Sears, Home Depot Take Fight Indoors

D A L L A S,  Aug. 16 -- Two major retailers are about to square offin a fight for the home decor and redesign dollars of affluent babyboomers.

On the east side of the Dallas North Tollway sits a huge ExpoDesign Center by Home Depot Inc., stocked to sell everythingfrom whole kitchens and bathrooms to picture frames and desk lamps.

On the west side of the road, another warehouse-size store, TheGreat Indoors, owned by Sears, Roebuck & Co., opened this month,selling a range of items to decorate and update the home.

This Dallas-based face-off is about to be repeated in Chicagoand other cities as Home Depot and Sears battle for a piece of the$140 billion home-remodeling industry.

Close to the Sears Core

The rivalry may have actually begun last year, when Sears, anicon of American industry that grew out of a watch company in the1880s, was bumped out of the prestigious Dow Jones IndustrialAverage of 30 bellwether stocks and was replaced by Home Depot.

Sears, the nation’s No. 2 retailer, vows to build 150 GreatIndoors stores within eight years, while Home Depot says it willopen 200 Expo Design Centers in the next five years.

“I’ve been in the Dallas [Expo Design] store, and I think it’san exciting store,” said Sid Doolittle, a retail consultant inChicago whose firm, McMillan/Doolittle, has worked for both Searsand Home Depot. “But I think for a number of reasons Sears will bea formidable challenger.”

Sears, the nation’s leading appliance retailer, benefits fromits vast offerings, a huge network of home-repair and remodelingcontractors and a strong credit-card operation, Doolittle said.

While Doolittle concedes that “Sears has stumbled a lot ontheir off-the-mall businesses” the former Montgomery Wardexecutive believes this latest gambit is “closer to Sears’ corebusiness. They have a better shot at making this a strongdivision.”

Eyeing the Buy-It-Yourself-er