Iconoculture: When wedding guests don’t put out, savvy newlyweds cash in. Retailers are toasting just-marrieds with completion sales – post-honeymoon promotions that let start-up spouses score discounts on un-purchased registry items. Staples like Bloomingdale’s, Williams-Sonoma, Crate & Barrel and Pottery Barn have all integrated completion programs or events into their pre-wedding registry services. Most post-wedding offers give newlyweds a 10% […]

DailyCandy: Click. Scroll. Click. Scroll. Click. Scroll. Whoa, shopping online is, like, totally wild! Or — not so much. Which is why we are stoked to introduce you to Etsy, a new, experimental, and totally awesome website that challenges the norms of online shopping. Run by a group of computer whiz kids, the site offers indie designers the space to […]

BusinessWeek: Light years apart in brand image and market appeal, both shops are targeting “the to die for” position which retailers the world over are striving to reach, the point at which a store becomes “a destination,” a place where people choose to linger, learn, and be stimulated or simply have fun. The best shops have always aspired to be […]

Entrepreneur: Give me $1,000, and I’ll give you results.” Those were the words David Aitken used to convince the owners of The Heritage Group to invest in his idea. Aitken, 30, was a call-center manager for the Utah company, which specialized in residential mortgage refinancing. Aitken knew the refinancing boom they were riding would eventually end, so he approached owners […]

CNET: A new shopping Web site due to launch Aug. 22 will let people buy products online from companies that share their customers’ social values. Alonovo.com lets people define the social and environmental values they feel are important and see how different merchants perform in those areas using data from KLD Research and Analytics. The areas include labor relations, animal […]

BizReport: When students in Leslie Chernila’s English class at the Art Institute of Washington write an essay about the work of Garrison Keillor, she has them send it off to a critic halfway across the country before turning it in. The paper soon returns, complete with comments about structure and word choice. The service, offered by District-based Smarthinking Inc., is […]

NYTimes.com: A new shopping complex in Ohio will try to combine the convenience of online stores with the hands-on experience of browsing at a mall. Sometime near the end of 2006, the complex, called Epicenter, is scheduled to open in Columbus at the Polaris Fashion Place. The nucleus of Epicenter will consist of two parts – the Buypod, a hand-held […]

TrendBlog: It probably started in high school. You did not want to look like everybody else anymore. You colored your hair and decorated your jeans jacket. And now you can even customize your own sneakers on certain websites or at the NikeID-store (slogan: perfection is personal). We call this Personalization, a trend which, by now, is very grown up. It […]

StartupJournal: On a recent trip to the local mall, Suzy Lee ran her usual errands, shopping for her two children at Gymboree and buying makeup and a few basics at Neiman Marcus. But before leaving, she made a slight detour to Talulah G, a boutique with a name most shoppers wouldn’t recognize. The independently-owned shop, which opened at the Las […]

Iconoculture: DIY homebodies looking for the perfect retro pieces like the thrill of the hunt, and this one engages them in the process from start to finish. “Everything must go!” – for real. Whole House Building Supply and Salvage holds 48-hour salvage sales on the site of soon-to-be-demolished homes where DIY enthusiasts can scout, remove, and buy building parts right […]