The Collapse and Fall of Montgomery WardMontgomery Ward was once one of America's leading retail stores and chains. Montgomery Ward founder Aaron Montgomery Ward was the first in history to publish the first mail order catalog for dry goods, which listed 163 items. What is happening to this company and its great ideas? With this article, I intend to help you realize how important it is to communicate within a company. This company probably would have been more successful and achieved greater greatness if it had better communication with the public. Some general information. Montgomery Award was founded in 1872 and opened its first independent retail store in 1926 in Plymouth, Indiana. Montgomery Ward faced no problems when first introduced, he was successful in everything he did. The mail order catalog was excellent and doing well. By 1883 the company had a 240-page catalog containing listings of 10,000 items in total. This is how the company became big and famous. By 1875, the company was doing so well that it launched the slogan “Satisfaction Guaranteed or Your Money Back.” In 1928, Mr. Ward opened 244 stores nationwide, and by 1929 he owned more than 531. In 1968, Montgomery Ward made major mergers with Container Corporation of America and Mobile Oil Corp. In 1988, they moved away from the mail order business and focused on specialty store strategies. In 1988, management undertook a successful $3.8 billion buyout, making Montgomery Ward a private company, and in 1991 it took over the mail-order catalog business. Then, in 1997, Montgomery Ward filed for CH11 bankruptcy. They cut 450 jobs in national offices, 250 stores and 10 distribution centers in 30 states. The major problem Montgomery Ward faced was an increasingly competitive retail environment and a rapidly changing world where aggressive discounters are forcing traditional operators to radically change or become history. They just couldn't keep up. The communication was completely wrong towards the end, they were not able to give the customers and the buying public what they wanted, a good quality product at a low and fair price. Even if they made money, it wasn't enough. In 1900, they recorded 8.7 million sales but remained behind Sears and Roebuck which generated 10 million sales. Another big reason why Montgomery Ward fell is communication, communication between headquarters and the public..