Plus, if you put your savings toward spending at its partner merchants, you get a bonus by putting your money on those stores' gift cards.
Several clothing stores, gift shops and restaurants line Main Street, along with an old-fashioned ice cream parlor on one end and a chocolate shop on the other.
It offers, among other features, a bestseller list drawn from members' stores, gift certificates redeemable at any affiliated store (allowing direct competition with the ubiquity of the chains) and national advertising promoting independents' reading recommendations.
Now, besides overhauling its stores' gift departments, Saks is taking on Tiffany, which previously had the market for corporate gifts pretty much to itself -- with, of course, an occasional exception like, say, a pair of his-and-her jets from Neiman Marcus.
Open only to the trade, the show has a marketing slogan that said it all to the aisle-cruising buyers from natural-food stores, gift shops, drugstores and spas who were exploring the entrepreneurial edge of the $58 billion personal care, cosmetics and beauty market: "Everything you need.
The creatures -- whose average owner is a 10-year-old child -- are waiting to be shipped to department stores, gift shops and pet emporiums not only along the shore, but as far afield as boardwalks in California, souvenir shops in Idaho and amusement parks in Kansas.
