Saturday, May 30, 2009

The Martha Stewart Collection

If you like the Martha Stewart Collection, you may have been disappointed when it became a Macy's exclusive. I know I was, since the line was a very popular with my Amazon customers. Well, now in a separate deal, Macy's has contracted with Amazon to handle their online sales.

If you are new to Amazon, you will find that these "third party" sales are essentially the same as direct Amazon sales. The main difference you will notice is that the Amazon search function may include extraneous items, and it may be harder to browse through categories to see what is available.

Of course Amazon still carries Martha Stewart Books, and even has a Martha Stewart Bibliography page, in addition to the popular Martha Stewart Magazines and Martha Stewart DVDs. What has changed is that the Martha Stewart Collection products have moved into the Macy's Store, which makes them harder to search for. Furthermore, it is virtually impossible to find the Martha Stewart Bed & Bath Sale Items, the Martha Stewart Dining & Entertaining Sale Items, or the Martha Stewart Kitchen Sale Items without considerable drilling down. This is also true for the Martha Stewart Clearance Items.

The Links below are a site map for Macy's Martha Stewart pages, which require considerable drilling down to reach (except from here!) If you like Macy's but don't have a store near you, you might want to subscribe to this blog, since I am planning similar articles for other popular Macy's departments and brands.

Gifts

For the Home Bed & Bath Rugs Clearance

Wednesday, May 20, 2009

Amazon Kindle : The Perfect Graduation Gift?

Amazon.com's proprietary Kindle Wireless Reading Device is one of the best kept secrets in electronics. In contrast with Apple's iPhone media blitz, Amazon generates sales that often outpace their Kindle production capacity with little more than their own web-based promotion. While the First-Generation Kindle is now fairly well-known, the same cannot be said for the updated Kindle 2, or the upcoming Kindle DX, currently available for delivery this summer.

Kindle readers include a subscription to Amazon's Whispernet 3G Wireless service, subject to certain limitations. Although the terms of the contract could be clearer, it seems that normal web browsing is permitted. The service explicitly includes free downloads of first chapter previews, and discounted electronic "kindle" versions of 275,000+ books to date. Amazon is currently negotiating with several major textbook publishers, which potentially will dramatically increase the value of the Kindle to collegians.

Amazon acquired Mobipocket in April 2005, so Windows users can download the free Mobipocket Creator 4.2 Home Edition software, allowing them to convert a wide variety of files into the kindle-supported .PRC format. Understandably, Amazon doesn't aggressively publicize the fact that thousands of public-domain titles are freely available in this form from Amazon, Mobipocket, Project Gutenberg, and others.

For Apple enthusiasts, there is a Kindle App for iPhone and iTouch, although these devices obviously suffer from their small screen size. You will find useful information on Amazon's "Shopping the Kindle Store on Amazon.com" page, but it would be well worth the nominal fee to download The Kindle 2 Cookbook: How To Do Everything the Manual Doesn't Tell You

Thursday, April 23, 2009

Popular Women's Shoes @ Amazon.com

Amazon.com recently rearranged their Women's Shoe Department, no doubt as part of the launch of their endless shoes and handbags subsidiary. This had the unfortunate side-effect of invalidating all the links in my Shoe Mania aStore. Paradoxically, my shoe sales soared. Apparently the programming that Google uses to determine the "significance" of the pages they index prefers a bunch of blank navigation pages over pages that actually link to products.

I'll resist the urge to wander off into a discussion of search engines and search engine marketing, except to make the point that using a vendor's own on-site search is frequently more productive than relying on one of the major search engines to find the products you want. To that end, I've cobbled together a couple of remote search boxes that will help you find what you're looking for on either the Amazon or Endless sites. They seem to work now, but because they rely on the vendor's software, they could break down in the future. Please feel free to leave feedback using the comments link at the end of this article.

Search
Search

Here are some popular shoes sold here in the past ten days. Clicking on the name of the shoe will take you to a perfectly functional Shoe Mania page with limited navigation. Clicking on the picture will take you to endless.com, and hovering your mouse over the "@ Amazon" link will bring up a pop-up with additional information, or clicking on it will take you directly to the appropriate Amazon page.

Anne Klein New York
Women's Amannda Slide


@ Amazon
Anne Klein New York
Women's Tabatha Platform Sandal


@ Amazon
Annie
Women's Amber Sandal


@ Amazon
Annie
Maka Dress Sandal


@ Amazon
Boutique 9
Joleen Sandal


@ Amazon
California Magdesians
Women's August Pump


@ Amazon
Circa Joan & David
Women's Presley Pump


@ Amazon
Kathryn Kerrigan
Sabrina Slingback


@ Amazon
Lifestride
Women's Mariah Slingback


@ Amazon
Oh! Shoes
Women's Reflex Pump


@ Amazon
Penny Loves Kenny
Women's Attar Sandal


@ Amazon
Penny Loves Kenny
Women's Attar Sandal


@ Amazon
oh DEER!
Women's Waldorf Pump


@ Amazon
LifeStride
Women's Caitlin Slingback


@ Amazon
Easy Street
Principle Dress Sandal


@ Amazon
Bandolino Women's Berry Pump

@ Amazon
Vince Camuto
Angie Peep Toe Sandal


@ Amazon
Annie
Sadie Evening Dress Sandal


@ Amazon
Charles David
Women's Jester Sandal


@ Amazon
farylrobin
Women's Kyrie Pump


@ Amazon
Miss Me
Women's Kate-8 Moccasin


@ Amazon