Hoffman Estates, LI, May 31, 2006—Sears today announced significant enhancements to sears.com in response to wide-ranging research designed to enrich customers' online shopping experience and build lifetime relationships with frequent visitors to the site and Sears stores.
Sears customers will now be able to redeem gift cards for purchases on Sears.com, which was one of the most frequently requested features in the customer survey. In addition, three important new product categories are being added to sears.com as its capacity and selection continue to expand:
-- Customers can now search and buy tires on sears.com, in addition to DieHard batteries and a full range of automotive accessories already available on Sears' web site. In addition, after a very successful test, shoes for the entire family will now be available on sears.com, bringing an enormously popular online category to customers' fingertips.
-- Home health care and wellness products, a critically important consideration for many customers whose ability to get to their local Sears store is constrained, also are being added to sears.com.
Instructed by customer input, Sears also is placing innovative technology within reach of more and more customers who use sears.com as a research tool before making final shopping decisions. Simplified techniques include enabling online visitors to determine how products are displayed, easy reference to recently viewed products, as well as category integration to make site navigation more intuitive.
"Everything we do starts and ends with the customer," said Chris Shimojima, vice president and general manager of Customer Direct for Sears Holdings Corp. "Our changes to sears.com are a result of our listening to our customers' feedback and designing new features to improve their online shopping experience."
Sears is the top online retailer in appliance sales, lawn and garden and fitness equipment, as well as a leader in multi-channel integration.
Sears has been a multi-channel retailer for more than 100 years, first through catalogs and stores, and now incorporating the increasingly popular online channel. In addition to researching and buying products, customers can schedule home service repair calls, order replacement parts for home appliances, cars and other products, access Sears' gift registry or manage their Sears credit account.
