Kmart.com Vies with BlueLight.com
Kmart’s Web store, BlueLight.com, is testing whether more people would access the site under the Web address Kmart.com, according to a company spokesman. “We’re testing to see what kind of response we get from consumers,” says Kmart spokesman Dave Karraker. “It does not mean that a permanent change of the URL is imminent.”
Since February 24, the company has quietly been posting the new Web address to the bottom of Kmart television advertisements. People visiting Kmart.com are being directed to BlueLight’s Web store. The company can monitor how many people use each URL, Karraker says.
BlueLight began a major restructuring last spring that included a management shake-up and the merging of much of the Web store’s operations into Kmart’s. The name BlueLight was chosen to differentiate it from the brick-and-mortar store, Karraker says. Executives wanted to sell goods on the site not offered at Kmart and position it as an independent company, with the intention of someday filing for an initial public offering.
Moderator Comment: Should BlueLight.com be renamed
Kmart.com?
As we understand it, the original decision to name the
e-commerce site Blue Light was largely due to the many negative associations
that consumers have with the Kmart brand name. Perhaps, in light of all its
other problems, Kmart would be better off just pulling the plug on its e-tail
experiment until it gets the bricks and mortar side of the business in order.
[George
Anderson – Moderator]