Whether it’s Christmas, someone’s birthday, a new baby or an engagement gift, there’s always something you can find at a local market that makes a great gift.

Here’s 7 reasons I think shopping at a local market (complete with the cute awning) is great:

1. Support your local community – you’re helping someone in your neighbourhood make a living – and they’ll spend most of that money in your area, too, benefitting everyone.

2. Good for your environment - if they’re locally made artisan goods, there’s less carbon nonsense being accumulated via petrol and packaging for shipping. If it’s close enough that you can walk there and leave the car behind, bonus points.

3. Unique – you’re likely to find products that you won’t see anywhere else – certainly not stacked to the ceiling in Toys ‘R’ Us or Target.

4. Discovery/being in the know - ever heard about those hot clothing designers who started off selling their wares at local markets? How cool would you feel knowing you were there, helping support them from the start of their stellar career?

5. Lower costs means lower prices – market stalls cost from $40 and the money they save on renting a shop means they can keep prices lower which makes it affordable for you.

6. Personal contact – in today’s pre-packaged world, it is charming and delightful to direct meet the people who (hand)make the items you’re handing cash over for.

7. Fun – the markets are a day out in themselves. There’s always something new every week and the chance to pick up something amazing that you’ll know they just love.

Why do you like shopping at local markets for gifts?

They say a week is a long time in politics, but deal-of-the-day website Groupon can go one better than that.

In a single, chaotic day it sold over 440,000 vouchers, had its server crash in the rush and was forced to post a FAQ section on its site to handle the barrage of questions relating to the 24 hour promotion that was the cause of the melee.

The day in question, Thursday 19 August, must have taken on the dimensions of a stampeding herd of cattle by the time it was over.

The promotion, which was launched nationally across the US, offered $50 vouchers redeemable at any Gap retail outlet for every $25 spent.

Not a bad offer really; 441,000 people must have decided it was worth it. It’s not yet known what Gap itself thinks of the offer, probably because all of its staff are still busy serving the 441,000 customers.

No doubt the promotion is all part of Groupon’s ever-expanding presence in the deal-of-the-day market.

Just be sure to have your credit card greased and ready for the next big juicy offer…

Anyone with older siblings probably discovered early in life the joy of hand-me-downs.

Your pram, car seat, high chair or some other item was broken in by your bigger brothers and sisters. And perhaps with a few years under its belt, the item is now also broken.

The giant US toy chain Toys ‘R’ Us has launched its Great Trade-In event for 2010. Parents will receive a 25% discount on new baby items in exchange for old ones (even ugly kids’ gifts) that may be well past their use-by dates and plain unsuitable for further tours-of-duty with knee-high terrorists (sorry, children).

The point of this child safety initiative is twofold: to clear the country’s basements, attics and spare rooms of unsafe baby items and to highlight the issue of child safety, pointing out that “tried” doesn’t necessarily mean “true”. This is the Great Trade-In’s third year, with over 200,000 items already being returned so far this year. The program runs until 19 September.

Hand in hand with the Great Trade-In comes the company’s Product Safety Vigilance Program which is designed to keep busy parents better informed about product recalls and keep a vigilant eye on all items their youngsters come into regular contact with around the home.

Three cheers for Toys ‘R’ Us for this community-awareness campaign, especially as it’s become  de rigueur to recycle and regift. And plus, for your chance to get rid of some god-awful baby and children’s gifts and save some money on new ones.

We all know how much harder Dads are to buy for than Mums! Here’s a fun list of unusual prezzies to surprise and delight dear old Dad on Father’s Day.

1. Give him a limited edition screenprint artist’s proof (9 of only 11 made) of the iconic Nylex sign in Melbourne
2. Most men like food – and beer. If you’re an organic gal or guy, both of you will be happy with the Big BBQ Beer Gift Hamper which contains organic beer, salty snacks and caramelised condiments
3. Does your Dad jog? Let him experience these FiveFingers Bikila running “shoes” with toes  – and just imagine him back in his caveman days, running barefoot aiming his spear at woolly mammoths
4. These funky camera lens bracelets made in South Australia from recycled old school cameras are the best gift ever for a Dad who loves photography
5. Girls “go crazy for a sharp-dressed man” as ZZ Top used to say. Keep him elegant and a little bit different with gold cufflinks made from antique clock innards
6. This witty Par Avion leather laptop sleeve (there’s a waiting list it’s so popular) fits the MacBook Pro 15″ and looks like the old-fashioned office manila envelopes with the red string that secured around the red cardboard circle
7. If you know your mum will agree, give your Dad a Joya double massage set so she can massage his back after a long day. The donut-shaped timber set comes with 3 pairs of semi-precious gemstones, designed to address different needs
8. If he lives in Melbourne, and he’s keen on growing his own vegies, your Dad might like this raised 1200mm x 1200mm vegetable Magic Square Garden perfect for a sunny corner
9. Adrenalin junkies might appreciate a helmet-mounted Oregon Scientific waterproof action camera with digital video recorder and remote control to take shots as he flies down the mountain on skis, a snowboard or hanglider
10. Help him keep away the ravages of time with the Arbonne RE9 Advanced For Men Set
11. Is it time your Mum and Dad went away for a romantic weekend together? Don’t let him take his ratty old Army surplus canvas dufflebag – give him a stylish handmade leather weekend bag
12. Does he love wearing sandals in summer? My Vale creates very comfy customised sandals based on the shape of his foot (taken from the footprint box the My Vale people send him) – he’ll think of you with every step!
13. If he loves to cook, he’ll be impressed with the coloured chopping boards with matching knives to ensure you cut only raw meat on the red board, cooked meat on white, seafood on blue and fruit and vegies on the green board
14. Cyclist Dads may appreciate the smart (read: grown-up) navy bike bag which has a shoulder strap to take it from the bike to the boardroom
15. Perfect for oenophiles, your Dad can aerate his favourite red wine – no need for waiting!
16. All men are little boys at heart, playing pilots! Let him enjoy the Flight Experience flight simulation of taking off, flying and landing a Boeing 737 at the airport of his choice (over 24,000 to choose from)
17. OK this one is obviously a group family gift for Dad at $2,295(!) but the Taga is a cross between a premium baby stroller and a carrier bike
18. New Dads might be fascinated to discover the personality and potential their child (aged 0-16 years) within a luxury, personalised 40-50 page BabyStars astrology report from It’s In The Stars, Express Posted worldwide.
19. Creating a study with style could be a great Father’s Day gift! What about an Asian-style elm desk and chair with rattan inlay?
20. Does he have an old Tintin and Snowy comics he still loves reading? Here’s a great Destination Moon rocket ship to add to his collection.

One of the most agonising questions is how much is the right amount to spend on that all important wedding gift, not to mention the shower and engagement gifts.

Well fear not, here’s a Wedding Etiquette Survival Guide that solves all of these vexing conundrums and more.

The handy, easy-to-follow table suggests appropriate amounts to spend on family members, best friends, friends, and, apparently at the bottom of the evolutionary ladder, acquaintances and colleagues. One-night-stands don’t get a look in.

The site also provides useful tips regarding other potentially difficult or delicate areas, such as the dreaded gift registry, which can often turn out to be a veritable Venus flytrap of social mores and expectations. Get in early for best pick of the gifts in your price range, the site suggests.

It’s also perfectly acceptable to “group gift” provided you spend the same amount you would have invested individually and that everyone contributes the same amount. Answers to tricky questions like these are worth their weight in kitchen appliances.

Creativity with your gifting also gets a tick. In other words, don’t be afraid to buy those kitsch flying ceramic ducks if the happy couple has a sense of humour that will appreciate it.

Bonus points if the gift is unwrapped in front of everyone else.

Retailers call it “sophisticated marketing” while privacy advocates call it “intrusive”. It’s called Shopkick, and it knows where you’re shopping.

Shopkick has only recently been launched on an unsuspecting shopping public (initially in major US cities).

In a nutshell, this snappy little smartphone app follows you from store to store, from counter to counter, and even from fitting room to fitting room while sending current promotions to you. It’s one thing being bombarded with sales and specials from the sides of buses or while you’re watching TV. But it’s quite another when you’re squeezed in a fitting room wondering if your bum looks big in those new jeans you’re trying on.

But how does this technical wizardry actually work? An audio transmitter in each store sends out a signal to the app whenever you enter the store. You can’t hear it, but the app does. Simple, (if slightly unnerving).

There’s a carrot, of course, in the form of kickbucks. Basically these are points that you earn simply by entering a store (and even more for a fitting room). These kickbucks can be redeemed at the participating retailers for gift cards or music downloads.

In case you’re already thinking of spending a day dashing in and out of shops just to accumulate some kickbucks, there’s a limit to the amount you can earn daily. Plus, the 1,250 kickbucks you would need to earn just a $5 gift card, kind of makes it a bit of an exercise in futility trying to cheat the system.

Would you agree to effectively being monitored every step of the way whenever you go shopping? Maybe it depends on what shops you go into. Would visitors to “adult shops”, for example, really want their visits electronically recorded? Probably not.

There’s no question that green is now well and truly the new black, so the boom in the use of supposedly green gift cards and vouchers should come as no surprise to anyone. What is a surprise, however, is that the green credentials of these cards are not what we’ve been led to believe.

In fact, thee gift cards and vouchers are struggling to retain their environmentally friendly reputations. The problem with these “reusable plastic” gift cards is that, well… people don’t reuse them.

When you give someone a gift card or voucher as a birthday present, for example, you don’t really expect that person to come back to you in a month’s time asking for you to put more money on the card. Somehow, when the idea of the “reusable plastic” gift card was still in the pipeline, no-one actually thought of this fairly crucial point.

As the almost 10 billion gift cards that are created every year are made with that old favourite, PVC, that’s a whole lot of plastic destined for landfill, along with all those discarded water bottles and plastic shopping bags. Apparently the recycling of PVC plastics is too cumbersome and expensive for councils to consider it as a viable option.

Retailers who are concerned about the environment are therefore being encouraged to re-think their use of plastic gift cards and vouchers. But as the pre-paid gift card market in the US alone is estimated at $80 billion a year, that’s a change we shouldn’t really be expecting to see any time soon.

Only two weeks after reporting about UK online wedding registry Wrapit coming undone, it was a nasty surprise to hear of another retail wedding company, Confetti, ahem, blowing over, right during the northern hemisphere wedding season…

Confetti was comprised of five retail outlets in Glasgow, Leeds, London, Birmingham and Reading, plus a popular website and from all outward appearances was chugging along just fine.

But on Friday 13th August (appropriately enough), the bottom fell out of the box and the company filed for voluntary administration. The five shops were closed and more than half the company’s employees were made redundant.

In spite of receiving nearly 8 million hits a month and winning the gong for Best Wedding Website at this year’s BT Online Excellence Awards, the website, which is just about all that remains of Confetti, is still all dressed up with nowhere to go, begging for a buyer.

The administrators have been singing the praises of the website, but so far no-one has come forward with that 11th hour reprieve everyone’s been hoping for. D-day is 31 August. After that date, well, the brooms will be out, big time!

One of the newest family event days that’s been created is National Grandparents Day.

Mother’s Day and Father’s Day have been around for yonks so it was a surprise to find that a day to celebrate and recognise the contributions made by long-suffering grandparents was introduced as recently as 1978 in the US.

Celebrated on the first Sunday after US Labor Day, it falls this year on 12 September 2010 in America, on the first Sunday in October in the UK, the first Sunday in March in France, on 2 October as Guardian Angels Day in Italy and it’s celebrated separately for grandmothers and grandfathers respectively and consecutively on 21 and 22 January in Poland.

Although it’s unheard of in Canada and New Zealand, where presumably no-one wants to call their grandparents, I saw that one of Australia’s embattled premiers (there’s a few!), QLD’s Anna Bligh has announced the first-ever Grandparents Day on 7 November 2010.

It’s not as odd as it sounds – lots of people go to retire in QLD and hey, 7 November is before the dreaded Schoolies Week so maybe people will go up to visit Nan and Pops for their special day?

OK, every country has its own national quirks and characteristics. But when it comes to the wonderful world of Internet shopping, Canadians seem to be suspicious, demanding and even a touch paranoid.

Survey results released by market research company NPD Group Inc. reveals several possibilities as to why Canadians have been slower to jump on the online-shopping bandwagon than their American cousins south of the 49th parallel.

Most significantly, almost 90% of the survey’s respondents admitted that having to pay return shipping costs alone would make them less likely to make an online purchase.

But it doesn’t stop there; 51% said they were anxious about the security of online payment transactions, and 22% said having to create online accounts prior to purchase was enough to put them off.

Personally, I think the more interesting idea is not how many Canadians would baulk at having to pay return shipping costs but the fact that they have to return anything at all.

It makes more sense with clothing. But why would you return books, CDs, cosmetics or sporting goods, for example? Have they gone online shopping without reading the customers’ testimonials? Were they in a hurry?

I would rarely return it, as I’d be more likely to ahem, regift it, or sell it on eBay and chalk it up as a mistake. But maybe I too, would return something if return shipping was free.