Sears, Kmart Make a Play for Last-minute Buys
With retail clocks ticking down to Christmas Eve and with the East Coast digging out of a record-shattering weekend snowstorm, Sears Holdings’ merchant brands Sears, Roebuck and Kmart are working overtime to drum up holiday sales and customer engagement online, via social media and in stores.
Visitors to the Sears Web site who are still shopping for holiday gifts can make use of the Sears Gift Finder to generate ideas for their friends and family. Users give Sears permission to e-mail an invitation to their selected friends to take an online quiz answer to such questions as “What do you most like to do on the weekend?”
The potential gift recipients then choose five favorites from a list of as many as 18 gift suggestions. That list is then sent out to the first Web visitor in need of holiday shopping help, and they can either purchase the items online for delivery or buy and reserve them for in-store pickup.
On the Sears Roebuck Facebook page visitors can use an app to send virtual gifts to their Facebook friends, including a big-screen TV, a game console, a winter wardrobe and diamond earrings. If they agree to submit their e-mail address and if the gift is accepted by their friend, the sender will then receive one entry into a sweepstakes that could earn then a real-life version of that gift. Facebook members who don’t volunteer their e-mail address can still send the virtual gifts but won’t be eligible for the drawing
Facebook recipients can also be entered into the drawing for every virtual gift they accept from their friends. Entries are limited to 50 a day from gifts sent and another 50 a day from gifts received. The Facebook Virtual Gift Sweepstakes launched on November 27 and will close entries on December 28, with the prize drawing on or around January 5, 2010. Grand prizes will consist of four Sony Bravia 52-inch big screen sets, awarded to two pairs of senders and recipients. Secondary prizes include Craftsman tool sets, Sears gift cards, Apple iPod Touch devices, and Kenmore stand mixers.
Finally, for those who would rather get out of the house while doing their last-minute buying, Kmart has announced that 352 of its U.S. stores will stay open for 62 consecutive hours, from 6 a.m local time this morning through 10 p.m. local time on December 24. Shoppers can find a list of the stores with extended shopping hours, scattered across 18 states, on the Web.
