The first rule of retail: know your customer. This idea sounds more like Macy’s — without the coupon — than Sears. It’s hardly a game-changer for an irrelevant brand. And what is a “member” in an aging department store chain?

Clothing may be the most difficult category to use as a differentiator … i.e., finding or doing something Amazon doesn’t have or do as Chris suggests. I don’t care what designer you’re talking about, a man’s shirt is a man’s shirt. It’s got buttons down the front, two sleeves and a collar. For the most part the most boring apparel known to man second only to blue suits. In the picture above there’s a plaid shirt over a t-shirt on a mannequin. Boy, I haven’t seen that before! What international designer did that come from?

Unless you’re looking for a $300 dry-clean only shirt woven from virgin llama in the Himalayas by a 98-year-old master tailor, you might as well buy a shirt from the big pile at Costco ’cause you’ll not find anything much different at Sears, Kohl’s, Target, Macy’s, Walmart, Jos. A. Bank, etc.

Now, if you’re talking about “showcasing” Craftsman tools …

So Sears stores become a “mall” featuring specialty apparel boutiques. If these brands can’t stand on their own then I doubt putting them inside Sears Real Estate, where they are immediately tarnished with the Sears umbrella, isn going to help much either.

This is an odd position for Sears. Instead of expanding or better addressing their most successful lines (like tools, appliances, etc.) they are trying to create a new appeal, from a new concept, which will cost more money to promote and gain interest from consumers. Sears has too many basic issues which need addressing including bad stores, out-of-stocks, insufficient employee head count, etc. This only costs more to do and promises no solution to the essential issues which Sears is facing as the department store concept continues to demonstrate it is not the store for future customers.

Interesting idea and might work for some other retailer, but highly unlikely for Sears for all the reasons others have mentioned. This includes the mismatch between the concept and the current Sears customer profile, the likelihood that those who might be interested in the clothes would ever consider shopping in Sears, and their ability to provide a good shopping experience for anyone. My last trip into a Sears location was not untypical of what other have discussed on RetailWire before. Please forgive me for the length of this saga. I went to get a simple filter for a vacuum cleaner used to clean our cars. Once I located it I went to the counter to pay. The only counter that was staffed the clerk was tied up with a customer and it became obvious that this was something that would be continuing for some time. The closest other checkout had one person waiting already. After a few minutes I went back to the first counter and asked if the clerk could ask someone to come… Read more »

While not impossible, it will take some promotional magic for Sears to attract new traffic by offering these barely-known brands. Would BrainTrust-ers who live in those markets kindly keep an eye out for their print ads and newspaper inserts? I’d be curious to see how they introduce “Showcase” to the market.

OK, so if share of customers is a tough road, maybe Sears is aiming first for share of wallet? I don’t know much about current shoppers in the five metro New York locations, but Sears could be betting that the new offerings will persuade them to make incremental purchases and visit more often. I hope they did their research. (Or maybe these pilot locations ARE the research?)

For Sears’ sake, I hope its partner in this venture, SGN Group, has the know how to reach shoppers with the right message and merchandise. Buzz words like “boutique” and “curated collection” will only go so far to inspire acquisitive curiosity.

Well… A very clever idea — leveraging for innovation the opportunity to give consumers access to clothing styles they can’t get any other way. So, on paper, I’ll give them kudos.

In reality? I am also concerned, like Bob Phibbs, that this is off-target for the Sears consumer. This will only be significant if their customers care about it.

Even worse, Sears is down inside a deep canyon. This is a clever idea. But I simply can’t see it being “enough.” They have huge mountains to scale and this sounds more like an 8′ ladder than a path through the mountains.