Sears Launches Its Own Black Friday, Targeting Apparel for Deep Discounts

Sears is making its statement about the holidays and fashion is a big part of it.

Sears (SHLD) got a jump on Black Friday this weekend, in fact creating its own in an effort to gain some attention in a holiday season. The Black Friday Now! Doorbusters event was meant to be splashy. Advertising for it featured the company’s top draws, with an email blast, for example, mounting buttons for appliances, tools, and lawn and garden. Also, in an interesting turn, electronics, a segment where any retailer that can is looking for a piece of the Circuit City audience cut lose in the chain’s liquidation a year ago.

Yet, the discounts promoted weren’t especially deep by recession standards. Sears offered its own brand Kenmore appliances at 20 percent off but related brands got only a 10 percent discount. Tools were discounted 10 percent and private label Craftsman lawn, garden and outdoor storage 20 percent. Even electronics, an area that Sears might want to build with bargains, only offered a 24-month no interest deal or 10 percent off, and only on items selling for more than $799.

Yet, below the main offer was something for bargain hunters: apparel.

Sears ran its early Black Friday promotion just after beginning to circulate its “lookbook “ to the press, a volume that details, in its current manifestation, the company’s spring clothing line. Sears has been more seasonally oriented in its promotion of apparel than some other major mass-market retailers, holding events during fashion week in New York to preview the latest looks it plans to stock.

Once, Sears had scores of labels spilling through its apparel section, each with its own particular fashion wrinkle. In recent years, it has reorganized clothing around a few lines and special collections that, at their core, have attempted to balance classic elements with styling that reflects what’s emerging into the market mainstream, or is “trend right” to use the retail parlance. Sears probably won’t challenge its customers’ fashion sense but doesn’t ignore it. In fact, the lookbook reveals that Sear’s fashions lean toward the casual but with enough dressy embellishments to provide them with some finesse.

And, for its month-early Black Friday, Sears is offering its fashions at 50 percent off.

Specifically, Sears offered fleece, coats and sweaters at 50 percent off as well as a range of Toughskins boys, girls, infants and toddlers products. Infant and toddler apparel, regularly $5.98, is on sale at 2 for $10 while girls and boy’s, regularly $7.98, is 2 for $14.

Sears has been working diligently to promote fashion. It acquired Land’s End several years ago. This year, for back to school, the company ran a promotion featuring Selena Gomez from the Disney Channel television series, Wizards of Waverly Place with a fashion element that established a hip context for apparel, with Sears touting the “bold” colors in its skater inspired outfits and the “dark” and “edgy” looks in its rocker styles.

In Ed Lampert’s Chairman’s Letter published back in February – the Sears Honcho’s main, virtually exclusive and somewhat Olympian communications vehicle – the boss touted Land’s End success, asserting that it had enjoyed record profits in 2008 and had successfully added more Sears shops while shifting its business from a focus on catalog to Internet sales. But he admitted that the company has a long way to go in its apparel program. He stated:

We are nowhere near competitive levels of productivity or efficiency in all of our businesses. This is especially true in our apparel businesses at Sears and Kmart. We used business-unit specific competitive benchmarking in our financial and strategic planning for the first time this year. The new organizational structure also allowed us to draw each business unit leader’s attention to the resources that support his or her business from space and marketing to labor and inventory. We must continue to optimize our resource management on a business unit basis and narrow the gap between our productivity and that of our competitors.

Getting a jump on Black Friday and the inevitable Walmart and Costco specials that will be occupying consumers the day after Thanksgiving has to be a good idea as real Black Friday sales will require some serious discounting. And, it’s not even that the discounts on the non-apparel items that Sears offered on its Faux Black Friday were bad. With the memories of 60 percent and 70 percent off deals lingering from last holiday season, though, consumers might not be ready to bust down doors for a 20 percent discount.

Apparel is another matter. If Sears is compelled by circumstances to deeply discount part of its product assortment, apparel makes sense. Those savings may be regarded as an investment in rebuilding a department where the company has fallen behind the competition and really would like to catch back up.
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