I went to the nearby Sears the other day – I know, don’t tell my bosses – and they were just putting the finishing touches on the new Lands’ End concept shop. They pulled together all of th Lands’ End apparrel in the Mens and Misses Departments with new fixtures, graphics, visual elements, and updated merchandising. Beautiful graphics anchored by light wood trimed fixtures with deep blue walls made this area really stand out. The two apparel areas are seperated by the new style of self-service (“open sell”) shoe bunkers that Sears has recently put in (following the lead of Kohls and Target, among others). As a visual merchandiser, I was really impressed – as a consumer, I was really drawn to the area and wanted to shop.
But, looking at Sears from an industry standpoint, I don’t know how well this concept is going to work for them. The downfall is this launch lies within the brand, on two different levels. One, how strong is the Lands’ End brand with consumers today? And two, how does Sears look to brand itself to consumers across the board? There seems to be some disarray within how Sears is being marketed (no clearer sign of this than the recent decision to drop the ‘Essentials’ line of stores and convert them all to ‘Sears Grand’) and what their leverage is with consumers.
When I walked into the area, I felt as if I was in J.Crew. Sleek tables with beautiful presentations of pants and shirts, all wonderfully brought together with accessories and shoes. They are really pushing the entire collection and it looks great. However, walk outside of that area and you are reminded of exactly what Sears has become – a dumping ground for a mish mosh of unattractive clothing and horrible merchandising. Walking away from the Lands’ End shop and there are six-ways of clearance merchandise dragged out to the middle of the aisle. Tables look horrible, racks are all over the place, and the merchandise is just not presented well.
Which is why the true test of this Lands’ End rollout will be in how well the stores are able to keep this up. I was in the store the day that the Corporate team was there, setting this up fresh for the first time. Of course it is going to look great – but will it still look great in two weeks, two months, or two seasons from now? The new visual elements look great but Sears is not a visual company – last I knew, they had no ‘visual merchandiser’ positions in their stores anymore. To my knowledge, it is all up to the departments to do their own. Will they be able to keep up with this? Judging by the way the rest of their stores look, I’m not sure.
At the end of the day, I just don’t think Lands’ End is as strong as it once was and that they are sacraficing floor space from other brands and merchandise assortment that they could be offering. There are a lot of eggs in this basket and for Sears shareholders, I hope it is a gamble that pays off.
I guess there is another note to make with this entry, and that is that I approached this whole entry strictly talking about the apparel end of Sears. I know Sears is not an apparrel retailer – their big money is made in hardware and hardlines. So, with that said, this entry is strictly referencing the apparrel side of Sears.
