Sears.com gets into apparel and home fashions

Sears.com today launched apparel and home fashions sections, building on the expertise it gained from its acquisition of Lands’ End two years ago. "Sears.com had 80 million unique visitors last year and the second most searched for category at the site was apparel and home fashions," says Bill Bass, vice president and general manager of Sears Customer Direct. "This is the culmination of Sears picking up Lands’ End two years ago."

The apparel and home fashions category will include three new functionalities: a virtual model; zoom and color swap for apparel; and a virtual room for home fashions. The virtual model, from Montreal-based My Virtual Model, will allow shoppers to try on apparel from different brands. The My Virtual Model feature at other sites allows shoppers to try only one brand. Sears.com is using Scene7 technology for color swap and zoom.

Working with My Virtual Model, Sears, No. 7 in Internet Retailer’sTop 300 Guide to online retailers, developed the Sears Virtual Decorator that allows shoppers to change bed furnishings, hang pictures on walls, place lamps on bedside tables and even, in a bit of whimsy, place a dog or the cat on the bed.

Even though apparel accounts for a third of sales in Sears stores, this is the first time that apparel has been available at Sears.com. A previous Clothing tab took shoppers to LandsEnd.com or to other specialty catalogs with which Sears had agreements. The apparel section of Sears.com will feature multiple brands, including Lands’ End and Sears house brands Covington, Structure, which Sears acquired from Limited last year, and A Line, an apparel line manufactured for Sears by Jones of New York.

Sears will market the new features with a splash page that will greet visitors at Sears.com starting Monday, signs in stores, taglines in all printed media, mentions in TV ads and through online marketing efforts, including search engine marketing.