Company profile
- Industry
- Department store retail
- Headquarters
- Hoffman Estates, United States
- Ownership
- Owned by Transformco
Profiles are auto-generated and infrequently updated.
Decisions on record
3 verified Decision Records on Sears, and the casebook each one belongs to.
| Fork date | Decision type | The story | Casebook |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1981 | Adjacency Expansion | Read the story → | Adjacency Expansion Casebook → |
| 1981 | The Cross-Subsidy | Read the story → | The Cross-Subsidy Casebook → |
| 1993 | The Counterfactual | Read the story → | The Counterfactual Casebook → |
Run one of these yourself
The decisions Sears faced, as kits you can run.
Each pack takes one of these decisions and gives you the framework, a deck for the room, a model that resolves to one number, and the sourced cases behind it. $499, one-time.
Growth & PortfolioThe Adjacency ExpansionWhen does the business next door belong to you?See the pack →Decision ForksThe Road Not TakenWhat did the decision you did not take actually cost?See the pack →Business ModelThe Cross-SubsidyWhich unit pays for the others, and has anybody ever approved it?See the pack →
The analyses
The Over-Extension · Growth & Portfolio
Sears Built a Brilliant Financial Empire. It Just Forgot It Was Running a Store.
In 1981 Sears bet on financial services and was right - the acquisitions added ~$400M in shareholder wealth and birthed Discover. While management ran the new empire, category-killers gutted the store that paid for it all.
8 min
The Adjacency Expansion · Growth & Portfolio
Sears' 1981 Leap Into Finance Was a Retreat With a Press Release
In 1981 Sears built the largest financial-services firm in America — Dean Witter, Coldwell Banker, soon Discover. The board called the stores a 'cash cow' to milk. The expansion read like ambition. It was a retreat with a press release.
8 min
The Counterfactual · Decision Forks
Sears Killed a $3.3B Catalog and Tore Out the Data Its 1984 Head Start Needed
Sears co-founded an online shopping service in 1984 and sold tools on the web in 1997 - years ahead of Amazon's reach. Then in 1993 it killed a catalog still pulling $3.3B a year, and tore out the customer data and logistics that head-start needed to compound.
8 min
The Cross-Subsidy · Business Model
Sears Put a Stockbroker Inside the Store in 1981 — and Sold It Back Out by 1993
In 1981 Sears bought Dean Witter and Coldwell Banker to sell stocks and homes beside the socks and tools. The plan was cross-selling, not cross-subsidy — and four years in, the combined financial centers in 312 stores were still unprofitable. Sears announced the retreat in 1992 and spun the units out over three years.
8 min
The Founder Doctrine · People & Control
Eddie Lampert's $1.9B in Fees Left Him Up $1.4 Billion as Sears Died
Everyone says Lampert lost billions running Sears into the ground. The numbers say otherwise: factor in ~$1.9B in performance fees and his net position was a gain of roughly $1.4 billion — even as shareholders were wiped out and the stores closed.
8 min