Personal Shoppers at Sears: The Elf Iniciative

For the 2006 holiday Shopping season (Christmas and new year), Sears Canada was
going to offer the services of an Elf Equivalent of a personal shopper to customers
in its full line department stores.
60 to 70 per cent of Christmas shoppers at Sears shopped at its stores only
during the Christmas season, not during the rest of the year.
70 per cent of women in Canada shopped for gifts up to a year before the
holidays. 13 per cent are men.
34 per cent of Canadians began their holiday shopping one month before
Christmas: 40 per cent of men began 14 days before.
10 per cent of Canadians avoided shopping during holiday season.
A department store is widely perceived as the best place to shop, particularly for gifts,
but often customers feel intimidated. They postpone shopping until the last moment;
theyre, as result, stressed while shopping and could, therefore, do with some help. Its a
business opportunity for sears
Holiday Shoppers: The Keener, the Gambler, the Slacker and the Avoider
(Exhibit 1)

Personal Shoppers

They had been operating in Canada for some time, but on a limited basis at
higher-end stores.
More widespread in the United States
The provide customers with a level of individual attention and service beyond
what retail associates would normally offer. SHOPPING EXPERIENCE
They could have a positive effect on the brand and help to dra traffic to the store.
Mission: to re-energize the shopping routine, making it more enjoyable, while
saving time for the customers.
Some personal shoppers specialized and became experts in a particular area.

The Elves
Elves at Sears were chosen from among 9.000 associates, currently employed at the
full-line department stores. After a rigorous process of selection and training, they
identified aprox. 1000 associates as Elves.
Customers looking for an Elf in a Sears Store could find one at a Wish Station, that
would be easy to locate within the store. From there, they will help at: looking for
complementary merchandise and matching the customer needs to products across
departments; and even move consumers through the entire sales process, including
finalizing the sale and accepting payment.
Before entering the store, customers could call ahead and have Elves set aside
recommended products or even complete a purchase and have the merchandise ready
for pick up.
Sears was committed to ensuring that the program provided customers with a superior
level of service and a more enjoyable shopping experience. The elves represent the best
among Sears associates, with a track record of excellence in identifying customers
needs and wants, and achieving sales goals.
Sears saw the selection of Elves and their ongoing education as the two factors that
would be critical for a successful program, making a significant investment in human

capital for the Elf program: 114.000 incremental hours had been budgeted to staff the
program.

Building customer loyalty in a competitive retail market

The Elf program represents the beginning of a new service with no charge to the
customer. The new strategy was motivated by a number of factors:
On December, the number of transactions at Sears doubles the average of the
other 11 months of the year, attracting new and existing customers. However,
this was not as strong as the company would like it to be.
Sears had redefined merchandising as its core business in 2005. It aimed to be a
more focused, efficient and profitable retailer with the divested of its Credit and
Financial Services operations to JPMorgan Chase Bank.
Sears in Canada, as a mid-level player, was competing with discounters such as
Walmart at one end and specialty retailers at one end. It was also competing with
local department stores, such as Canadian Tire.
Sears had embarked on a long-term productivity drive aimed at attaining a cost
structure that could compete with the best of Canadian retailers. This drive was
expected to generate pre-tax annualized savings in the order of $100 million.
The average sales per hour were expected to be considerably higher than $231
per Elf.
Sears Canada was committed to recharge various product categories with
continuous investments. These areas were considered destinations categories
in which the company had established an authority position with customers. The
introduction of Elves fit well in this strategy
Sears has four types of full-line department stores: Core Plus, Core, Satellite and Small,
classified on the basis of sales, volume, store size, location and market demographics.
They have a new store format, with an easy to shop environment and exceptional
customer service.
According to Yvette Corriveau-McGee, manager of Workforce Development: To win,
we have to astound them with products and services that exceed their expectations. The
introduction of Elves is consistent with the objective of providing a high-quality
customer service at the stores, resulting in very satisfied customers that are likely to
shop at Sears again and more likely to recommend Sears to others. For Sears, Customer
Experience is a key retail value proposition.

The Canadian retailing industry

The retail locations in Canada provided more than 11 per cent of all jobs in every
community across the country, and representing Canadas second largest labor force.
The Canadian retail market was competitive. Existing players and new entrants were
both fighting aggressively for market share. Sears was facing competition from not only
the traditional full- line department stores, but also from ever-expanding big-box stores,
specialty retailers and online merchants. The company competitors ranged from WalMart to Best-Buy and Home Depot Canada.

Sears Canada
Established in 1953 as an equal partnership between Sears Roebuck, Co. of Chicago and
Robert Simpson, a mail-order company in Toronto, Sears Canada had been a major
player in the evolution of the Canadian retail. It had a presence in all Canadian
provinces and territories, with a Sears location within 10-minute drive from 93% of
Canadians.
Vision statement: Sears is committed to improving the lives of our customers by
providing quality services, products and solutions that earn their trust and build lifetime
relationships
Merchandising
The companys merchandising strategy was fourfold: recharging destination business,
improving category productivity and probability, securing strategic sourcing and
delivering Sears Value
The full-line department stores, featuring national brands, were located primarily in
suburban enclosed shopping centers. Their merchandise consisted on two broad
categories in nearly equal proportions: home and hard lines; and apparel and
accessories. Many of the stores leased space to other business, such as optical centers
and photo studios.
Retail Channels
The company had a multi-channel distribution model, known ad Click, call or come
in, consisting of the net, catalogue and retail stores respectively. The elf program was
limited to the retail channel and, specifically, to the full-line department stores within it.
The day-to-day objective at the store level was to maximize the stores productivity and
profitability.

Support Initiatives
Prior to the Elf program, Sears Canada had taken several steps to increase both the
attractiveness of its stores and demand for its products; now these individual initiatives
were being included under the umbrella of the Elf program and aimed at enhancing the
overall in-store experience.
They relaunched its website, in partnership with Amazon, to offer a more userfriendly interface; their advertising was modified to be simpler, easy to
understand and focused on compelling offers.
They were also working towards a reduction in the frequency of out-of-stock
situations and product returns.
Sears has launched five specialogues smaller and more seasonally relevant
catalogues.
They has also launched Operation Wish, a partnership between Sears Canada
and the Canadian Armed Forces, to offer its catalogue (with a special discount)
to Canadian soldiers serving overseas.
Pricing at Sears was built around its Value Strategy. The focus was on solutions
for the customers, providing easy to understand product benefits and features.
Adopted current trends in retailing: Each Elf carries a mobile point-of-sale
device that would scan the material, print out the bill and even accept payment.
In addition, when the Elves were away from their desks, they would be available
to customers through an on-call pager system.

The big issues

Important issues still need to resolved:
What else should be measured and monitored as a part of the Elf program?
Could the momentum be maintained over time?
Would Elves lose focus as the novelty wore off?
How could the freshness of the program be retained in the months and year to
come?
Could the Elves play a role in the different types of stores?
How could the Elf program ensure customer buy-in?