• Chicago Tribune, Wednesday, May 5, 2010 10:31 AM

In five years, Sears will be unrecognizable to what it was three decades ago "to some people," chairman and majority stockholder Edward Lampert said at the company's annual meeting yesterday. Those people are presumably those who have not been paying attention to recent moves such as an expanded push online, where it offers many items not available in its stores, as well as its plans to sell its exclusive brands outside of its stores.

"When I think of the great brands of the world, Apple and Nike both operate stores and sell to third parties," Lampert said. "Their focus is, how do we expand our customer base? I believe that the Craftsman and Kenmore customer is much broader than the Sears customer."

The billionaire also created an "Eddie's grocery list" of milk, Kleenex and allergy pills, Sandra M. Jones reports, and bought the goods online at Kmart's MyGofer in-store pickup service. He showed the audience how to do it themselves with an iPhone.

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