Black Friday Feature: Cool Shopping Sites & Gift Ideas!
Saturday, April 5th, 2008We had this article up on one of our static pages, but we thought it made sense to move it here. This was originally from November, during the holiday shopping season, and has been really popular since it was posted. Enjoy!
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We sifted through the long list of stores that you all buy from so that we could bring you some of the craziest, most creative and weirdest stores on the web. For this holiday guide, we included mom & pop stores and big, established brands, and some that probably don’t classify as either. Here’s the list:
1. Harry Potter wands: www.alivans.com
We like Alivans for its unique approach and for bringing some magic back into this world. It’s a
fun tangent of all that Harry Potter hype. Wave your wands, muggles!
2. Music stickers: www.musicstickers.com
We probably all agree that this is not one of the prettiest websites alive, but we love it for its great selection and fair prices.
3. Custom-made oil paintings:
www.canvasondemand.com
Ok, we are biased on this one.
We bought a huge canvassed version of a Mika album cover for our headquarters.
You can take any image, and they’ll put it on a canvas for you. It’s
as classy as Paris.
4. Wild Ties: www.wildties.com
If their popular ties fit as
a gift for one of your family members, he is probably in an interesting
industry. But never fear! They also have the boring ones.
5. Pimp your pet: www.poshpetglamourboutique.com
Look for a gift for pets? Shop
here when you really love them or want to make them look ridiculous.
6. Plain coolness and style on
T-Shirts: www.authenticboricua.com
Nothing funny to say about
those guys. Really cool shirts from Puerto Rico, keep it up.
7. Print your own shirts: www.spreadshirt.net
http://www.cafepress.nethttp://www.printfaction.com
Design custom shirts for your
friends and foes or feast on the creativity of others. Anyways, a shirt
is always a bold statement.
8. Customize your high-tech toys:
www.dein-design.com
A German company that designs
really nice vinyls for all your gadgets. They gave us some for our laptops with the Shoeboxed-Logo on it, and we just love them.
9. Gift Finder: www.target.com/
This is the mainstream, but
it fits the fashion victim’s purpose. And the Target-Gift-Finder is
actually fun to use.
10. Nifty stuff: www.thinkgeek.com/
The programmers at Shoeboxed
claim this is not a place for “real geeks,” but our marketing team
finds it to be a very entertaining site that provides everything from
USB-coffewarmers to chain-mail-shirts.
11. Tinker-Stuff: www.sciplus.com/
According to the programmers,
THIS is the real geeky side. Pretty boring to the marketing folks, though.
12. Receipt Scanner: The Shoeboxed.com Store
Great gift, of course: Want to organize your receipts? Want to scan your receipts for less than half of the price that other companies charge? Well great, because this
is the same exact scanner that others charge $200 for. We call it the shoescanner, and we offer it through Amazon because we love you.
13. Don’t mug yourself. Mug others:
www.discountmugs.com/
If you’re friends are spending
their lives in an office, like we do, you can get them very inexpensive
mugs here. Caffeine-dependent people like mugs!
14. Inappropriate T-shirts: www.deathrowtshirts.com
Probably the second-most-inappropriate
T-shirt site on the web. We are not disclosing the first place.
15. Giving your doctor a gift helps
your health: www.smartscrubs.com
Everybody knows a doctor. Here
is his perfect gift. Also good for role-plays. *cough cough*
16. Customized hand bags: www.snaptotes.com/home/
Put any picture on any bag
and carry it around. We like the whole “flaunt it” - thing,
obviously. If you want Julian on a handbag, just use this picture:
here!
17. Crafty stuff: www.etsy.com
Only handmade, authentic, and
real stuff. No plastic here! Ever got rated “Granola” on Shoeboxed?
Then this is a great place to find “me gifts.”
18. For the sports-fan in your
family: www.replayphotos.com
Represent your college sports
team. Alright, they also happen to be our totally awesome neighbors
in Brightleaf Square in Downtown Durham.
19. Wicked cool stuff: www.wickedcoolstuff.com
It’s corny, geeky, nerdy -
but it’s original. Also great stuff for your comic-loving kid.
20. Unique, rare stuff: www.thingsyouneverknew.com
If you ever thought, you have
seen everything: Here is some stuff that for sure no one else has. Uniqueness-award
on this one!
21. Nice apparel brand: www.uniqlo.com
New brand that comes straight
from Asia to NY. A tip for all you Hipsters and Trendsetters.
22. Sportswallets: www.jfold.com
Look! Animal-skin receipt holders!
Or just very stylish leather wallets. If you give this to your kids,
make sure you include some dead presidents.
23. The Classic: http://www.urbanoutfitters.com/
We talked about whether we
want to feature UO, because everybody knows them already. But they are
simply the best large retailer if it comes to cool apparel for kids
between 18 and 30.
24. If you are too lazy to search
all of the stores for yourself: Core77.com Ultimate Gift Guide
Uhm… It’s weird, but it’s
really cool! 77 Design gifts under $77. For you edgy people out there.
