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One of the oldest names in American retailing, Sears, will sprint to the cutting edge of online marketing with a 3-D virtual home décor showroom in the Second Life online world, the company announced yesterday.

The Sears Virtual Home will let visitors explore and custom redesign kitchens on the Internet, experimenting with different cabinet styles and facings and changing the color of countertops. They can also walk around the home to experience different home theater set-ups and customize storage shelves and other accessories in the home's garage.

Making the announcement at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, Sears spokespersons said the company hopes in time to let users adopts "avatars" -- on-screen characters that represent them -- and impose their room and home dimensions on the Sears Virtual Home.

Visitors will then be able to insert, customize and arrange the appliances, tools and furniture available at Sears, the better to visualize their home remodeled with Sears purchases.

Once they have remodeled the home to their satisfaction, customers will be able to link to the Sears.com Web site to buy the items they've placed.

Further down the road, virtual Sears shoppers may be able to invite friends or designers to join them in the virtual showroom and make design suggestions.

"The Sears Virtual Home combines the best of virtual worlds and 3-D environments so customers can experience Sears' products in a way that is closer to real life," said Paul Miller, senior vice president of direct commerce for Sears Holdings.

The Virtual Home will reside on a Second Life "island", or community sector, built and maintained by IBM. IBM has also built a 3-D showroom for Circuit City, where visitors can look at home electronics items, "place" them in a shopping cart, then click to the chain's main Web site to purchase those products.