Sears testing new store format that emphasizes online sales

Sears Holdings Corp. Chairman Edward Lampert told shareholders that the company is testing a store format that relies on sales over the Internet, part of a new emphasis on online revenue.

The new model, called Mygofer, opened last week in a converted Kmart store near Sears’s headquarters and allows shoppers to order online and pick up items in-store or via drive-through, Lampert said. He also said credit markets appear to be improving and the department-store chain will have “more than enough access” to financing.

“We want to make sure we don’t become irrelevant,” Lampert said Monday at the company’s annual meeting at its headquarters in suburban Chicago. Sears can improve even in a deteriorating economy, he said.

Sears, the largest U.S. department-store chain, will mainly focus on improving its existing business and continue to look at potential acquisitions, he said. In the stores, it’s adding national brands such as Adidas and 75 new Lands’ End in-store shops to the more than 200 it has now.

While online sales won’t outpace traditional stores, they are a way to gauge shoppers’ experiences and influence customers and purchases, he said after the meeting.

Lampert reorganized the company into five units including online sales and brands in January 2008. Sears, founded as a catalog company 121 years ago, has expanded its Internet presence, including the introduction of a home-improvement site called ServiceLive.com this year.

“They are getting an enormous amount of traffic online,” Richard Hastings, a Charlotte-based consumer strategist for Global Hunter Securities LLC, said in an April 30 telephone interview. Sears.com had 15.1 million unique visitors in March, ranking just below Best Buy Co.’s 15.6 million, according to his research.

Shares of Sears advanced 4.3 percent to $62.85 in Monday trading. The stock has gained 62 percent this year.