The Great Indoors and IBM Collaborate to Bring the Innovative Retailer To Life Online

The launch of thegreatindoors.com brings the innovative decorating and remodeling retailer, The Great Indoors®, to life online. The Great Indoors and thegreatindoors.com both offer customers inspirational decorating ideas for the home within stylish room settings or "vignettes." The store and the Web site also offer a wide array of products including everything from the smallest decorative accent to completely new appliances for the kitchen.

Through the collaboration of The Great Indoors and IBM, thegreatindoors.com was developed with many home decorating resources and customer-centric features.

The site offers more than 10,000 product options, detailed, inspiring lifestyle vignettes, top quality product images, and a design center featuring a wealth of ideas and solutions.

"Prior to designing the store and subsequently the Web site, we spoke with thousands of women about their decorating and remodeling adventures and what their ideal experience would be," says John Yung, director of thegreatindoors.com. "They told us they wanted an extensive array of top quality merchandise options, the ability to see and evaluate the items clearly, design inspiration and solutions and an easy-to-navigate site.

"As the leader in forward-thinking technology, IBM was the perfect collaborator to help us bring that vision to life for our customer," says Yung. "Their expertise was very valuable in launching the site."

"It has been a great experience to help build and launch thegreatindoors.com," says Dawn Goulbourn, Project Manager and Lead Producer of IBM Global Services. "It really reflects the store and is a very customer- centric decorating resource."

Customers who are shopping on thegreatindoors.com can browse by room or category and view striking photos of products in settings depicting kitchens, bedrooms, bathrooms and great rooms. Within the lifestyle vignettes, images can be enlarged for close-up assessment, with high-quality photography depicting the fine details of each merchandise item.

The site also features a design center that offers inspiration and ideas with design and project tips and an easy-to-use virtual decorating tool that helps customers select from almost 600 stylish cabinet knobs for the kitchen or bath.

The Great Indoors debuted in 1998, opening its first store in the Denver area. Other stores are located in Scottsdale, Ariz., Detroit and Dallas. The Great Indoors is a unit of Sears, Roebuck and Co. For more information about The Great Indoors, visit http://www.thegreatindoors.com/ .

SOURCE: Sears, Roebuck and Co.

Contact: Kathleen M. Connolly of The Great Indoors, 847-286-4644

Website: http://www.thegreatindoors.com/