Sears Tries Selling, Leasing Stores Online

It looks like Sears Holdings Corp. might be ready soon to start cashing in on some of its real estate by putting thousands of its namesake and Kmart stores on the market for sale or lease. And management thinks that the Internet might be an attractive way to do so.The retailer recently launched a website called SHC Realty that has a searchable database of its properties. The site currently has 67 closed stores that are on the market for sale. Maybe more interesting is what Sears offers for existing stores. At nearly 4,000 locations it offers store-within-a-store leasing, out parcels and other configurations.On the store-within-a-store front, Sears already inked a deal, with Edwin Watts Golf Shops, which will put its stores in 12 Sears locations.What do you think of this nontraditional strategy? Will Sears gain some cash flow out of the move or is the online route a tough sell?