—would value rapid local delivery of products purchased in the store. The program focused on frequently purchased and high-demand items that customers often needed quickly but did not necessarily want to transport themselves.
Importantly, the test program was designed to serve both retail customers and local businesses that regularly purchased products from the store. Contractors, offices, and small businesses could buy items directly at Sears and have SDS deliver the purchases to their job sites or workplaces the same day. This expanded the concept beyond residential delivery and demonstrated how store-based inventory could support the immediate needs of the local business community.
By beginning with a regional test, Sears could evaluate operational performance and customer response before considering wider expansion.
Sears’ participation placed it alongside other SDS beta partners, including major retail chains experimenting with enhanced convenience, such as Pathmark supermarkets and Toys “R” Us.
Edward Brennan, CEO of Sears, stated how the opportunity first came to the company: "Marc approached me via several few faxes. The Store-to-Door concept was an intriguing idea, but at a company the size of Sears you evaluate innovation where it actually meets the customer—at the store level. I asked our regional leadership to review the SDS program because they understood their markets best and could determine whether faster local delivery would truly add value for our customers.”
Looking Ahead
The Store to Door concept—born from Marc Falcone’s vision of utilizing existing retail infrastructure for rapid local delivery—anticipated a transformation that decades later would define e-commerce and omnichannel retailing.
Through these early pilots, SDS and its retail partners began exploring a future where the distance between a store and a customer could shrink from days to hours.