Despite Amazon’s undisputed centrality in the contemporary digital economy, a close look at its core business model reveals it to be surprisingly conventional. Before the invention of e-commerce, mail-order catalog companies such as Sears, Roebuck had accustomed American consumers to purchasing goods sight unseen from vendors with whom they communicated solely via information technology. Like Amazon, Sears, Roebuck neither manufactured goods nor owned inventory but functioned solely as information intermediary.
Excerpt from:
How Sears and Standard Oil paved the way for the age of Amazon