Charities have been running online shops for some time, and beyond the basic sales of fundraising items in recent years they have moved to offering real life solutions (or ethical giving) to their cause – buy a goat for an african village, teach a classroom with a supply of textbooks.
Oxfam have expanded their store even further by linking into their highstreet stores and posting second hand items on their site. Instead of browsing through rack of cloths and shelves of book you can now search online for unwanted gems. It’s good to see charities join in the full service experience blending their offline and online services together. Considering the complications of running second hand shops where you never know what might be on the shelves one day from the next I think this is an especially impressive move forward from Oxfam.
And I notice Oxfam use twitter in their media centre. Good to see these services getting picked up more and more.
I shouldn’t really hate Ikea, and I’m a hypocrite for doing so, but I can’t help it.
I live near a store and over the last 12 months it has been invaluable for buying cheap functional attractive furniture for my new flat. Especially when it came to a new sofa, as we couldn’t get anything of decent size through the door and round the hallway. A build your self (and later dismantle yourself) sofa was the ideal solution.
But every trip destroys my will to live, and a visit yesterday was no different. As the minutes roll buy and I walked my way around the store the need for home furnishings dwindled, my energy was drained and the craving to escape rose to unbearable levels.
When we got back at home all was well again, We surveyed the nice new things we’d brought and began putting them together.
This post by swissmiss from blank is like blank sums it up perfectly for me.
I know one day I’ll have to go again.
Last night I was shopping for a present for a good friend of mine at work who’s leaving this week. As they commute long stretches of the tube each day I decided what they would most like to receive as a leaving present would be An Illustrated Guide to the Piccadilly Line (and a wodge of topshop vouchers and some other stuff, we’re not complete bastards).
It turns out the London Transport Museum has a very impressive library of books on everything tube and train related, and it doesn’t stop there, they have a decent sized display devoted to DVDs. What particularly caught my eye was the series of “Driver eye view” films for each of the tube lines, with a running commentary of dark tunnel followed by dark tunnel of tube track. Now that is a niche market, and they’re got it fully covered. Don’t tell Gorden Brown though or he’ll ban them for being a terrorist threat.
On my way to Covent Garden I also noticed a very nice looking whisky shop which I had a quick look in on. Whisky was stacked floor to ceiling and it reminded me of a cachaca shop in Paraty ‘d been to. In a complete coincidence the London Daily Photo site features the same whisky shop in today’s photo. Which is nice.
Here’s a new toy I have just brought. I already have a Canon SLR but mine is slightly older, (a 400D) and this is brand new. It is also not for me, but for my sister.
Needless to say I am jealous. The kit lense has image stabalisation, the camera has spot metering and live view, and it has a larger and brighter view finder.
I made the purchase in Jessops, which I will try to never do again. Chain store fever struck again. It was frustratingly difficult to just buy a camera. No i don’t want extra insurance, or a bag, or a rip off memory card (£38.99 for a standard 4GB memory card? Ridiculous. ).
I’m not a big fan of shopping malls, one tends to blend into another and you don’t know if you’re in Brent Cross, Lakeside, Watford, Guildford or Cambridge. The usual suspects are always there, the same clothes shops, cafes, music and video stores line the walkways trying to make their 300 square metres somehow different from everyone elses. I can’t count the times I have followed my better half into a clothes store and once inside, have had no idea which store I’m in.
So the Unchained London website (thanks Plummet Onions!) is a breath of fresh air – a directory of independent shops in London owned by real people who have a real interest in their wares. It is a little frustrating to navigate as you have to enter a location AND shop name or description instead of just being able to browse shops in a particular area. But it can be forgiven for now as a great effort to get people to see past the usual mall and high street stores.
Unchained London also reminds me of a post by Ben from Noisy Decent Graphics, where he discovered a shop run by the company Unpackaged where all the products (where possible) are sold without packaging. A great idea I think, taking things back to basics.
