Evan Schuman's StorefrontBacktalk

Before he offered the unsolicited advice for Amazon, Lampert penned an unusual claim: that Sears and its 20th Century catalogue business is essentially the father of E-Commerce. It's a bit of a stretch, but he makes a legitimate point.

"Sears has a long legacy in serving customers beyond physical stores. In many respects, The Sears Catalog was the 20th Century model for selling products through the mail," Lampert said, with the suggestion being that selling-through-the-mail is essentially what E-Commerce is. "To be successful, Sears had to earn the trust of its customers who purchased products sight unseen and who had to feel confident that they would receive what they purchased and, if they were not satisfied, they would be able to get their money back."Read more...

Kroger nearly scraped the bottom of the barrel during the comparison, landing in the eighth place from the bottom of Sitemorse's list with a yawn-inspiring average response time of almost 1.5 seconds. How bad is that speed. "The general view of Sitemorse is that anything more than 250 milliseconds—a quarter of a second—is failing," a Sitemorse statement said.Read more...

The secret to the most successful mobile sites is pure simplicity, the lesson that Google's homepage tried teaching the industry. For example, I often find that Amazon's mobile app beats—with many seconds to spare—my much higher powered desktop riding over the same broadband connection looking at Amazon's Web site, so the idea that it would come out on top is not surprising. Making this accomplishment even more impressive, according to Gomez, is that—in general—chains' mobile site page load averages are more than "50 percent slower than the average response times" of those same chains' traditional Web sites.Read more...

This is the latest in a series of high-tech blunders from the 123-year-old $47 billion 3,900-store chain. Is this because of the chain's size or, more likely, because it has been pushing the envelope on what it's trying to do technologically, perhaps beyond its testing limits.Read more...

At its simplest, the technique is quite easy to do, which is why it's best to be avoided. The site visitor simply modifies the URL of the page he's visiting. If the stars align, the retailer's server will cache that page, grabbing the rewritten page heading with it. The next consumer that comes along and seeks that page will likely be shown the modified page.Read more...

We point to this delightful story in Consumer Reports' The Consumerist site, where a frustrated consumer unsuccessfully tried to buy a pair of air conditioners from Sears. The point of this for us, though, is that consumer placed the order on the phone—dealing with a Sears call center—and yet he was being charged a couple of hundred extra dollars because of fine print on Sears.com. But given that the order was placed on the phone and that the call center rep mentioned nothing about the consumer being expected to go online to read a lengthy "anything we do wrong is not our fault" document, it seems something that Sears can not reasonably enforce.Read more...

It's not a coincidence that, for the last couple of years, Sears has been at the forefront of several major technologies, almost all of which resonant overwhelmingly with Gen Y, including social networking, mobile and companion shopping. These include being the first retailer to support 2-D barcodes, a new approach called a GiveTogether gifting program and a GPS-based mobile commerce application.Read more...

The FTC said the highly intrusive application would "monitor consumers’ online secure sessions–including sessions on third parties’ Web sites–and collect information transmitted in those sessions, such as the contents of shopping carts, online bank statements, drug prescription records, video rental records, library borrowing histories, and the sender, recipient, subject, and size for web-based E-mails. The software would also track some computer activities that were not related to the Internet."Read more...

The Federal Trade Commission has conducted an investigation of certain acts and
practices of Sears Holdings Management Corporation (“proposed respondent”). Proposed
respondent, having been represented by counsel, is willing to enter into an agreement containing
a consent order resolving the allegations contained in the attached draft complaint. Therefore,
IT IS HEREBY AGREED by and between Sears Holdings Management Corporation,
by its duly authorized officer, and counsel for the Federal Trade Commission that:

1. Proposed respondent Sears Holdings Management Corporation is a Delaware corporation
with its principal office or place of business at 3333 Beverly Road, Hoffman Estates, IL 60179.

2. Proposed respondent admits all the jurisdictional facts set forth in the draft complaint.

3. Proposed respondent waives:
A. Any further procedural steps;
B. The requirement that the Commission’s decision contain a statement of findings
of fact and conclusions of law; and
C. All rights to seek judicial review or otherwise to challenge or contest the validity
of the order entered pursuant to this agreement.

4. This agreement shall not become part of the public record of the proceeding unless and
until it is accepted by the Commission. If this agreement is accepted by the Commission, it,
together with the draft complaint, will be placed on the public record for a period of thirty (30)
days and information about it publicly released. The Commission thereafter may either
withdraw its acceptance of this agreement and so notify proposed respondent, in which event it
will take such action as it may consider appropriate, or issue and serve its complaint (in such
form as the circumstances may require) and decision in disposition of the proceeding.

5. This agreement is for settlement purposes only and does not constitute an admission by
proposed respondent that the law has been violated as alleged in the draft complaint, …

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
FEDERAL TRADE COMMISSION
COMMISSIONERS: Jon Leibowitz, Chairman
Pamela Jones Harbour
William E. Kovacic
J. Thomas Rosch
__________________________________________

In the Matter of

SEARS HOLDINGS MANAGEMENT CORPORATION,

COMPLAINT

The Federal Trade Commission, having reason to believe that Sears Holdings
Management Corporation, a corporation, has violated the provisions of the Federal Trade
Commission Act, and it appearing to the Commission that this proceeding is in the public
interest, alleges:

1. Respondent Sears Holdings Management Corporation (“respondent” or “SHMC”) is a
Delaware corporation with its principal office or place of business at 3333 Beverly Road,
Hoffman Estates, Illinois 60179. SHMC, a subsidiary of Sears Holdings Corporation (“SHC”)
with shares owned by Sears, Roebuck and Co. and Kmart Management Corporation, handles
marketing operations for the Sears Roebuck and Kmart retail stores, and operates the sears.com
and kmart.com retail Internet websites.

2. The acts and practices of respondent, as alleged herein, have been in or affecting
commerce, as “commerce” is defined in Section 4 of the Federal Trade Commission Act.

3. From on or about April 2007 through on or about January 2008, SHMC disseminated or
caused to be disseminated via the Internet a software application for consumers to download and
install onto their computers (the “Application”). The Application was created, developed, and
managed for respondent by a third party in connection with SHMC’s “My SHC Community”
market research program.

4. The Application, when installed, runs in the background at all times on consumers’
computers and transmits tracked information, including nearly all of the Internet behavior that
occurs on those computers, to servers maintained on behalf of respondent. Information collected
and transmitted includes: web browsing, filling shopping baskets, transacting business during
secure sessions, completing online application forms, checking online accounts, and, through
select header information, use of web-based email and …

Sears opened in May its MyGofer trial store, a drive-through approach for picking up merchandise purchased online. But preliminary reviews have been unhappy, with TheStreet.com calling it “a bad cross between Amazon and Dairy Barn.” A prominent Chicago retail consultant questioned why consumers wouldn’t simply pick up their online products at an existing Sears store.

“That’s where it totally breaks down for me. Why would I change my behavior to go here?” asked Mara Devitt, a partner at Chicago-based McMillan Doolittle, who also complained about the quality of the site that is connected with the new venture. “It’s the most frustrating Web experience,” she said, citing as an example that it offered no product dimensions.…

To be clear, the credit- and debit-card data sharing that Sears is accused of sharing happened between Sept. 9, 1995, and June 22, 2001, long before PCI even existed. But such a thing could never happen today, in our PCI-compliant environment, right? Think again, Breach Boy.Read more...

Sears.com is quietly getting into the social networking space. Well, not quite. Sears’ effort, done under the MySears.com banner and claiming more than 200,000 registered users, is more of a combo FAQ, suggestion box and interactive customer service site. This is a critical distinction because of a social site is one where the consumers dictate the topics and the exchanges. A retail giant landlord can quietly observe and follow where customers go or it can try and lead.

This BrandWeek piece details the Sears effort and it also brings up the teen-focused Wal-Mart effort from a few years ago, called The Hub. Bentonville pulled the plug on that site in barely 10 weeks. But it was only last year that Starbucks launched its own customer site, although it was pretty much limited to “telling Starbucks what it can do to get more of your money.” It’s sort of like a death row program, where condemned inmates can ride lifecycle machines to generate enough power to run the electric chair.…

With an eye on group buying—whether it’s 20 people in an office buying a birthday gift or 9 farflung residents chipping in on an anniversary trip or even a Boy Scout Troop—Sears.com on Tuesday (May 5) introduced Givetogether. The program allows for gift givers to use credit cards or other means to pool resources for a combined purchase.

Despite being the great-great-grandpappy of the Big Box chains, Sears has consistently been ahead of the curve with creativity in E-Commerce, mobile commerce and cross-channel thinking. Unlike many of the E-Commerce ideas we’re hearing from the largest chains these days, this development isn’t the proverbial solution in search of a problem. This is an actual awkward issue that consumers have today that the Web can help with. …

The ability to use GPS to deliver geolocation features for mobile commerce is one of the feature-rich capabilities that scares away even the most lion-hearted E-Commerce execs. The ability to tailor offerings to a consumer’s precise location is powerful, but so too are the paranoia fears of letting a consumer know just how much you know about them. Sears has opted to try to make it feel a little safer.

When the mobile app is launched (Sears is first pushing it for Apple’s iPhone, apparently on the premise that anyone who would shell out that kind of money for an AT&T phone is probably clueless as to where they are most of the time), consumers are given the choice of typing in their Zip Codes or letting the phone’s GPS system find them. If the consumer selects for the phone to find her, it’s presumably going to feel less freaky. “The app then customizes the shopping experience, showcasing geographically relevant products, such as local sports teams apparel, the closest stores to where the shopper is at that moment, and even current weather conditions,” said an Internet Retailer story. “Shoppers can search Sears products, browse by category, review current coupons and perform other tasks as they would on the Sears e-commerce site.” …

Given that it has one of the oldest names in retail, it’s impressive how Sears is repeatedly on the cutting edge of technology. ServiceLive, introduced this month, is another good example why. Instead of trying to sell products directly, it tries to connect homeowners with contractors and takes a cut of the action.

Here’s how the Sears-described process works: Users review and select pre-screened service providers in their area and then describe a repair or improvement project in detail, including the price they want to pay and their desired appointment time. The project is then routed to selected providers after the user uploads funds to his or her ServiceLive account. The first provider to accept the terms electronically wins the project.…

Kasbe, who spent more than 10 years in a retail practice at IBM before becoming the CIO at Reliance, is replacing former Sears CIO Karen Austin, who has been named to the newly created position of president of home electronics at Sears. Read more...

Beyond the advantage of being able to physically shop without having to take a shower, there are some tactical reasons for Sears' plan to convert one of its Illinois stores into what it is calling a "MyGofer Store." Read more...

Sears and OfficeMax join TJX and McDonald's as having settled—or agreed to settle—their roles by agreeing to license the technology from Card Activation Technologies.Read more...

Sears.com was "completely offline," said Shawn White, director of operations at site performance monitoring company Keynote Systems. "And if anybody made it through without getting redirected (to a placeholder page that said the site was experiencing load-related difficulties), their experience would have just been horrendously slow. Slow to the point they would have walked away." Read more...

When Sears rolled out its mobile effort (Sears2go) this month, it illustrated the challenges for a retailer trying to craft a clean and stable mobile strategy at a time of extreme flux for the mobile space.

In a sense, the first decision on mobile a retail chain needs to make is the cellphone’s equivalent of the age-old buy-versus-build debate. Do you take your full-fledged E-Commerce site and strip out almost all of the images and the most sophisticated functionality until it’s barely one step ahead of pure ASCII? Or do you add an extensive layer—most likely outsourced—that tries to interpret and translate queries and responses from your full Web site into something a smartphone can handle? Read more.…

A lot of retailers have been tinkering with the idea of using virtual online worlds as a marketing tool, but there haven’t been many major retailers committing to the strategy, with the possible exception of Circuit City. As major chains are doubling up their focus on computer-savvy young consumers, though, other major chains are finding their aversion to avatars giving in to their adoration of avarice.

Sears, Kohl’s and J.C. Penny are the latest chains to try selling clothes in popular teen virtual worlds, allowing users to purchase apparel for online avatars. The retailers are teaming up with avatar sites and animating actual apparel lines that teens and tweens can place on their avatar characters, according to this Wall Street Journal piece. …

Sears is in a fascinating online position. On the one hand, the $50 billion 3,800-store-chain says its online numbers are soaring, with the number of unique visitors in February 2008 reportedly rising 20 percent in that month. But Sears.com has also run into quite a few speedbumps. Read more...

The Web world defies prediction—or does it? Conventional wisdom would have the new up-and-coming retailers faring better online, while the old-style bigbox merchants lag behind. And yet, Starbucks has had far more online troubles than it should have while Sears, according to this intriguing Chicago Tribune feature, is soaring online.

The number of people who visited Sears.com and Kmart .com at least once in February—an industry metric known as unique visitors—rose 20 percent, to 14.7 million, from the same period last year. That makes Sears’ Web business the second-fastest-growing site among mass merchants in 2007. Sears clearly has some serious challenges, but go tell that to the company’s Web people.…

The new interim CEO, Bruce Johnson, came up through the KMart side of the business and he had gone to KMart from French retail empire Carrefour, where he had been director, organization and systems and a member of the management board. Before that, he spent 16 years at Colgate-Palmolive and had worked as a management consultant at Booz Allen & Hamilton and Arthur Andersen & Company.Read more...