The Great Indoors remodels retail redecorating.

IBKf Global Services - BY Dawn Gouldbourn.

Business issue:

The Great Indoors, a new division of Sears, Roebuck & Co., is a breakthrough retail concept for interior decorating and home remodeling. With a limited number of physical stores, The Great indoors needed to deliver it's unique retailing concept to customers nationwide, and at the same time generate significant incremental revenue.

Strategy:

IBM business consultants suggested that the retailer recreate its unique store experience on the Web - to compliment the physical stores. The online operation would give current customers more shopping convenience and would reach thousands more who aren't near one of Its physical stores.

This was no ordinary "bricks to clicks" operation. First, IBM consultants helped The Great Indoors map site elements that complement the physical stores, to give the site the same upscale look and feel as the home decorating stores.

IBM also identified a way to take existing Sears.com processes, infrastructure, legacy systems, and product catalogues and seamlessly create an entirely different online shopping experience.

Finally, an IBM design and implementation team created the greatindoors.com. IBM is also hosting the site on behalf of the Great indoors.

During the engagement IBM consultants identified new opportunities to include in the online Site, such as a realtime inventory system that lets online shoppers know immediately if their selections are available.

Results:

Visitors to thegreatindoors.com browse, by room or category, among more than 10,000 products displayed in detailed vignettes. Vignettes provide a snapshot of how products of life style and color accessorize different parts of the home, such as on the bed, on the wall, on the countertop.

Customers can also visit a design center for a wealth of ideas and solutions. Shoppers use a virtual decorating tool to try more than 600 decorative knobs on kitchen or bath cabinetry or to see how tabtetop items would look in a table setting.

"Prior to designing the Web site, we spoke to thousands of women about what their ideal experience would be," said John Yung, director of thegreatindoors.com, "They told us they wanted an extensive array of top quality merchandise options, the ability to see and evaluate the items clearly, design inspiration and solutions, and an easy-to-navigate site. Our site was built by her, for her.

"As a leader in forward-thinking business and technology, IBM was the perfect collaborator to help us bring the vision to life for our customer."