Boutiques.com – Visual power has penetrated the fashion realm and now online apparel shopping is more accurate and individualized than ever. Take Boutiques.com for example, brought to us by Google, which “lets you find and discover fashion goods through a collection of boutiques curated by taste-makers — celebrities, stylists, designers, and fashion bloggers.” This ‘make-it-your-own’ apparel store uses visual technology that ‘learns’ your taste and style, and offers specific items that you, the users, will likely appreciate and hopefully purchase.
How does Boutiques learn what your style is, and what items to offer you accordingly? Click the Create Your Boutique button on the upper right corner, and start selecting your best outfits out of the ones the system offers you (actual celebrities’ styles). I did this for about 5 minutes, and Boutiques.com informed me my style is ‘casual chic.’
To finish off your own Boutique and have ‘it’s all you’ item recommendations, you will need to go through five more steps, but these are filled with fun and glamor you will enjoy every second of it. These include choosing your favorite (and least favorite) silhouettes, colors and patterns for a variety of clothing categories, and when you’re done, you go to your ‘Storefront’ and check out a huge catalog of clothing and accessories all suiting your personal style. Plus, you can follow other users who have created their storefront, and others can follow you for some added inspiration. I totally understand why Google bought this company. They KNOW style!
Thanks to the semi-national events of Black Friday and Cyber Monday, finding gifts at attractive prices is all but impossible. Sure, you can stand in line at 5 A.M., waiting out in the cold for your favorite retailer store to open its doors, but you don’t have to. There’s a much saner option: Shopping online. That is exactly what I’m going to do tomorrow, in the comfort of my warm apartment, my Internet connection and the All My Faves Holidays page.
As for the gifts I’m going to buy online this season, I have prepared a killer list that perfectly pampers all of my friends and family members, and all of these are bestsellers, so I thought I would share these with you. If you’re still debating about the right gift for someone in your family, check out this list and perhaps you will be inspired.
1. For all the ladies in my life: The Holidays page offers two knock-out categories people are visiting like crazy: ‘For Her’ and ‘For Him.’ But ladies first, as they say, so here we go: For my sister I’m going for the fail-proof UGG boots, and for my cooking-savvy mom, a ‘Le Creuset’ cast iron cooking set. Grandma will get a pair of Isotoner gloves along with the plush Sunbeam fleece throw, and for my best friend Rebecca I’m buying Sarah Jessica Parker’s Lovely perfume gift set.
2. For dad, my brothers and my beau: For my two brothers I’m getting a Kenneth Cole watch and a poker set, respectively. And what about my dad who is absolutely addicted to cycling? I think I’ll get him a set of a WearLink transmitter belt + heart rate and cadence monitor computer by Polar – he’ll be ecstatic! My boyfriend, who has grown mildly obsessed with PS3 games, will get the bestselling video games Call of Duty: Black Ops, and the FIFA 2011 he’s been raving about for the past couple of weeks.
That’s a good starting point. I’m also going to indulge myself in a nice holiday gift, but I’m still debating whether I should get the Wii Fit set (yes, part of my New Year resolution), or the e-Book reader everyone’s been raving about, the Kindle. I hope you find everything on your gift list this holiday season. The AllMyFaves Holidays page has compiled all of the best deals for Black Friday and Cyber Monday in one page. Visit it now – being an early bird pays off. Here’s a screen shot of the upper part of the Holidays page. Happy Hunting!
We spent countless hours researching the Web for the very best deals, products and online stores, and now we are pleased to present to you All My Faves’ Happy Holidays 2010 page! You will find here nothing short of the cream of the holiday season’s crop, fit for each and every one in you family and group of friends.
As opposed to last year, the Happy Holidays 2010 page comes in a redesigned page that includes new interesting categories such as gift ideas ‘for him’ and ‘for her,’ Kindle bestsellers and others. You will also find the hottest items people are now shopping for online in a myriad of categories (including hot deals, consoles and video games, gadgets, gift cards, toys, music, books, movies, TV series and loads more). It was especially important to us to ensure that whatever you shop for on the Happy Holidays page is top quality at the lowest price possible.
This Black November and Christmas can’t get any better than this! Visit our Happy Holidays page now, save time and enjoy the festivities both online and at home.
Especially Happy Holidays,
The All My Faves Team
eBay Group Gifts – Imagine a close friend of yours moves into a new house and you really want to give him a housewarming gift that stands out, like a cool set of rock speakers for his new deck outside. The only thing is, these speakers can cost more than you can afford at the moment. One option would be to do a group purchase with some of your mutual buddies, where one person actually buys the gift online, and the others pay him back later. Well, eBay’s Group Gifts feature takes this basic purchase option and makes it better, super easy and fun.
Simply go to the Group Gifts main page, type in the name of the gift’s recipient and the occasion (you can also pick the friend’s name straight from your Facebook friends list). Next, search for a gift and pick one, just make sure it’s from the ‘Buy it Now’ section (see photo below), and select your contribution’s amount to the gift’s overall price. The following step includes providing an active PayPal account where you and all the other buddies pitching in can make your respective contribution. This cool feature includes setting a time limit, which totally eliminates the entire issue of reminding your friends to pay you back !
Once the payment portion is done, eBay will send the gift to the recipient and voila, he’ll have to figure out where exactly he’d like to position those rock-like speakers. For more information on eBay’s amazing new group purchase feature, see the video below. We loved the Group Gift option , especially for the holidays!
ThinkGeek – We don’t normally feature an e-commerce site in the Weekly Faves lineup, but ThinkGeek is most certainly an exception. This website represents what every man secretly desires, but is too afraid to admit it. Aside from cool t-shirts like this one, ThinkGeek offers cool stuff for the home, the office, pets, kitchen, computer and electronics, and loads more. The two photos below are my absolute favorites.
Groupon – Group discount shopping sites are still relatively new but they’re growing fast, and for a good reason: they deliver hot deals that are totally worth it. Groupon is by far one of the very best group-based deal provider currently on the Web, offering large discounts on luxurious products, services and activities. As Groupon explains, it “negotiates huge discounts on popular local goods, services and cultural events. Then we offer the deals to thousands of subscribers in a free daily email.” What deals will you find here? Half priced spa sessions, discounted hotel reservations, even orchestra tickets. Simply search for your state or country, provide your email address and you’re good to go.
The only catch for scoring those hot deals is that there must be a minimum number of on-site users who actually go through with the purchase (hence the ‘group’ of Groupon), and there’s a time limit for the daily deal. The way I see it, there’s noting for you to lose; you sign up for free, get daily updates on new deals (as low as 50%, even 70% off), let all your friends know of this great opportunity, and then proceed to discounted goodness. You’re not obligated to do anything you don’t want to. Here is an example of recent deals on Groupon.
Rentalic – Now there’s finally a solution to all those unused household items and old appliances you keep stored away in your basement: rent them to people who need them. Sounds surreal? Just visit Rentalic and a whole new world of income and sharing opportunities will open up to you.
Rentalic’s basic concept is so simple and useful, it’s surprising no one had thought of it before. Rent out your bicycle for a week or rent someone’s 4-persons tent for your weekend camping with friends. All these and numerous other options are available to you on Rentalic, all with the added value of saving money, helping others and making the world a more sustainable place. Rentalic is the perfect rental marketplace! See the photo below as an example of what people from San Francisco are renting out.
CarWoo! – Buying a new car seems easy; about every other TV commercial advertises a new car model, and promises easy financing (do you manage to read the fine print in less than 10 seconds?). But if you’ve bought a new or pre-owned car sometime in the last 10 years, you know it’s not that easy, and if you don’t do your homework properly or know how to negotiate, you might pay too much for your car or find yourself overwhelmed with car debt.
CarWoo is here to make the entire process much simpler and easier, by taking the load of price negotiation and dealer deals off of you. This way they allow you to be choosy, and you can be rest assured that you are presented with the absolute best deal options for your desired car. Although the service costs between $19 and $39 (basic and plus CarWoo deals, respectively) for a 2010 Toyota Prius, CarWoo is worth a shot, especially if it’s such a cash saver! Plus, if major publishers such as Wired.com, Forbes and BusinessWeek praised CarWoo, I think you should give it a go the next time you plan on buying a car.
To learn more on how CarWoo works, see the video below. The site is beautifully designed and the interface is easy to work with. Great job CarWoo! For more top notch car related sites and resources visit our Cars Mini Faves page.
eBay LookBook – It seems every apparel brand these days offers some form of a look book on its site; there are also very successful sites which offer nothing but user-submitted looks and styles (such as lookbook.nu and the like). Well, eBay is using this fashion trend to its e-commerce advantage, and now, in collaboration with Lucky Magazine, offers the perfect platform to submit, rate and get feedback on your personal style. Why would eBay offer such a think for free? So you will get the urge to shop for more clothes of your taste, on eBay of course.
I believe eBay’s concept is genius. Although users are not by any means obligated to buy anything if they choose to use the LookBook platform, I know I would most certainly be tempted to buy something. The LookBook is easy to use, it’s very inviting and it’s open to everyone, so guys, feel free to submit your look as well. You can also simply browse the gallery, see which styles scored high and continue from there.
Makers Market – For those of you who already know Etsy and like the concept of directly buying art and accessories from the artist who made them, you should also add Makers Market to your list of artisan shopping. Makers Market is “a curated market place of wonderful science, tech and artistic creations created and sold directly by some of our favorite Makers from around the World. – From the creators of Make and Boing Boing.”
There are thousands of products here for sale, listed under categories such as tech, science, arts & crafts, home + life (my favorite), wearables, music, even services. Makers Market is a remarkable venue for all those geeky artists to show off their talent and sell their amazing creations. Great initiative, superb execution and gorgeous products make this site a personal favorite.
Blippy – A first of its kind community shopping forum and review hub, Blippy is here to let you consult, advise on and share your purchases, whatever the product. According to Blippy, the site is “a community of people helping each other discover interesting things by reviewing & discussing almost everything we buy.”
For those afraid of privacy issues, don’t worry; Blippy allows you to set sharing limits to your information and purchases, so whatever you want off the radar will stay that way. As for me, I sincerely admire Blippy’s novel and creative concept, but I think for now I’ll wait to see how the site progresses in the next few months. If you’re interested in exploring Blippy for yourself, signup with Facebook Connect, import your friends’ contact info and start sharing.
Here’s an introduction video to learn more on Blippy. Enjoy.
What To Wear – Not sure what clothes fit your body shape? Interested in some cut-to-the-chase opinion on that blouse and pants you plan to wear this evening? What To Wear is here to answer these important questions and other clothes related issues. Glamour Magazine’s style experts are here to give you a professional hand and to give you tips and suggestions so you could maximize your look with what you have. In addition, users posting questions also receive apparel shopping recommendations worth checking out.
Make the absolute most of What To Wear by exploring their various features such as Events, Locations, Trends, Brands, Daily Picks (facebook and twitter feeds) and my favorite: Stylists you can follow. See the screen shot below of a Glamour stylist’s answer to a young mom who is looking for style suggestions for hiding her post delivery baby fat.
