Sears starts selling vacations
The retailer's site, which launches Wednesday, even lets you put your trip on layaway.
Sears Holdings (SHLD) has quietly been moving into the online space, and this week adds another piece to that puzzle with a new vacations site that lets customers put their trip on layaway.The new site, SearsVacations.com, kicks off Wednesday by offering 100 vacations for less than $399. Some of those vacations include three-day cruises to the Bahamas on Carnival Cruise Lines, a three-night stay in Honolulu or a two-night stay at a Napa Valley spa.
Customers will be able to reserve a vacation and pay the cost gradually, or buy a pre-paid vacation package that can be financed with payment installments, reports the Chicago Tribune.
Sears has been on a technology kick as its traditional retail store sales have lagged. In April, it started selling data-crunching services to other companies under the MetaScale name. The service searches for patterns in customer purchases and other sources to get more information about shoppers. Sears used its own service to discover that its customers who buy jewelry also have a tendency to buy tools, The Wall Street Journal reported.
Sears shares were up nearly 5% Tuesday afternoon to $54.14.
Two experts discuss where Sears is headed in the following video.
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In entering the online travel space, Sears will compete directly with sites like Expedia (EXPE), which now books one out of every 20 hotel-room nights in the U.S., reports The Seattle Times. Expedia gets one out of every 10 rooms in New York and Las Vegas.
But while Expedia and other sites focus on booking hotel rooms, SearsVacations seems to be targeting customers seeking a broader vacation package. For example, it sells a New Orleans hotel stay plus a cooking class and lunch for $349. It sells one night at a San Diego hotel plus breakfast and two tickets to a San Diego Padres game for $199.
The site has some similarities to Costco's (COST) travel site, which also emphasizes package deals. Tuesday, Costco offered a four-night stay at a Dominican Republic all-inclusive resort for $349 a person.
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