Sears expands online efforts

Hoffman Estates, Ill. Sears Holdings Corp. is allowing third parties, including some competitors, to sell items on its site.

The change adds more than 10 million products from 1,500 vendors to those available at the company's Web sites. This will more than double the number of products available on Sears.com.

The service officially began Thursday. It puts Sears in the company of Walmart.com and Amazon.com, which already sell millions of items from third parties.

Sears will receive a commission on sales made through the service, which it calls the Marketplace at Sears.com. It will also get a fee for listing the items.