You can call to obtain by phone any product that is available in the stores. It looks like retail, but it acts like direct. The customer does not know that they are ordering from a catalog. They think that they are calling a retail store with the teleshopping number. Sears customers are capitalizing on the convenience of the system.
People call the number and then pick up their products at the retail store.
In teleshopping Sears has had double digit growth in its first 15 months. The incremental sales from Teleshopping are equivalent to putting out a new catalog and sending it to 5 million households. The cost, however, has been virtually nil. This is what comes through organizational integration of catalog and retail. But the database and the reorganization have not stopped at integrating catalogs with retail.