My visit to Threadless - for real

The primary destination of our road trip was Chicago. As far as my kids were concerned, a trip to Chicago would be incomplete without a trip to the real-life, bricks and mortar Threadless store. Truth be told, the same could be said for me.

We had barely settled into our hotel room and there was no way the kids would even consider doing anything before making the trek to Threadless, so we did. If you’ve been reading this blog for a while, you’ll know I’ve been a huge fan of Threadless and how an online community was built around this brand that originally could only be consumed online. I was curious to see how it would translate into the offline world, particularly since most online stores are an extension of an existing offline store, not the other way around.
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As you can see from the slideshow of my photos, skinnyCorp, the folks behind the Threadless brand, did a great job of translating the spirit of Threadless.com into a 3D format. The friendly staff was exactly what you’d expect and more. The tiny three-level shop was jam-packed with Threadless t-shirt goodness. Oh ya, in addition to a gift or two, my kids and I each bought a t-shirt – mine is called Fall Into the Sun. (Like all Threadless tees, it’s available online today for a mere $9US!)

But there are some differences from the online store:
• A fraction of the styles are available – not surprising considering the huge inventory online.
• New tees are released on Fridays (not Mondays) so you’ll have a head start on the online shoppers if you shop on the weekend.
• StreetTeam points can’t be redeemed here. Instead, shoppers get a reusable bag with their initial purchase that can be reused for $1 off subsequent purchases – a recyclable coupon of sorts.

Now if I could only get the website to accept the photo of me in my new tee all would be well in the world. Seems it logs my purchase history but isn’t able to integrate in-store purchases.

And a quick aside, Threadless seemed to be situated on a block I dubbed “community row” because it’s beside a bike store filled with Specialized bikes and down the street from a bakery with a “Community Divas” cake in the window – check out the picture.

What do you think of Threadless? Do you think it was a good idea for them to open a storefront? If you’ve been there, what other differences have you noticed?

Back-to-school shopping tips for 2009

It’s almost that time again. School starts in a month and retailers are doing their best to lure us into making a whack of back-to-school purchases between now and then.

For many of us bloggers who talk about shopping, parenting and fashion, this is also a time when we get bombarded with a lot of information about what our kids must have before they go back to school. Unfortunately, most of what I’ve received has been directed at U.S. consumers. Since Bargainista is really a place where Canadians who love shopping connect, I thought I’d share the couple Canadian items with you.

Visa Canada (a client of Fleishman-Hillard and iStudio, my employer) released a study last week looking at the shopping habits of Canadians, what they buy and where they shop, in the weeks leading up to Labour Day.

Here are some of the findings:

• Canadians parents and students plan on spending an average of $600 online before Labour Day, with approximately 15% going towards school supplies

• Of the online shoppers who plan to make an online purchase between now and Labour Day; popular purchases include books (49%), travel (36%) and computers (31%)

• Canadian online shoppers made an average of 7.1 purchases on Canadian websites, 4.8 purchases on U.S. websites, and 0.5 purchases on international websites

I don’t know about you but with two growing boys who have gone through tremendous growth spurts in the past few months, our back-to-school spending will be through the roof. We’ll be doing our best to keep costs down while knowing we need to buy school supplies, clothing, cell phones (their contracts have expired, we’ll opt for new plans with “free” phones) and have some money left over for some family fun before school begins.

For school supplies, read the comments on It’s School Supply Time in Canada! for tips.

For clothing basics, check out Bargainmoose shares her Old Navy bargain hunting secrets for great tips on how to save at Old Navy.

My kids love Threadless and they’re having a big sale now through August 17, 11 a.m. ET. If you shop today by 11 a.m. ET, you can use this code “awesome49243” to save an extra $3 on your purchase. Update: you can use this code at checkout “awesome27945” until August 13 11 a.m. ET to save an extra $3 on your purchase.

Looking for desks and other furniture on a budget? Don’t forget to check out sites like Craigslist and kijii.

If it’s big ticket items like laptops and cell phones you need, Wishabi* is a comparison shopping community that will help you find the best products at the lowest prices. Wishabi has just launched a text books search for university students.

“It’s an interface that allows students to find the best deals on text books compared to their University book store,” according to Wishabi’s CEO, Wehuns Tan, “Students being money savers love this kind of stuff and we compare books on both sides of the border. What we’ve seen is that with the high CAD/USD conversion, purchasing across the border is heating up significantly.”

And on the subject of cross-border shopping, if your finding unique items or better prices on U.S. websites, Visa Canada has partnered with Borderlinx – a new service providing Canadian’s with a U.S. address. Borderlinx will even calculate currency conversion, duties, taxes and shipping so you can see the total cost before you decide to buy. Also, if you want to shop at several U.S. online stores, Borderlinx allows you to consolidate your purchases so you can save on shipping costs.

Membership in Borderlinx is free (regularly $30) and you’ll save 15% on shipping costs for the rest of the year if you have a Visa card. Now I’ll be able to get my little one some of the licensed wrestling paraphernalia without the hassle of crazy shipping fees for Canadian residents.

Where do you do the bulk of your back-to-school shopping? Find any deals? What are your favourite shopping tips?

*Note: Mark Evans and Jodi Echakowitz on behalf Echo Communications provided information about their client, Wishabi.

Twitter tees by Threadless

I get a lot of email from people asking me to blog about their companies or their clients. Most of the time, most of it either doesn’t interest me or isn’t a fit for Bargainista.

So, when I hear from a company I like and I’ve blogged about before, I usually pay attention. And when I hear from a company I like because it has partnered with another company I like, of course I’m going to share…

Threadless and Twitter have teamed up! You read that right. Today marks the launch of Twitter Tees by Threadless. Have a favourite tweet you want to wear? Want to turn your favourite 140-character-or-less expression into a t-shirt? Well now you have your chance.

Twitter Tees will feature tweets submitted and voted by Twitter users. Each t-shirt will be designed and produced by the awesome creative team at Threadless.

Two new t-shirts will be chosen and printed each week. And, just like the original Threadless community, if you’re tweet is selected, you’ll be rewarded – how’s US$360 and a US$140 Threadless gift certificate? But, you don’t have to initiate a tweet to reap the benefits either. As long as you’re on Twitter and you’re the first person to nominate someone’s tweet, you’ll get US$100 and a US$40 Threadless gift certificate. Sweet!

As the Threadless press release says,

“The Tweets collectively selected by Twitter users are sure to be fun, irreverent and emblematic of Twitter and its base of passionate users.”

Sounds like this will be fun. I’m curious to see if tweets will become more creative and how well Twitter Tees do compared to the original Threadless.

Is this a smart business decision or just a passing fad? Only time will tell. What do you think? Will you try and tweet your way to a Threadless tee?