Archives: News
Special Events During NeoCon Xpress
Chicago – NeoCon Xpress, the West Coast’s premier contract furnishings show, makes an exciting debut with two days of special events, accomplished speakers and educational programming.
Textillery Weavers Names Diane Baker & Company Midwest Sales Agency
Bloomington – Diane Baker & Company has been named Midwest sales agency for woven accent and design trend leader Textillery Weavers.
Riverton businesswoman puts New Leaf on market
Riverton — A fixture on Main Street could soon be a thing of the past.
The New Leaf Gift Shoppe and Tea Room property has been put on the market.
“It’s just time,” owner Phyllis Rodgers said of selling the property. “When we bought the property, we had a five-year plan for the business.
A unique array of goods
The owners of Unique Creations are finding their niche.
Betina Geiger and Sue Silvia opened the boutique gift shop in February with an initial emphasis on locally produced art, plus their gift baskets and photography.
In the four months since, they’ve retooled their shop to focus more on gift baskets, specialty items and Geiger’s photography.
“When we started, we went out to see what was available in downtown Culpeper, then decided to open something on this end of town; we’re near the hospital,” Geiger said. “I shoot weddings and other social events. Sue makes gift basket to order.
Bringing toys to life
Cherie Bouchard is seeing firsthand how a toy craze takes off with the increasingly popular Webkinz pet.
The plush toy comes with a secret code that allows the owner to enter Webkinz.com, an online world where kids can play with a virtual version of their toy pet.
When the owner registers the code online, the pet comes to life. Each owner gets one year’s access and 2,000 in KinzCash to use in the virtual world to purchase food, clothing or decorate the pet’s room.
Owners can earn more KinzCash by playing games and fulfilling various tasks.
Preventing Retail Theft
In retail, you want your products to fly off the shelves and out the door–but only after they’ve been paid for. Theft–both by customers and employees–costs American retailers more than $33 billion per year. Entire retail chains have gone out of business due to their inability to control losses from theft.
The biggest threat facing storeowners is employee theft, which accounts for nearly half of inventory shrinkage–more than shoplifters, more than administrative error and more than vendor fraud.
Webkinz a big hit at small retailers
Webkinz could be on the way to becoming one of this year’s biggest toys, and one of the reasons may be because it is not being marketed to the biggest stores.
At first glance, a Webkinz is pretty much like any other stuffed animal, but to many pre-teens it is much more than that.
A Webkinz stuffed animal comes with a secret Internet code that allows the buyer to create the pet an online home in Webkinz World, where it must be fed, entertained and cared for.
Retailers looking forward to back-to-school season
After modest sales gains in June, retailers are gearing up for the back-to-school season, according to the National Retail Federation.
Retail sales — excluding automobiles, gas stations and restaurants — rose 3.4 percent unadjusted over last year and decreased 0.5 percent seasonally adjusted from May.
The figures, released Friday by the US Commerce Department, show total retail sales, which include non-general merchandise categories such as autos, gasoline stations and restaurants, decreased 0.9 percent seasonally adjusted from last month and increased 3.2 percent unadjusted
A hodgepodge of pleasures
Jerri Turner, who owns Sweets, Treats & Design, has quite the varied inventory. Along with chocolates, the North End Tacoma boutique offers tea sets, candles, frames and custom work. “We do wedding favors, we do rehearsal dinner favors, we do gift bags for guests,” Turner says.
See something you like at Sweets, Treats & Design in Tacoma’s North End?
Merchants hoping to cast spells over shoppers
Novi, Mich. — Harry Potter entered the wizard shopping district known as Diagon Alley and was amazed by what he saw.
“Harry wished he had eight more eyes,” J.K. Rowling wrote in “Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone,” her first book about the boy wizard and his adventures at the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.
Side by side: In business and in life
They met over a coffee maker.
Three years ago, Kirk Miller ventured into a Lexington kitchen store, looking for a Krups coffee maker. It wasn’t in stock so Tina Lowry, the owner of the store, Ladles & Linens Kitchen Shoppe, ordered it.
Two weeks later, the coffee maker arrived, but Miller kept coming by the shop in downtown Lexington.
Lowry and Miller married in September 2005, a few months after Miller opened his own store to suit his tastes.
An outdoor enthusiast and an Appalachian Trail through-hiker, Kirk Miller opened Walkabout Outfitter on Nelson Street in Lexington.
Toy charms at hospital gift shop found to have high lead levels
Action by an alert Health Department employee visiting a gift shop at Fletcher Allen Heath Care has triggered a state attorney general’s investigation into a line of children’s jewelry with potentially high lead levels.
Mike Sullivan of Fairfax, an employee of the department’s health protection division, said a moment of “whimsy” on his part led him to examine some small metal charms at the gift shop last month while in the hospital on personal business.
“I’d taken a couple of the charms off the rack to look them over and they seemed, for their size, quite heavy,” he said.
‘Expert’ consumers spread word on retail
The most influential group of consumers, opinion leaders who talk more frequently with friends or online about products and retail experiences than others do, are more likely to pass on positive recommendations than negative ones, according to a new academic study.
“Consumers who believe they are experts in an area like to talk about their positive experiences,” said Andrea Wojnicki, professor of marketing at University of Toronto’s Rotman School of Management.
Urban Expositions Announces Staff Appointments for Gift, Souvenir Trade Shows
Atlanta, GA – Urban Expositions, leading producer of regional gift, souvenir and resort merchandise shows, has announced a series of staff appointments related to the Philadelphia Gift Show, Virginia Gift Show, Ocean City Resort Gift Expo, Grand Strand Gift & Resort Merchandise Show, Miami Beach Gift Show and Galveston Gift and Resort Merchandise Show, effective immediately.
Shelley Fulghum has been named show director for the Philadelphia Gift Show, overseeing sales and operations for the nation’s largest regional gift show held semi-annually in Reading, PA.
Gift Cash and Carry Show Offers Timely Fill-In Merchandising Opportunity for Holidays
White Plains, NY – The fall 2007 edition of the New York Gift Cash & Carry Show Gifts to Go is an ideal buying opportunity for retailers, offering timely inventory growth options in advance of the holiday selling season. Running November 1-3, 2007, at New York City’s Jacob K. Javits Convention Center, Gifts to Go will feature some 200 exhibitors, all showcasing products available for immediate delivery.
LearningCents Teaches Kids Financial Responsibility by the Seat of their Pants
Atlanta, GA – Have you ever watched a kid empty his or her pockets before shoving their jeans into the hamper?
San Francisco International Gift Fair to Put Spotlight on Green Resources
White Plains, NY – In line with the sharp rise in consumer demand for ‘green,’ sustainable products, this summer the San Francisco International Gift Fair will provide forward-thinking retailers with a list of exhibiting companies that offer eco-friendly resources.
Popping up in downtown?: City eyes plan for temporary stores
The city is working on a short-term marketing initiative to keep foot traffic flowing at Downtown Crossing after Filene’s Basement closes for two years for the $625 million redevelopment of the former Filene’s complex.
Ideas for the transitional plan include the possibility of “pop-up” stores to fill the void in the struggling retail district when the Basement shuts at the end of August.
Pop-up stores remain open for a limited time – a few days or weeks – and are designed to generate buzz about a brand or retailer and create a sense of urgency about their products.
Pop-up stores frequ
The Most Popular Email Days of the Year For Retailers
As a follow-up to my column last week about the most popular days of the week to email among retailers, I looked at the 20 most popular days of the past 12 months. It’s no surprise that the majority of the biggest email days come in the weeks before Christmas — including seven of the top eight. Those days include Cyber Monday (Nov. 27) and all three “Echo Mondays” (Dec. 4, 11 and 18) — the Mondays that follow Cyber Monday.
It’s a woman’s world at Softer Side
Frankfort — From the pink walls to the sweet scents to the long counter filled with baubles and beads, it’s clear The Softer Side gift shop is a woman’s world.
The store, at 621 N. LaGrange Road, specializes in gifts appealing to women, such as jewelry, handbags, home accent pieces, picture frames, aromatherapy, candles, wedding accessories and baby gifts.
“It’s a gift boutique for today’s woman,” explained owner Jodey Volpi, who opened the shop in March 2006.
But focusing on the feminine doesn’t mean it’s all glamour and glitz, Volpi said.