• by Sarah Mahoney  @mahoney_sarah, May 13, 2016

Sears, mired in one of the retailing industry’s longest-running decline dramas, is showing new evidence of a pulse. The company is building its first new store in more than 10 years, and it’s even a new idea: Instead of 138,000 square feet of marked-down soft goods, it’s a compact 10,000 square feet, packed with nothing but appliances.

Located in Fort Collins, Colo., the store uses plenty of digital thinking, including an interactive display called “Kitchen Creator,” which lets shoppers experiment with appliance selections on a tablet, then see them on the 122-inch display. Offerings include refrigerators, dishwashers, washers, dryers, ranges, wall ovens, and vacuums. It features 10 brands, including its own private-label Kenmore.

Scheduled to open next week, the store will include expert advice from associates and ship-to-store options, including in-vehicle pickup, which means an associate will even load the appliance in your car for you.

Both the Hoffman Estates, Ill.-based retailer its Kmart division have been languishing for years, under the leadership of CEO Edward S. Lampert.

Sears is scheduled to release quarterly results later this month. But in its most recent results, Sears' same-store sales dropped 7.2% and Kmart’s fell 6.9%, which actually represented an improvement from the previous three quarters. Losses deepened to $580 million. Last month, it said it would close 10 more Sears stores, and 68 Kmarts.

But home appliance sales are its strong suit, and have been showing sales gains. And appliance sales across all retailers have been improving, with JC Penney recently announcing it was getting back into the business, after a more than 30-year absence. Euromonitor says volume sales of appliances in the U.S. gained 2% in 2015, with major appliances up 4%. That translates to some 60 million major appliances and $38.4 billion in sales.