All in the Family

Just in time for back-to-school shopping, Sears has built out its main Web site with the launch of GiveTogether, a free online gift platform that lets families, friends and other social groups collaborate on buying and giving a single gift without worrying about how to wrap it or ship it.

The process begins at gift.sears.com/givetogether when one person — either the organizer or the recipient — goes to the page through a banner on the Sears site. That contact person can register, select any item or service offered by Sears, and send out an e-mail inviting others to contribute to the gift.

Contributors can register and pay into the gift fund via credit card, eliminating the need for one donor to keep track of the group’s contributions. Contributors can check back to see the total amount of the contribution any time they wish.

When the cost of the gift has been collected, the first contact can choose to give the recipient, either in person or via e-mail, a Sears eGift Card for the present. And the gift recipient can also choose to redeem the card online or in-store for the actual gift.

The feature is functional all through the year and available for giving at occasions from graduations to baby showers and back-to-school.

Sears Holdings Corp. says the GiveTogether platform will eventually include home fashions, apparel and other products from Kmart, another of its retail brands.

In March both Sears and Kmart updated their Web shopping functions so that users could browse the merchandise of both stores in a single operation and share product photos on Facebook.

DID YOU KNOW?

• Economic hardship is leveling the playing field, and Walmart is one firm reaping the benefits. Upscale U.S. consumers, although still less likely than others to shop at Walmart Supercenters, are pulling into the retailer’s parking lots at “above-average rates,” according to a report from Packaged Facts.

• Specific segments of affluent consumers (such as Gen Xers) are also opting for less expensive fast food, but seeking out the better-for-you varieties. And they are using coupons more, not less, than the rest of the population. This affluent group makes up the top 28% of adults, or about 61 million out of 222 million adults.

  It’s the “psychographic responses” to financial change that have reshaped — and will continue to alter — consumer spending on food, the report found.

  “Consumers who have been set back or thrust forward financially are more likely to be rethinking what they need, what they want, and how and where best to find it,” the report’s author, David Sprinkle, says.

• Packaged Facts defines premium consumers as either single-person households with an income of at least $75,000, or multiple-person households with an income of $100,000 or higher.