For Lampert, this particular experiment is part of a methodical approach to running the fourth-largest general retailer in the country. Maybe the Cincinnati store will work. If it doesn’t, Lampert will move on, trying and analyzing, desperate to come up with something that will stick. As Lampert fiddles, he’s faced with a bigger, perhaps unfixable problem: Sears and its corporate cousin Kmart, which Lampert also owns, are being done in by competitive threats that even the skills of a man widely considered to be one of the most talented financial minds in American business can’t fend off. His fetish for data is leaving Sears in a paralysis of analysis, and his micromanaging is driving away executives and alienating suppliers. “Eddie doesn’t know what to do. He’s not a merchant. He hasn’t been a retailer. As a result, he tries a bunch of different ideas because he himself doesn’t have a vision,” says a former high-level Sears Holdings executive. “In the absence of a vision, what comes out are multiple ideas being tested. On the one hand, that’s better than nothing. But there comes a time when the time to test runs out, and you have to lock and load with what’s the best answer for the company.” Three years after Lampert bought the company, he still hasn’t found the answer. Luis Padilla, a Target executive who served as Sears’ top buyer for about a year, says, “Eddie had a point of view on retailing, and it doesn’t seem to be coming to fruition.”

Clearly, elderly women hunting for replacement parts aren’t the solution. Sears needs younger shoppers. Upstairs in Cincinnati, two young women have wandered in looking for a down coat. Lori Morsch, a 26-year-old, tells me that the place doesn’t feel like a Sears, a comment that would make Sunderland happy—until he hears the followup. She says it has no appeal to women, adding, “I feel like I’m in a wholesaler.” The store looks, she says, as if it has received a “make-under.” Her friend, 29-year-old Danielle Krull, nods in agreement.

The Warren Buffett of His Generation
Lampert’s creation of Sears Holdings had been the seminal investing coup of the decade and a source of inspiration for a generation of financiers. He took control of Kmart in 2003 as it emerged from bankruptcy protection and, in the face of great skepticism, employed massive cost cutting to make it profitable. Kmart’s stock increased nearly sevenfold between 2003 and 2004, and Lampert used those shares to buy Sears Roebuck, creating a merged retailing giant with 3,800 stores across the country. Under Lampert’s leadership—he’s officially the chairman, and his ESL Investments controls about 47 percent of Sears Holdings—the company’s sales have been trimmed, intentionally, from what would have been a combined $60 billion in 2003 to about $51 billion in 2007. Operating income initially soared, and Sears Holdings paid down debt and bought back stock.