After having much success selling a small order of watches he had come across while working as a telegrapher, Sears entered the merchandising business full time and devoted his business to rural, relatively poor farmers. Though Sears was known for his lack of organization and his tendency to embellish with advertisements in the infamous Sears, Roebuck catalogs, his company was a huge success, its sales growing from $300,000 in 1893 to over $10 million in 1900.