Lands' End Lands Instant Business

N E W  Y O R K, July 29 -- Despite its clean layout, attractive models and snappy clothes, a Lands' End catalog will never be able to tell you if those chinos will fit your hips.

Pose the same query to the Landsend.com Web site, and Randi or Diane or one of their colleagues — will answer you within seconds.

Clothing retailer Lands' End is one of the few companies that has been able to make money from one of the most popular byproducts of the Internet: instant messaging.

Lands' End uses real-time communication to help online shoppers find what they're looking for. Surfers visit the company's Web site and click on the "Ask Us" button if they have a question about chinos, T-shirts or jeans.

After typing in their names, they are greeted by a cheery representative, whom they are introduced to on a first-name basis.

Questions are answered promptly and courteously, with a healthy dose of exclamation points. To help illustrate the answers, reps can even redirect a user's browser to new Web page.

Boosting Business

The online TLC has translated into higher sales.

Lands' End, which was one of the early adopters of both Web retailing and instant messaging, saw online sales rise 5 percent last year. Web purchases now account for 21 percent of Lands' End revenue, which totaled $1.46 billion in fiscal 2001.

The company, which was acquired by Sears for $1.9 billion in May, says that 20 percent of new customers come from the Internet and that 14.7 percent of its online visitors end up buying something.

Perhaps even more impressive, the Lands' End Web site is now more profitable than its catalog business.

Instant messaging has bolstered Lands' End's Web success. The company says that the average value of an order increases by 6 percent when a surfer uses its instant message technology. An online visitor who uses Lands' End's IM is 20 percent more likely to make a purchase than a customer who does not.

But while your teenage daughter pays nothing for IM, companies that need a product that works well with their Web sites and other IT functions don't have it quite so easy.