CHICAGO -- Forget the softer side. Sears is now hoping customers will come see its cyber side.
The nation's largest department store chain Thursday began selling 2,000 major brands and models of appliances over the Internet, becoming the first brick-and-mortar retailer seeking to cash in on the big-ticket items over the Web."Customers are jazzed about the amount of control the Internet affords them -- for both research and buying," said Alice M. Peterson, vice president and general manager of Sears Online. "In essence, they're time-starved and want us to make life simpler for them."
The site -- www.Sears.com -- can walk a user through the various options, including the ability to narrow the search to a particular color, brand or size, check within a price range and determine if a pictured item is on sale. It also provides links to sales of Sears' Craftsman tool line and Part Direct store.
The downside, however, is that the site does not provide independent ranking of products, relying instead on side-by-side comparisons. Customers who buy online also must pay the applicable state sales tax, a federal requirement other online sites do not have because the retailer operates in all 50 states.
Sears' site is four times the size of the next largest competitor, ValueAmerica.com, and the retailer hopes to use its national presence to offer delivery within 24 to 48 hours of an online sale.
The potential for profit is enormous. Forrester Research Inc. of Cambridge, Mass., estimates that by the year 2003, 6 percent of all appliances will be sold online. And the market for such big-ticket items will be $38 billion.
Some analysts have expressed skepticism that Sears will see a large increase in incremental sales from Internet shopping for big-ticket items because many consumers like to examine the product in person.
But Peterson said focus group studies and other research of its earlier offerings found many consumers want to do preliminary fact-finding on a big-ticket item before going into the store to be bothered by sales staff.
"We know that many more purchases currently are influenced by the Internet than are actually consummated," she said. "But this gives consumers the choices they want and helps bring them into our stores to open the doors and turn the knobs on their final selections."