"It’s not something we offer at the moment, and it’s not something we’re planning to offer any time soon," says Karina Sokolovskaya, spokeswoman for New York City-based J.Crew. IT and e-commerce executives at Victoria’s Secret had no comment.

Other retailers and analysts say that companies such as J.Crew and Victoria’s Secret are taking longer to integrate their channels because they’re starting from scratch. They don’t have the infrastructure in place that lets them transfer sales from one store to another, nor do they have an area in their stores where they can set aside items that customers have reserved online.

"If they set up their websites separately, it may be hard for them to make it work from a back-end, accounting point of view," says Sally McKenzie, Eddie Bauer’s vice president of e-commerce.

Ultimately, the explanation for why so few retailers offer the full "buy online, pick up in store" capability is because the level of integration required to make that work is awfully hard to achieve. The few pioneering companies that have succeeded have done so by patching their information systems together, leveraging robust POS systems, implementing a real-time inventory system, and building on existing processes and in-store infrastructure. Giving consumers the flexibility to shop online and return or pick up items in stores is helping beleaguered Sears struggle out of its financial tailspin. It’s helping Circuit City keep the cash rolling in at a time when the company’s profits are threatened by sharp decreases in the price of consumer electronics. And while Eddie Bauer does not offer in-store pickup, simply letting customers return Web orders to stores is helping the company increase customer loyalty in the apparel market where competition is as stiff as starched denim.

While my father may be pessimistic about the fate of Lands’ End, he might come to appreciate the convenience of being able to return his worn loafers to the Sears near him, rather than having to pack them up and ship them off to Wisconsin.

Circuit City Where the Web Is Just Another Store

The seamless integration of Web and store operations hinges on having the right technology, the right infrastructure, the right processes and, above all, the right mind-set.

In 1998, Circuit City, the $12.8 billion consumer electronics retailer, put Web-enabled kiosks in its stores to allow customers to build customized PCs. Surprisingly, 50 percent of the people who purchased PCs through these kiosks wanted to pick them up in the store rather than have them delivered to their home.