Personal Shoppers at Sears

By
Pooja Gadhdhyan: 09FT-124
Shashi Ranjan Kumar: 09FT-143
Sidhdharth Sehgal: 09FT-151
Pratik Tibrewal: 09FT-162
Varun Sethi 09FT-170
Vipul Gupta: 09FT-176
Sears – The Canadian Giant
Estd. 1953 – player in the evolution of Canadian retail

1973 – became a $1 bn firm

2005 - Sourced goods from more than 3000 suppliers

2006 – was within 10 minutes’ drive reach of 93% Canadians and sales
of more than $ 6 bn

Vision:
“Sears is committed to improving the lives of our customers by providing
them quality service, products and solutions that earn their trust and
build lifetime relationships”
Sears
Convenience of a one stop
shop

70% of women shopped

for gifts upto a year before
the holidays

Research encouraged
SEARS to segment holiday
shoppers into categories
Sears – Internal Research
Customers feel intimidated by

Size of the store

 Variety of merchandise

Volume of traffic
The Elves
Idea of Internal Research
Personnel Shoppers
Widespread in the US
Basic idea to provide customers with a level of
individual attention
Add to the ambience
Positive effect on the brand
Help to draw traffic
New level of interactivity
Best in business salespersons
‘Wish Station’
Easy to locate within store location
Elves were trained to move the consumers through the
entire sales process
Elves were compensated by the hour
Aim to increase the average transaction value and
overall sales volume
Other Support Initiatives
Re launched its website in partnership with Amazon
Broader assortment in women’s apparel
Specialized merchandise shops for men’s wear
Reducing the out of stock situations
Expanded its electronic assortment for the young
generation
Value Strategy - Offering everyday value for a major
value of its product offerings
Other initiatives
No self check outs
Tallying prices
Packing merchandise
Transferred to customers

No Price detectors were available on the shelves

Elves would carry detectors and could be called from
anywhere in the shop using an on call pager with each
Elf.
Canadian Retailing Industry
Competition from the biggies and the traditional full line
stores

More than 220,400 retail stores across Canada providing 11%

of total job opportunities in 2004

 Valued at $ 366 bn in 2006

Sales from general Merchandise stores were about $ 46.5 bn

Desperate Need for differentiation

Metrics
Sales /sq ft
Sales /hour/associate
Traffic count
Number of transactions
Average transaction size
Challenges
How to stay relevant even after the novelty wore out ?

Sales varied by store size, merchandise & location

 Core Category
 Satellite
 Small Category
Increasing Customer Buy-in
Loss of valuable resources from stores, as Elves would
be generalists
Recommendations
 An optional permanent personal buying assistant for the loyal customers
which will help in personalizing the whole experience
During Christmas, Specialized customer assistance should be retained
apart from Generalist customer assistance
An Electronic feedback system should be in place so as to record buyer
preferences more accurately
A loyalty program should be in place for the loyal customers
During Christmas, they should run programs that induce repeat buying
with validity for 3-9 months
They have to bring in new initiatives to create buzz and be in the news,
for example:
 Various social initiatives
 Recruit jobless women and train them to become a permanent personal
buying assistant, thus empowering them in the process
Thank You