Sears, Roebuck is looking to grow home-goods sales by adding stores away from malls as shoppers flock to new retail centers.

That off-mall strategy includes more dealer stores located in smaller, rural markets, and home appliance showrooms in big cities.

Sears has about 860 dealer stores and 24 appliance showrooms, in addition to its more than 900 traditional mall-based stores. This year, the retailer is adding 75 dealer outlets and about 50 appliance showrooms, said Steve Titus, vice president of Sears Dealer Stores, in an interview.

The Hoffman Estates, Illinois, retailer is the top-selling U.S. appliance chain but has seen its dominance challenged as home-improvement stores such as Home Depot and Lowe’s expand their offerings.

Now, as Home Depot and Lowe’s cut their store growth in the slowing U.S. economy, Sears Holdings is looking to grow key businesses in hopes of benefiting when conditions improve.

The appliance showrooms (pictured), which include as much as 5,000 square feet, are located in high-traffic retail strips that also include other big-box stores such as Target.

Sears is hoping the appliance showrooms, which are currently in Minneapolis, Dallas, Houston, Atlanta and some other big cities, will help fill the gaps in areas not served by its mall stores or existing dealer stores.

“If we pull this off right, it could really help us grow our appliance business,” Titus said.

The dealer stores are locally owned and operated. Owners pay rent and expenses and Sears provides the products and pays a commission for selling them.

Even in the slow economy, “we have several hundreds of people requesting ownership of these stores right now,” Titus said.

Photo/Sears

Home Depot is hoping that Joey Logano, the new face of its NASCAR sponsorship beginning next year, will prove just as popular and profitable for the company as his predecessor, Tony Stewart.

The home improvement retailer has signed on to a multiyear deal with Joe Gibbs Racing under which it’ll continue to sponsor the Nascar Sprint Cup No. 20 Toyota. Driver Logano, just 18 years old, will be replacing Stewart, who is leaving Joe Gibbs at the end of this season to become an owner and driver with Stewart-Haas Racing.

Logano (pictured) has a tough act to follow. Stewart, who has steered the Home Depot No. 20 Toyota since 1999, has won two NASCAR Cup Series championships and prevailed in more than 30 NASCAR races.

“Tony was an exceptional driver that had a lot of fan loyalty and created a lot of excitement among the customer base,” said Home Depot Chief Marketing Officer Frank Bifulco.

He’s confident that Logano is up to the challenge.

“Joey is a driver with capability and poise beyond his years,” Bifulco said. “We have a lot of optimism and confidence that Joey will prove himself on the track.”

Logano will drive a special No. 02 Home Depot car in three races this year, including an appearance this weekend at New Hampshire Motor Speedway. He’ll have the No. 20 Home Depot car all to himself next season.

(Photo courtesy of Home Depot)

Check out some positive signs for home improvement stores?
 
Goldman Sachs raised its rating on Lowe’s to “buy” from “neutral,” citing, in part, stabilization in the housing market.
 
“Stabilization” might be a stretch. But Goldman noted that home sales fell 15.5 percent in July, following a 17.9 percent decline in June. The drop was the smallest since July 2007 and marked the fifth consecutive monthly improvement.
 
The tumbling U.S. housing market has clobbered both Lowe’s and Home Depot, so any signs that the worst might be over could be a good thing for those companies.
 
Relatively calm hurricane seasons in the last two years have also hurt the retailers, Credit-Suisse analyst Gary Balter said.
 
Both retailers historically receive bumps from hurricanes, with Katrina, Rita and Wilma in 2005 “having a measurable impact not just on near term sales trends but on rebuilding for nearly one year past the hurricane event,” he said in a research note.
 
Gustav, Hanna, Ike, Josephine and what is currently a tropical depression could lift sales for Lowe’s and Home Depot, he said,
 
“Among natural disasters, hurricanes rank as the most sales impactful because unlike major winter storms, earthquakes or tornadoes, they are predictable providing a sales lift on both sides of the event,” Balter wrote.
 
He did note that both companies keep prices and margins low during natural disasters, but the impact of rebuilding still works its way to the bottom line.
 
Also in the basket:
 
Apparel insiders fear death by “safe” fashion
 
Onward buys Jil Sander owner
 
Back-to-school is looking like a flop (N.Y. Post)

 (Photo: Reuters)

Home improvement consumers have spoken, and their choice of top retailer might surprise you.

Ace Hardware, the hardware cooperative with 4,600 stores, ranked highest in home improvement customer satisfaction for the second straight year, according to a J.D. Power and Associates study.

The 2008 study, conducted in March and April, tracked satisfaction with merchandise, price, sales staff, sales/promotions and store facility. Findings are based on responses from 9,770 consumers who bought a home improvement product or service within the past year.

Illinois-based Ace scored 791 points out of a possible 1,000 and rated high on sales staff and store facility measures.

Lowe’s came in second with a score of 784, followed by privately held Menards at 779. True Value, another cooperative, rated 774 on the satisfaction index. Home Depot, the biggest home improvement retailer, had a score of 753 and trailed Sears, which scored 767.

Lowe’s stood out for its merchandise, while Menards got high marks on price and promotions, the information services company said.

“Home Depot ranks lowest overall in our study primarily in its performance in the sales staff and store facility categories,” said Dale Haines, senior director of the retail and construction practice at J.D. Power.

Shareholders of Home Depot complained at last week’s annual meeting that finding goods on store shelves and workers to help customers was difficult. The company responded by saying it has stepped up store maintenance and hired electricians and other skilled staff.

As consumers pressed by higher gasoline and food prices spend less, service can be a key factor in determining where they’ll shop. “Retailers who are competing for that shrinking source of revenue can differentiate themselves by focusing on providing superior levels of customer service,” Haines said.

Meanwhile, Lowe’s told its shareholders on Friday that it was confident that it will rack up market share gains this year even as the slumping U.S. housing market continues to pressure sales.

“In a tough environment, great companies look for opportunities to strengthen their business,” Lowe’s Chairman Robert Niblock said.

(Photos: Ace Hardware and Lowe’s)

Check out fewer places to sip that latte or buy that power saw.

Late on Wednesday, Starbucks said it would slash U.S. coffee store openings through 2011 as it adjusts to slower U.S. growth.

The coffee giant blamed the domestic housing crisis for a significant quarter-over-quarter deterioration in U.S. customer traffic and said it saw early signs of a potential traffic slowdown in the United Kingdom, which may be related to economic problems there.

“Starbucks coffee and premium coffee experience has, over time, been an affordable luxury.  And at this time, it isn’t for some people,” Chief Executive Howard Schultz said.

Then on Thursday morning, Home Depot said it plans to close 15 underperforming stores and will curb future store openings. 

Home Depot said it will no longer pursue the opening of about 50 stores that had been in its new-store pipeline. New store spending will be cut by about $1 billion over the next three years, it said.

Announcements of store opening slowdowns or store closures are nothing new this year. Retailers’ growth plans, designed during a consumer spending boom, are being squashed by the consumer spending slowdown.

In fact, it’s not even the first time we’ve heard from Starbucks. In January, the coffee chain said it would close 100 underperforming U.S. stores and slow domestic store openings in the face of a likely consumer recession.

Also in the basket:

Clorox 3rd-quarter profit falls

Apple’s iTunes sells movies on DVD release date

CVS Caremark 1st-quarter profit rises

Disney buys back North American Disney Store chain

(Photos: Reuters)