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Fair market values – Shopping movement offers guilt-free gifts
Think of it as your personal contribution to peace on Earth this holiday season. A combination of South Sound shops and church-sponsored events offers you the chance to purchase fairly traded gift items crafted by artisans from Latin America, Africa, Asia and the Middle East.
What is fair trade?
It’s a growing movement designed to ensure producers of goods around the world are paid fair wages for their work.
Out of the Way Is A-OK for These Retailers
Lake Wales | In the retail world, an age-old real estate slogan is the oft-quoted mantra: Location, location, location. Retailers pay premium dollar for high-traffic areas, choosing to cluster with other retail stores in malls and strip shopping centers. So how are retailers in out-of-the-way places making ends meet?
Sioux Falls is becoming your plaza mecca
Sioux Falls has some new retail corners that are giving neighborhoods in the southern area of the city shopping appeal.
These new plazas are a far cry from the plain one-story, sheet metal or cinder block strip malls of days gone by.
Developments have romantic names, like Waterfall Plaza, Heather Ridge and several with “village” in their titles, especially in the south and southwestern parts of town.
New restaurants, bars and coffee shops are just waiting to become favorite hangouts.
Holiday hiring time not joyful; Retailers expected to add fewer workers
Odds are greater this year that the person who rings up your holiday purchases will be a year-round worker rather than someone hired for the season.
If labor trends hold, retailers will add fewer temporary workers this year than last, marking the second consecutive decline in holiday hiring.
Holiday fever: Start your shopping engines
Christmas came early to Lakeside Avenue this year, and it’s sticking around.
The first ever “Holly Jolly Christmas” weekend united shops along the 1
Store gazing
Never have I been so excited to not find a parking space.
Last Friday night, as I drove around and around and around downtown Bangor, I noticed something unusual. Not only had the sidewalks not been rolled up —it was 6:15, after all — but there were actually people milling about. Lots of them.
For years, people have been talking about a Main Street renaissance. This weekend, it actually felt like a reality.
Return Fraud to Hit $3.7 Billion this Holiday Season, According to NRF Survey
Washington, November 7, 2007 – As retailers across the country gear up for increased holiday sales, they are also bracing for higher returns, some of which will be fraudulent. According to the National Retail Federation’s second annual Return Fraud Survey, loss prevention executives anticipate that nearly nine percent (8.93%) of holiday returns will be fraudulent, up slightly from 8.67 percent last year. As a result, return fraud will cost retailers an estimated $3.7 billion this holiday season, up from $3.5 billion last year. Retailers will lose $10.8 billion to return fraud in 2007.
Get Lost in a (bigger) Country
Snow Hill — It might be called Lost in the Country, but this gift shop is actually located right in the middle of downtown Snow Hill.
Lost in the Country, the gift shop owned by Susanne and Kevin Timmons, recently moved from its location on Washington Street to the former Western Auto building on Green Street.
“We went from 500 square feet to 1,840 square feet,” Susanne Timmons said. “It’s amazing how much I had in that small space.
Doing Laundry, Shoveling Snow or Shopping at the Mall: Yahoo! Poll Finds Holiday Mall Shopping Is the Real Chore
Sunnyvale, Calif.–According to a new Yahoo!
New York Market Producers Launch Cooperative Marketing Campaign
White Plains, NY – Four New York Market entities – tradeshow producer George Little Management, LLC (GLM) and permanent showroom buildings 41 Madison, 230 Fifth Avenue and 7 West 34th Street – have extended their partnership to include a cooperative marketing campaign: “New York Market: Built for Business.”
Effective immediately, a new “New York Market: Built for Business” tagline and logo will be utilized in all individual and collective marketing, reflecting increased cooperation and synergy between the various market locations.
Pacific Market Center tenant, Park Avenue Agents, hosts sample sale holiday fundraising event
Seattle – Park Avenue Agents of Pacific Market Center will host its 15th “Gift for Life” sample sale benefiting The American Foundation for Aids Research (amfAR). Donated merchandise including everything from gifts, toys and books to home accessories will be available for purchase by the public in Seattle’s Belltown neighborhood beginning November 7 and will continue until December 30, 2007.
The Seattle sample sale features donated products from many Pacific Market Center wholesale showrooms including Bettencourt, OneCoast, and Bunches.
Buffalo Games Wins Creative Child Magazine Preferred Choice Award
Buffalo, NY – Buffalo Games, makers of the Monster Maker card game, have been granted a Creative Child Magazine 2007 Preferred Choice Award in the “card games for kids” category. Monster Maker is an outrageous race to create colorful Monsters by trading and exchanging “parts cards” with opponents or drawing from the “garbage pile”. A creative Monster Maker storybook is also included in each pack. The game can be played by 2-5 players and is recommended for children 6 years and up.
“Watching kids play this game puts a smile on my face,” said Paul Dedrick, president of Buffalo Games.
Sierra Nevada Fine Art Photographer Announces New ‘Nature’s Fine Art’ Tiles
Carson Valley, NV – Wolfgang ‘Wolf’ Kohz, popular Sierra Nevada landscape photographer and Tahoe-area resident since 1966, announces the launch of his new Nature’s Fine Art tiles. These 9-3/8″ square ceramic tiles are handsomely framed in mahogany, and feature a variety of floral, leaf, stone and shell portraits, as well as landscapes, from original photographs taken in the beautiful Sierra Nevada.These tiles, recently introduced in several Reno-Tahoe art galleries, make affordable wall or bookshelf art for home decor or gift giving.
Form Meets Function with New Scandle Body Candle Packaging
Dallas, TX – Scandle LLC, the leading manufacturer and wholesaler of the finest quality massage candles and complimentary body candle products, today announced their new packaging design – representing a true union of form and function.
The 7.5oz Scandle Body Candle now comes in a beautiful white porcelain container with pour spout and handle for easy, mess-free application.
Las Vegas Market to Highlight Sustainable Products Market with Week Long Educational Series
Las Vegas – World Market Center Las Vegas, the world’s fastest growing home furnishings event, and the Sustainable Furniture Council are partnering on a series of Retailer-focused educational seminars during the Las Vegas Market, to be held January 28 – February 1, 2008.
The Brave New World Environmental Leadership Education Series calls for an “expression of interest” from forward-thinking retailers who are interested in stepping up to take a leadership position in education about sustainable home furnishings to:
- Consumers
- Sales staff
- Existing suppliers
Jumping Jack Press is now award winning!
CHICAGO – Jumping Jack Press, the pop-up book imprint from Up With Paper, was honored with two awards at the First Annual Moonbeam Children’s Book Awards, including the Gold Moonbeam Award for the Best Pop-Up or Cut-Out Book published in 2007 for its very first title, Halloween at the Zoo.
The juried Moonbeam Awards honor the year’s best children’s books, authors, and illustrators. A total of 862 book entries were received from authors and publishers in the US and around the world.
San Francisco International Gift Fair Celebrates San Francisco Identity
White Plains, NY – Embracing San Francisco’s unique identity, the upcoming San Francisco International Gift Fair will focus on what sets the city apart as a trailblazer in emerging trends, and as a leading destination.
Martha’s Vineyard’s Black Dog general store coming to Nantucket
Starting this May, there will be a new dog in town. Setting up shop on Straight Wharf will be the Martha’s Vineyard icon The Black Dog, which will open its first Nantucket location with a general store, Black Dog CEO Rob Douglas Jr.
Gift-Buying Expected to Hold Steady in Southern California; Consumers Will Spend Less Overall, Says Deloitte Survey
Los Angeles — While many Americans say they intend to spend less during this year’s holiday season, spending on gifts is expected to hold steady and the number of gifts consumers plan to give is up compared with 2006, according to the 22nd Annual Holiday Survey of retail spending and trends, commissioned by Deloitte.
Nationally, the survey shows that four in 10 consumers (41 percent) expect to reduce their spending this holiday season; in Southern California, 43 percent reported that they will spend less than last year.
St. George Parish opens religious goods store
St. George — Catholics and members of other faiths in southern Utah no longer have to travel all the way to Salt Lake City to shop for religious goods or baptismal gowns. With the Aug. 19 grand opening of the St. Therese of the Little Flower Gift Store at St. George Church in St. George, rosaries, missals, books, statues, religious pictures and more are available a short drive away.
The gift store is, “Father Vidal’s dream” said manager Sharon Rawlins, a 13-year parishioner of St. George Parish.