• by Sarah Mahoney , November 1, 2006

In an effort to wrap its arms around busy moms this holiday season, Sears Holdings officially launches a new online shopping site today called Ready Set Holiday.

The site, at www.readysetholiday.com (and also available as a choice from the main Sears.com and Kmart.com sites), is a first for Sears Holdings because it cross-promotes merchandise across its properties. Gift suggestions are provided from Sears and Kmart, while brands such as Lands' End apparel, Craftsman tools and Joe Boxer are showcased. The site also provides tools like e-cards and a holiday planner.

Ready Set Holiday also steers users to services that aren't top-of-mind for most holiday shoppers. Thanksgiving is at your house this year? There are direct links to Sears carpet cleaning services, or a product installation team to get that plasma TV set up before the big game. Leaving town? Follow the links to get your tires replaced before you hit the road.

The site also creates a community, inviting moms to vent about Christmas movies they hate and discuss whether they need to buy their hair stylist a gift, as well as swap gift and product ideas. A separate KidZone offers online games and activities for kids.

"The whole idea of social shopping, and the use of consumer created content in terms of reviews, has been shown to drive sales and help retailers get better exposure in search engines," says Patti Freeman Evans, an analyst with Jupiter Research. She says Jupiter has found that consumers who value reviews are likely to spend more time on such sites, and to return products less frequently, which makes them more profitable.

While the idea isn't new, Evans said online retailers are returning to social models, because "they've got a new ability to harness that information. But we haven't seen any evidence that social shopping sites drive incremental business, and we'll get a better sense of that in the year ahead."

Sears, of course, isn't the only retailer gussying itself up for the holidays: Wal-Mart, the third most visited retailer on the web, after eBay and Amazon, according to Evans, last week launched a major overhaul of its Web site.

Forrester Research predicts that fourth-quarter online spending should reach $27 billion, up 23 percent over last year. Jupiter Research is more bullish, predicting online holiday sales--which include the full months of November and December--of $32 billion, an 18 percent gain over last year.