Tag: SHOPPING

When Microsoft opened its first branded store last year, it was assumed that the company was serious about combating Apple and the retail juggernaut it's become. But, as malls across the country teem with consumers toting the signature white Apple shopping bags, Microsoft appears to be drawing significantly less interest. After the Los Angeles Times monitored both the Apple and Microsoft stores ...

Share As with the holiday season in general, the post-Thanksgiving shopping panic just keeps getting longer. What started out as a one-day discount bonanza known as Black Friday has now spawned an online-only counterpart in Cyber Monday. This year, though, retailers are offering steep discounts early and often. Many outlets are now adding Thanksgiving Day to the holiday shopping schedule, and ...

It's befallen us several times: we'll hear a kickass, unfamiliar song, or remember pieces of a long-forgotten one, and search for it on iTunes. We're pretty sure it's James Carr singing, and we think we have a handle on the title, but we listen to a few song samples just to be sure. So, we pick a song in the iTunes Store, click play, and listen to a 30-second clip of an organ ride and improvised ...

If you're in the market for a new TV this holiday season, you're in luck; major electronics manufacturers are slashing prices left and right. On Friday, Sony announced that it had abandoned all hope of turning a profit this year, while Panasonic predicted that its TV prices will drop even further during this fiscal quarter. The announcements come on the heels of similarly pessimistic outlooks ...

If you have Facebook pictures pretty enough to frame and set on the mantle, you can now print photos directly from the site using Kodak kiosks at Target. Just a few weeks after Facebook announced support for higher-resolution photos, Facebook and Kodak have teamed up with Target to cut out the printing middleman (i.e. flash drives) by installing these kiosks in stores. Target is saying that the ...

Discount stores, invite-only sites, Etsy and eBay: there is hardly a reason to head to a department store anymore. Unless, of course, you still appreciate the social aspect of shopping -- getting a friend's opinion, promising to let her borrow your item, or using her to help narrow down your selections. So Ella Gorlga, a young entrepreneur based in New York, caught this discrepancy between IRL ...

Deal-hunting baby-makers, listen up! The wacky and incrementally expanding discount site Groupon has just launched a new dating service called Grouspawn, with an insane marketing ploy. If you can prove that you used a Groupon coupon on your first date, and that said date eventually resulted in a child, you could get a $60,000 grant for the little one's college tuition. Groupon CEO Andrew Mason ...

Advertisers and retailers have been looking for new and unique ways to leverage the recent influx of GPS-enabled smartphones in attracting customers and gathering important information about their shopping behaviors. Foursquare introduced some new ideas, but retailers wanted to take it a step further. Enter Shopkick. The new app turns shopping (and violating your privacy) into a game that, ...

Share With the fall semester around the corner, eBay has launched a mobile app for its discount site Half.com, which scans barcodes to locate the best deals on textbooks and other back-to-school products. According to CNET News, users snap a picture of a barcode (say, that expensive Biology 101 textbook), and the free iPhone app scans it using RedLaser technology, then trolling Half.com's ...

Amazon has partnered with Facebook to make online shopping a more social experience. According to the New York Times, once you connect your accounts, you'll be able to see which "Facebook friends have upcoming birthdays, and receive gift suggestions based on the music, books and movies those friends have said they like on Facebook and on their Amazon wish lists." But, most importantly, you'll ...

Walmart, America's largest retailer and the world's largest corporation, will be placing radio-frequency identification (RFID) tags on the jeans and underwear sold in its 3,750-plus U.S. stores beginning next month. The removable tags will be used to monitor inventory losses and shelf stock, but some people are less than happy about the prospect of carrying around a tracking device in their ...

No matter their size, everybody has purchased clothing online, and then discovered, upon delivery, that it didn't fit right. But a European company has a solution to this problem -- shape-shifting robots. According to BBC News, an Estonian company has created moving mannequins that allow shoppers to view clothing items on more than 100,000 different bodies' shapes and sizes before they make a ...

To begin with, yes, Kmart stores still exist in some places [Ed. Note: Actually, part of the same building as the Switched office's in New York, to be exact], even though we can't remember the last time we shopped at one. So, in an effort to maintain relevant, the retail store is petitioning gamers for help. According to the MyKmart blog, Kmart will tape your video game reviews to display cases ...

If you're like us, you hate the hassle and cost of going to the drugstore for just those few, everyday, household items. That's why Walletpop recently tested the newly launched retail site Soap.com, which features more than 25,000 household items at discounts of up to 25-percent, to see if it really beats a trip to CVS or Walgreens. With about 900 brands spanning 13 categories, its inventory is ...

In a class-war-baiting article typical of the Sunday Style section, the New York Times published a piece describing fashion's fall from grace and into the common world of the Web. Years ago, luxury clothing-makers scoffed at the Internet, and favored the dignified experience of shopping in a real, brick-and-mortar boutique, but, says Stephanie Clifford, "in came the recession, and out went the ...