shopping

Back when I was in school, back to school shopping meant going to Barefoot Trader on Lisbon Street in Lewiston to buy a couple pairs of corduroys (those pants were horrible), some notebooks, pens and pencils and maybe a new lunchbox. Maybe 75 bucks spent.

Christmas present buying is at crunch time now but you still should put some thought into the present and who it for. What do they like, what would they actually use. There are a lot of unwanted gifts that are bought during this time of the year and according from years past, here are the gifts people hope not to receive.

Something that has been building for a couple of years and now has reached an all-time high is ‘self-gifting’. There has been a 27% jumping in the last 5 years of people buying gifts for their own personal use. They usually spend $237 on self-gifting.

Maine has a law where retail stores of more than 5,000 square-feet can not open on holidays. The are exceptions in the law, for example, L.L.Bean.

There is a new app available that lets you shop for groceries according to you political views.  The BuyPartisan  app allows shoppers to scan the bar code of a product to see if they are Democrat or Republican.  It lets you know which way the CEO and employees of the company lean politically.

Mannequins have been in retail stores for many years displaying the clothes that the store has to offer. Things haven’t changed much over the years, until now. A British company has developed a talking mannequin that can communicate with customers through an app on their smart phone.

Chad and I took Anderson and Bradley Christmas shopping for the kids our bands adopted during the Salvation Army Christmas Castle this past Tuesday. We decided to head to Kmart because they were having really good deals! Little did we know we could have fun INSIDE Kmart with other things... Check out what we found!

We're getting set to help you save big money and get all your holiday shopping done in one place. Get ready for Cyber Monday with Seize the Deal.

Black Friday has grown into a weekend of consumer-oriented festivities starting as early as 6 a.m. on Thanksgiving Day. We've put together a guide as to who’s open when and what kinds of deals you can find when you shop, either at brick-and-mortar stores or on the Web:

There is something special about this time of year in Maine. The changing of the seasons from summer to fall, the best time of year in Maine. A tradition from generations is passed on, back to school shopping.

Back to school is getting closer and closer and parents are looking at their budget wondering where all the money is going to come from for back to school shopping. Many parents overspend when it comes to back to school because that’s what they have always done. The reality is you don’t have to.

I LOVE shoes...like REALLY love shoes. I don't own very many but when I do buy I try and buy cute. And cheap. And what a bargain I found!

A food specialty store in Australia is sick of folks "just looking" at their merchandise without buying anything. So, starting last month, Celiac Supplies instituted a policy in which shoppers pay a five dollar door fee, which will then be deducted from any purchase.

The economy is getting so tough one store is actually charging customers who don’t buy anything.

I live so much of my life online. If a business does not have some sort of online offering I often don’t give them a second thought. Even if it is enough to get their phone number and address, I will still look for that information online. Waterville is making it easier for us to get this information about area business with mico-websites. Oh, and they are free.

An iPad would normally be considered a pretty substantial gift this holiday season. Thanks to a fortunate error by Best Buy, a couple of shoppers can now use the tablet computer for stocking stuffers.