Today Sears announced the launch of a “new footwear experience” at sears.com/shoes.  It’s worth checking out as yet another example of a mainstream, multichannel retailer embracing what we’ve been calling the assembled web, both in terms of the convergence of content, community and commerce and in terms of the widely decentralized and distributed nature of the experience, which crosses sears.com, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and Vimeo (full list of links in the press release).

The release describes it as though it were a microsite or independent website (“the newly launched Sears.com Shoe Experience Website”)  but it’s really a section embedded in sears.com, including persistent left nav, toolbox, and and top bar which lets you navigate across Sears properties:

Sears.com/shoes (click for full size)

The focus is on four main categories of shoe: fashion, work, athletic, and kids. For each there are blog posts, Q & A, videos, and other content. Fashion shoes get look books too.

Throughout the site, featured products are available in carousel-style widgets, and in blog posts there are direct links to specific products being recommended by the blogger:

Featured Products Widget

The videos are embeddable and shareable, letting Sears.com users who may also be bloggers pull through content to their own sites.

I also like the humor (and good SEO keyword food) at the bottom of the page:

Welcome to the bottom of the shoes page. We have just two words for you: scroll up. We don’t want you to miss all the great men’s, women’s and kids’ shoes we offer. And we want to make sure you find what you need. We’ve got it all–dress shoes, casual shoes, work boots and athletic shoes, and even toning shoes/fitness walkers with curvy bottoms. We carry a wide selection of brands, including Adidas, Asics, Buster Brown, Carter’s, Caterpillar, Converse, DieHard, Dockers, Dr. Scholl’s, Fila, Keds, LA Gear, New Balance, OshKosh, Red Wing, Reebok, Skechers, Timberland Pro and Wolverine. Our fashion brands include SM New York, Mia Amore, Trend Report, I Love Comfort, Coconuts by Matisse, Inspired by Caparros, Restricted, 2 Lips Too and Lovely People. And right now we’ve got lots of great shoes and sandals for spring and summer. If you’re in a hurry, just enter the kind of shoes you’re looking for in the “What are you shopping for?” box below. If not, scroll up, take a look around and let us know what you think.

This manages to list all the keywords for which they’d like organic placement but also winks at the idea rather than trying to do it straight-faced.

Like Nordstrom, in their recent redesign effort, Sears also isn’t just changing look & feel but also adding useful services customers want. As described in the press release:

In addition to great content and brands, sears.com/shoes also offers the unique Personal Shoe Shopper program. The Personal Shoe Shopper allows customers who need help finding that perfect shoe to submit a photo of their dress or outfit, with their style preference, to the Personal Shoe Shopper. Within 24 hours, customers will receive a selection of personally selected shoes to complement their outfit.

I haven’t tried this part yet (my outfits are honestly fairly boring), but I assume that selection of shoes will come with links for purchasing them at Sears.com (maybe even as a shoppable wishlist?).

Now if only I needed some new shoes . . .