Karen Baier's store isn't off the beaten path anymore, it's right along it.

In November, Baier moved the yarn shop that had been in her and her husband's Monona farmhouse into a storefront on Williamson Street. Despite a new address, Off the Beaten Path Yarnery found an instant home. Read more...

Now that the presents are put away, it's time to kick back and wait for the bacchanalia known as St. Patrick's Day. Or perhaps it's time to see how retailers are set to benefit from a gift-giving trend in January.

Did you forget those gift cards you stuffed into the stockings last year? According to figures from the International Council of Shopping Centers, chain-store sales for the week ended Jan. 2 rose 1.5% from the last week of Christmas shopping, and were 2.5% higher than the year-ago period. Read more...

One size didn't necessarily fit all.

But gift cards proved to be a uniform solution for many Shoppers Drug Mart Christmas customers this year.

"Gift cards for me, were like a 'wow,'" said SDM Store Manager Sandy Miller. "Gift cards were huge." Read more...

It's better late than never for two of the three small businesses taking advantage of tax-sharing deals with Broomfield.

Abbott's Frozen Custard opened Wednesday, and Herb's Meat and Specialty Foods is scheduled to open early this year. Both have deals with Broomfield that granted them property tax rebates if they opened by Jan. 1. The city offered the deals as part of City Council's effort to encourage small businesses to open in Broomfield. Read more...

Despite a rise in consumer confidence, several Evanston businesses said sales have been slow, even during the holiday season.

The Consumer Confidence Index, a measure of consumers’ attitudes toward the economy, rose for the second straight month in December, according to a press release from the Conference Board on Dec. 29. It rose from November’s standing of 50.6 to 52.9. Read more...

Art crawls and twists from floor to ceiling at Donna Van Gogh’s gallery like colorful kudzu directed by a natural force of feng shui. It is, all at once, complex and charming and evocative and bright, from covering the gambit of traditionalist concepts to straight-up avant-garde weirdness.

Perfect example: a painting of local intersecting street signs hangs comfortably near one of a grinning neon skeleton, while topping it off, a cut-out Elvis Presley provocatively postures opposite rows of prints. Read more...

The shopping masses, as is traditionally the case, started to descend on stores on Black Friday.

The push remained fairly constant through the holiday season locally and nationally. Now it's time to take stock of what happened. Read more...

Waverly -- Imagine a drafty garage barely tamed with a robust space heater.

All around are rows and piles of window frames, odd boards and occasional trunks.

In the middle sits Michaela Schrader, 41, Waverly, at work. Surrounded by pots of varying brushes, palettes and paints, she's putting finishing touches on a custom landscape on wood commissioned for a "big" birthday. Read more...

Tampa, FL - As shoppers recover from holiday spending, retailers have devious plans to entice us back into stores. They play on our love of social media, our cell phones and our suspicion that we're undiscovered fashion designers.

Case in point: A new pair of running shoes is nice. But some companies have built elaborate online systems that let shoppers design their own shoes - down to the color of the soles, laces and stitching.

Retailer Wet Seal encourages teens to mix and match fashions on their cell phones, then compare the looks with nearby teens based on GPS data. Read more...

Gumption Gifts, in the Beverly community of Chicago, is a store devoted to making a profit, but changing perceptions and helping people is just as important.

The store, 1814 W. 103rd St., has been open about three years and is run under the auspices of CARC, an agency that has been providing services to people with developmental disabilities and their families for more than 40 years. Gumption Gifts is partially staffed by developmentally disabled people. Read more...