Don’t Want To Be Depressed By Walking Into Sears? Retailer Now Trying Curbside Pick-Up

Over the last few years, a number of former Sears customers have said that one of the reasons they no longer shop at the once-great department store is that it’s just depressing to walk around inside the store and see empty shelves, run-down conditions, and disarray. How can Sears fix that? By keeping customers in their cars!

Perhaps taking its cue from last year’s ad in which Sears admitted that it’s only value is available parking, the new curbside order pick-up procedure seems to work a lot like Sears’ current 5-minute guarantee for in-store pick-ups, though it requires the use of a mobile app, rather than just waiting in line at a counter.

You place the order online, select the curbside option after you checkout. Your supposed to give Sears some specifics about your car — make, model, color — so it can identify your car. The service is free to Shop Your Way members.

When you arrive at the store to get your order, you pull into one of the reserved parking spots for in-car pick-up customers and check in using the Sears Shop Your Way app on your smartphone. This starts the 5-minute countdown clock.

Before that timer hits zero, a Sears employee is supposed to have your order in your car and get you on your way. If the store fails to meet that deadline, then the customer is entitled to a $5 coupon.

Let’s just hope that Sears employees don’t try to manipulate this 5-minute guarantee by stopping the clock prematurely. In 2012, a Consumerist reader put rumors of clock-manipulation to the test and the results were not pretty.

[via Washington Post]

by Chris Morran via Consumerist