Sears launches virtual shopping site for tweens

Sears has launched a microsite that offers tweens a virtual shopping experience.

Visitors to www.sears.com/e-meácan create personalized avatars, or E-Mes, as Sears is calling these virtual incarnations of shoppers, by picking the features, skin color, eye color, nose shape and hairstyle they want their avatar to have.

Once an avatar is created, a site visitor can dress it in a selection of Sears apparel and shoes and save the selections to a closet. Visitors can shop for clothes by collection, personal identity and product themes. The closet can be saved from session to session.

The program was developed with MyVirtualModel.com and Meez.com.

The E-Me and closet is printable, enabling parents to bring a copy into Sears stores so they will know which clothing items their children want. Anyone who does so will receive a 10 percent discount on those items.

The site, promoted on the Sears home page, includes an E-Me fashion show, where kids can submit their E-Me outfits to be rated by other site users.

There is a variety of interactive backdrops allowing E-Me's to dance, flip burgers and more.

Sears, Hoffman Estates, IL, plans to add games and other interactive elements to the site in future updates.