Sears has launched a new social shopping site for the holiday season that cross-promotes merchandise across its properties.

The Ready Set Holiday site will showcase several of Sears's brands and properties, including Sears, Kmart, Lands' End, Craftsman tools and Joe Boxer. Sears will use the site to cross-sell products across properties, such as Sears's carpet-cleaning service for Thanksgiving preparations, product installation for holiday gifts, and help with purchasing tires for travelers.

The site also features a community where shoppers can discuss holiday gift-giving ideas as well as sharing product reviews. The site is primarily aimed at women, but there's also a KidsZone offering online games and activities for children. Several major retailers, such as Wal-Mart, eBay and Amazon, will be rolling out similar sites aimed at holiday shoppers.

"The whole idea of social shopping, and the use of consumer created content in terms of reviews, has been shown to drive sales and help retailers get better exposure in search engines," explains Patti Freeman Evans, an analyst with Jupiter Research.