According to Gary Hoover, McCombs’ entrepreneur-in-residence, retailing has a certain mystery about it. While it is known as being hard work, low profit and intensely competitive, the industry has spawned some of the world’s largest companies and greatest fortunes. How can this be, in an industry which does not require highly technical expertise or advanced degrees, and that is not generally protected by patents and trade secrets?

Hoover spoke about the history of the retail industry as part of his Story of Enterprise lecture series March 31 at the AT&T Executive Education and Conference Center.

Retailing is one of the world’s largest and most important service industries, and as such should be a great source of learning how to innovate in the burgeoning global service economy, Hoover says.

Many think that the greatest retailer of all time was Sam Walton. But even a cursory examination of the historical evolution of retailing leads us to understand that the basic ideas underlying Wal-mart – and most of the world’s other major retailers – are rooted deep in the late 19th and early 20th century. Patterns set by John Wanamaker, Richard Sears, Frank W. Woolworth and James Cash Penney led the way.

In his talk, Hoover leads the audience visually through the major innovations of retailing, the people who dreamed them up and executed them and their role in shaping American life and retail practices around the globe.

On Wednesday, June 9, he will give another talk: Punch Cards to PCs: The Rise of the Computer Industry, at 6:30 p.m. in the AT&T Executive Education and Conference Center.

Ringing Registers was the 4th in a series of talks by Hoover:
Lessons from Detroit -The Rise of the Big Three U.S. Automakers
The Story of Enterprise: The Airline Industry Flying High
How a Handful of Immigrants Created the Movie Industry