Sears's defining moves.
The defining strategic moves at Sears — each one explained and grounded in the record.
The Counterfactual · Decision Forks
Sears Didn't Miss E-Commerce. It Demolished the Machine That Could Have Won It.
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 Adjacency Expansion · Growth & Expansion
Sears Didn't Diversify Into Finance. It Was Quietly Abandoning Retail.
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