Archives: News
Midwest ‘Monkeying Around’ with kid-friendly gifts and home decor
MN – Midwest, leading designer and manufacturer of the Seasons of Cannon Falls brand of innovative holiday, home, garden and gift products, introduces Monkeying Around, the company’s first colorful collection of plush sock monkeys, gifts and decor designed to encourage kids to play the old-fashioned way – using imagination and a lot of activity.
Magnets are safely hidden inside monkeys’ paws for added fun and play value, and tags specially designed for each character feature their name and favorite activity – for example, sing and dance with Rusty, hop and skip with JoJo, and bounce and gig
Metro Home Style honored by Home Accents Today magazine
Greensboro, N.C. – Metro Home Style, located at 2100 Park Street in Syracuse, New York, has been named one of Home Accents Today’s 50 Retail Stars for 2008 by editors of the premier trade magazine for the home accents industry. The stores selected have exhibited strength in merchandising, display and advertising, are operating successfully in their marketing areas and have a strong presence in their communities.
Home Accents Today editors focused on independent retailers, specifically those considered specialty or home accents stores.
Peking Handicraft Debuts Trend-Forward Holiday Designs
San Francisco, Calif. – Peking Handicraft, Inc., an international manufacturer and wholesaler of high quality home decor, tabletop and giftware items, introduces new trend-forward holiday textiles designed by the company’s in-house designers. The attractive, new products offer a new take on contemporary holiday decor, using variations of the traditional red and green colors, matched with shades of brown, pink and sky blue to create a more fun, contemporary look to celebrate the season.
Mud Pie debuts holiday gifts tailored to fit customer’s budget
Tucker, Ga. – The award-winning international gift company, Mud Pie, introduces its much-anticipated new holiday gift collections for the 2008 holiday season. Its new collection of Santa-themed gift products is sure to steal the show, featuring Santa’s red coat and favorite belt.
The collection offers items perfect for gift-giving and holiday decorating, including a wine bottle bag, guest towel, coasters, dinner plates, platters, photo album and picture frame. Affordably priced at retail ranging from $7 to $25, the adorable holiday items will make cash registers “ring” in the season!
New York’s Original Kazoo Co. stays true to name
Eden, NY — The name of the place says it all: The Original Kazoo Co. And, boy, do its owners mean original.
The same belt and pulley machines that stamped and shaped the world’s first metal kazoos circa 1900 still stamp and shape kazoos today. The machines are still in the same building, making the same ker-thwunk sound as they perforate, fold and shape.
The finished product hasn’t changed, either.
Ridgeland store offers one-stop gift shopping
Ridgeland — Jodie Badon serves as a one-stop stationery and gift shop for brides, event planners and gift seekers.
The boutique offers invitations, stationery and other gifts.
Owners Lauren Benner, Kristen Sulser-Guinn and R. Bean Sulser said their passion for fun and entertainment motivated them to open the shop.
Jodie Badon is named for the great grandmother of Benner and Sulser-Guinn.
“It’s a beautiful and peaceful atmosphere,” customer Elizabeth Cobb said of the boutique.
Shoppers can customize and print invitations and announcements at the store.
Holiday brought visitors, buyers aplenty to Hamptons
Gas prices may be high and consumer confidence plummeting, but that didn’t stop visitors from flocking to the East End and spending money this past Memorial Day weekend.
“We had a phenomenal weekend,” said Carolyn Papetti, general manager of Cittanuova, an East Hampton restaurant that saw Memorial Day weekend sales increase about 20 percent from last year. “We had record sales this weekend. We’re a little bit of a different restaurant compared to others.
Small Businesses on Discount
To all the usual reasons that small businesses are put up for sale — personal problems and personnel squabbles among them — add economic woes this year. But even as for-sale listings rise around the country, so is buyer interest.
“When economic times get tough and people can’t find a job, they will go out and buy a job,” said Ronald W.
The sales economy: Canada now has more workers in stores than factories
Ottawa — For the first time ever, more Canadians are involved in selling products than producing them.
A Statistics Canada report Monday showing retail sales rose 5.8 per cent last year contained the added curiosity that for the first time, more people were employed in retail sales than in manufacturing.
The sales increase was the second strongest in five years and underlined the growing importance of domestic demand as the lynch pin of Canadian growth, with the red-hot West, particularly Saskatchewan and Alberta, leading the wave.
But the flip side of the coin is that as the se
Baby Fish Mouth puts a New Twist on Hollywood Favorites
New York City, NY – Do you love pop culture? Can you quote films with ease? Baby Fish Mouth, a new line of children’s T-shirts, is offering something truly unique – Fashion for Future Film Fans. Their infant and toddler T-shirts take famous movie lines and put a clever “baby” twist on them.
Love The Godfather? – “He made me a bottle I couldn’t refuse.”
The Chicago Market: Living and Giving announces July lineup
Chicago, IL – The Chicago Market: Living and Giving, July 17-23, will be bustling with product trends, as well as an action-packed calendar of educational and special events. The Market’s highlights include the Signatures Series, where attendees will gain valuable retailing knowledge about industry trends from the best in the business, and the Power Lunch Seminar Series, where buyers will learn from leading trade and consumer magazine editors and retail consultants.
Power Lunch Seminars: Enjoy a complimentary lunch while learning tricks of the trade from industry experts.
Chicago’s Summer in the City Block Party
Chicago – This July, The Big Night at The Chicago Market will feature all things summer — great food, great drinks and Parrot Heads!
Small business crunched by fuel prices
Fort Worth, Texas – Many U.S. small business owners say soaring fuel costs are eating their profits at a time when the economy is already weak, making them more cautious about expanding or hiring.
“In theory we could pass on extra costs with fuel surcharges,” said Vince Puente, part owner of Southwest Office Systems Inc , Mittelnight has his crews work longer days on-site to reduce commuting. But his weekly fuel bill has still risen to $1,000 from $350 in the past year.
Mittelnight said he is now reluctant to hire technicians who live too far away.
Cosmetics firms heed calls for organics
Consumers who are vigilant about what they put into their bodies have proved they also care about what they put on them, making naturals and organics the fastest-growing segment of the cosmetics industry.
According to Organic Monitor, a London consulting company, sales of natural and organic cosmetics are soaring, with revenues projected to approach $7 billion this year in the United States, up $1 billion from last year.
Players like Target and Wal-mart launching their own natural and organic lines, but even small local companies are reaping the rewards.
For example, Iredale Mineral C
Retailers hope we spend those rebates
Struggling retailers, crossing their fingers for a stampede of shoppers waving economic stimulus checks that began arriving this month, are likely to be disappointed, according to retail experts and the folks who really know — consumers themselves.
Asked what she plans to do with her check, Jennifer Thompson, a 24-year-old customer service representative from Middletown, says, “Most of it is going to paying off bills.”
“It seems like everything’s going up,” said Thompson, who was shopping for a pair of sneakers for her son at Christiana Mall recently.
Retailers, including Wal-Mart, H
Carving piece of customer pie
Gail Watson was surprised and delighted when she received a big apple/cherry pie and a note apologizing for a missed appointment from Nurse Next Door, a Vancouver-based elderly home health care company. While she was initially upset about the missed appointment, the company’s prompt apology and “humble pie” helped turn Ms. Watson into a loyal customer.
“It’s unusual to see such a proactive approach to customer service today,” Ms. Watson says.
Yet, poor service is often the norm.
Behind a Start-Up: One Family
Many of the questions I get from readers have to do with money — specifically how people fund a career shift. I try to get these financial details as often as possible, and I recently heard from a reader, Nina Murphy, whose story of how her husband, Bart Ferris, left the corporate world to start a gourmet foods company with a partner touched on just this issue.
It turns out that Ms. Murphy was a big part of the story herself since she is bringing her own skills to her husband’s venture by working as the company’s publicist.
Three Questions: They enjoy being the life of a party
Jeff and Carolyne Curley’s life can be considered one big party.
The husband and wife own Streamers Party and Gift Store in Caldwell. In addition to balloons, party favors, cups, plates and matching accessories, the store also rents party supplies such as tables, chairs, glassware, linens of every color, hot dog carts and dance floors. They also help customers create invitations for all types of events.
Jeff Curley spoke to The Star-Ledger about his party supply business.
How has the slumping economy affected the party supply business?
Small Retail: Couple took a leap of faith to buy Christian bookstore
At Episcopal Bookstore in Seattle, religion is fluid, the Bible will always be open to interpretation, and God may be the one or the creator, but is rarely he.
As bookkeeper and book buyer, Nancy Marshall works behind the scenes to keep the shop’s wares leaning left — toward a liberal theology.
“My customers will not anymore buy something that refers to God as ‘he,’ ” she said. “If I’m made in the image of God, God isn’t ‘he.’ “
Items that take on a stricter religious view — anything that promotes men as heads of household, for instance — won’t be sold.
Retail sales weak in March
Canadians bought more cars but fewer clothes and accessories amid severe winter weather as retail sales grew a weaker-than-expected 0.1 per cent in March, Statistics Canada said yesterday.
Analysts were forecasting a 0.3 per cent rise in March sales over the previous month.
Statistics Canada blamed severe snowstorms, particularly in Quebec, for a 2.6 per cent slide in clothing and accessories sales nationally.
The decrease was offset by a 0.4 per cent rise in automotive sales, the fifth increase in six months, as consumers bought more new vehicles, preferring passenger vehicles over t