Sears Launches Online Sales Venture
633360
By ANNE D'INNOCENZIO    NEW YORK  -- Sears, Roebuck and Co., which has successfully sold its tools and appliances on the Web, is counting on having the same magic with bedspreads and sweaters, thanks in part to expertise gained by its purchase of Lands' End Inc.    The company's venture into online sales of home furnishings and apparel, which officially launches Monday, may be considered late...
413343
Sears Holdings has taken part of its Managemyhome.com Web site offline following revelations that the site was making customers&#39; purchasing histories publicly available.Sears disabled the site&#39;s &quot;Find your products&quot; section on Friday following criticism from privacy advocates, who said that fraudsters could use information provided by the site to scam Sears customers.&quot;We take our customers&#39; privacy concerns very seriously. As a result, we have turned off the ability to view a customer&#39;s purchase history on Manage My Home until we can implement a validation process that will restrict access by unauthorized third parties,&quot; said Sears spokeswoman Kimberly Freely in an e-mail.&quot;We appreciate the efforts of those who brought the issue to our attention,&quot; she added. Customers with concerns can contact Sears directly at 1-800-803-6775.The feature was supposed to be used by customers who wanted &quot;easy access to useful information about products they have purchased,&quot; she added.Manage My Home is a community portal where Sears shoppers can download product manuals, find product tips, and get home renovation ideas. However, &quot;Find your products&quot; would&#160;return purchase information history on any Sears customer, provided the search included the name, phone number, and address of the person.This was a violation of Sears&#39; own online privacy policy, which does not allow the company to share users&#39; purchase history with the general public, according to Ben Edelman, an assistant professor at Harvard Business School who blogged about the issue on Friday.&quot;It seems like pulling the feature is the right decision at this point,&quot; Edelman said in an interview on Friday. But he warned it was &quot;not immediately obvious&quot; how Sears could bring it back without running into further privacy problems.Sears, the third-largest retailer in the United States, has also been in hot water for its My SHC Community portal, which&#160;downloads invasive ComScore Web tracking software&#160;to some users.Sears has defended its use of the tracking software, pointing out that users are notified of the software&#39;s features before they download it, but researchers such as Edelman have said that the company doesn&#39;t do a good enough job of telling users what the software actually does.According to Edelman, the privacy slip-ups may stem from logistical challenges posed by Sears&#39; 2005 merger with Kmart. &quot;There&#39;s a huge transition there,&quot; he said. &quot;Getting that ship pointed in the right direction could deeply challenge IT. There are a whole lot of ways to do it wrong.&quot;
126616
Ask Houston shoppers about Sears stores and they&#39;re likely to mention their loyalty to Craftsman tools or the smell of old-fashioned popcorn machines, but the takeover announced Wednesday could change things.
133735
Home Depot Inc. (HD.N: Quote, Profile, Research) , looking to expand its share of the home appliance market, said on Tuesday it will begin selling refrigerators and other items online, something
37626
Shoppers visiting HomeDepot.com have been able to search for and view detailed content on home appliances on the site - now, they can order directly from the site as well.
61652
Ed Lampert came out of stealth mode when he announced the acquisition of Sears (S:NYSE - news - research) by Kmart (KMRT:Nasdaq - news - research) Wednesday.
582974
Too busy to sell your junk online? A growing crop of companies will do it for you -- for a healthy cut
506466
HOFFMAN ESTATES, Ill. Hoffman Estates-based Sears, Roebuck and Company has reported a slight increase in October same-store sales today despite continuing weak results in apparel.
557916
SAN FRANCISCO (CBS.MW) -- Home Depot said Tuesday it plans to sell appliances for the home online in a move to expand upon its in-store sales business for such products.
461897
Shoppers will be able to review and rate the merchandise sold on Wal-Mart Stores Incâs Web site beginning on Thursday, as the retailer works to expand its online capabilities.
455955
Home Depot Inc. HD.N, looking to  expand its share of the home appliance market, said on Tuesday  it will begin selling refrigerators, washers, dryers and other  items online.
71484
Electronics retailer Best Buy Co  launched an online service in partnership with video hosting  site Mydeo on Tuesday, through which its customers can store  and share home movies and videos via the Internet.
12892
America Online announced the launch of an online shopping site it says will provide and easy and fast way to compare products from thousands of online merchants.
600141
NEW YORK (CBS.MW) - America Online on Monday unveiled a new service under its inStore brand that offers shoppers the ability to quickly compare features and prices of rival products.
524098
DULLES, Va.  -- America Online announced the launch of an online shopping site it says will provide an easy and fast way to compare products from thousands of online merchants...
767979
Sears Holdings is facing a class-action lawsuit after&#160;making the purchase history of its customers public&#160;on its Managemyhome.com Web site.
473966
America Online announced the launch of an online shopping site it says will provide an easy and fast way to compare products from thousands of online merchants.