Sears Expands Local Marketplace for Merchants

Merchants in the New York City, Washington D.C., Boston and Chicago areas will have an opportunity to sell products through Sears.com's Local Marketplace, the retailer has announced. Partners in the program will have the ability to offer customers same-day or next-day pickup on items ordered from their own storefront locations, Sears or K-mart locations, or even through home delivery.

Sears has added a new tab to its Web page that gives shoppers quick access to information on products that are available for local delivery or pick-up. The tab lets visitors classify the urgency of the products they're looking for with "Now", "Later today", "Tomorrow" or "Anytime" designations, and then directs the shoppers to enter their zip codes to find out which of those items are available locally. Consumers can already find food and groceries, beauty products, baby and kids items and pet supplies in the Local Marketplace, and Sears anticipates adding more categories in the future.

Sears is adding all new retailers in its traditional marketplace to the local program. Those new retailers must only designate verifiable pick-up locations and provide accurate product inventory data before Sears adds those products to the Local Marketplace.