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.

Unless you’ve been living under a rock for the last 10 or so years, you’ll probably have noticed that today’s teens are often accused of being the most materialistic and brand-oriented in history. But what can you do about it without sounding like Nanny McPhee?

Well, a couple of US professors have writted a paper on “Interpersonal Influences on Adolescent Materialism: A New Look at the Role of Parents and Peers”.

It suggests (no, really, this’ll surprise ya!) that parents and peers are in a strong position to reduce their teenagers’ love affair with material possessions.

The study suggests that parents can basically wean their kids off all those expensive luxury goods and tech accessories simply by providing emotional support and psychological wellbeing, which, when you think about it, is kinda what parents were invented for in the first place.

The study also politely points out that materialistic kids are more than likely to have materialistic parents, or, to put it more bluntly… what goes around, comes around.

It’s mostly because of low self-esteem that people, especially teens, turn to material possessions in the first place.

Supportive and nurturing parents will therefore benefit two-fold; their kids will be happier and more well-adjusted and their houses won’t be cluttered with expensive crap. See, it’s win-win.

eBay fans, at last there’s a loyalty scheme especially for you!

From now on, any gifts you buy for others will offer you more than the fist-pumping “Yes!” when you’ve outbid the other contestants (sorry, customers).

Introducing the eBay Bucks rewards program, which has been slowly gestating in the cyber womb since April last year.

To qualify, you need to: 1. Purchase a qualifying item. 2. Pay using PayPal (also owned by eBay). (and you knew this was coming…) 3. Be an American customer.

If you tick these three boxes, you’ll be rewarded with a 2% kickback in the form of eBay Bucks, which will accumulate quarterly. You’ll then be issued a statement telling you how many you’ve got up your sleeve to use for other eBay purchases you make over the next 30 days. Rather like cyber tokens.

These eBay Bucks are automatically generated by any qualifying purchase, all the way up to a maximum of $500 per quarter. Some shopping categories lie outside the program, such as classifieds and real estate, but most items the average person is likely to be hunting for will come with the 2% kickback.

No doubt eBay will monitor the program to see how it fares in The Land Of The Free, with a possible eye on expansion to the international market. But for the time being, only the program will only apply in America. Watch this space for updates.

When is a wedding gift not a wedding gift? When it’s a bribe…

Or at least, when it’s considered by certain prosecutors to be a bribe. It seems Sweden’s favourite daughter – Crown Princess Victoria – has unwittingly unleashed some legal furies after her recent wedding to her former personal trainer Daniel Westling.

One of the country’s richest men, billionaire Bertil Hult, gifted the happy couple his private jet, yacht and ranch in the US for their honeymoon. Not for keeps mind you, just a generous lend. A bit more exciting and interesting than the traditional crockpot and appliances, but surely there’s nothing wrong with it?

Unfortunately some of Sweden’s leading public prosecutors think there is – and are crying “bribery” all the way to the anti-corruption unit.

The heir to the Swedish crown is accused of giving favourable treatment to Mr Hult’s companies and charitable foundations, presumably instead of just sending him a simple engraved Thank You card for the gifts, which in hindsight would probably have been the most prudent thing to do.

Not surprisingly the scandal has pitted Sweden’s pro and anti-monarchists against each other, dividing the community, but providing the media with enough material to last for quite a while.

The royal couple was followed all the way to a remote South Pacific location by one of Sweden’s trashier tabloids, salivating for more juicy details on the country’s biggest gossip story since the breakup of Abba.

The moral of the story? Not everything is wine and roses when you’re a Princess, and as Victoria has found out, when you’re in the public eye, you come under a lot more scrutiny than the rest of us mortals. And that includes your wedding prezzies.

Still… hunky personal trainer, wedding, South Pacific honeymoon, private jet, yacht and ranch. There are some people it’s just hard to feel sorry for.

Okay, hands up everyone out there who tends to leave their gift shopping till the last minute.

Chances are, you’re part of the almost 50% of all e-gift card shoppers who are in the same boat, so you’re certainly not alone.

The connection between e-gift cards and last-minute shopping isn’t exactly a mysterious one. A recent study by US payment provider Blackhawk Network revealed that almost half of all gift card users over the previous 12 months appear to have time management issues and leave their shopping to the last minute. The advantages of e-gift cards for these hapless souls can’t be underestimated.

Half an hour online, a few clicks of the mouse and the gift card has landed in the recipient’s inbox, with no postage costs to worry about or, more importantly, no precious time lost to allow for delivery. The sender can rest assured that the recipient knows they’re thinking of them and has remembered the occasion in a timely manner. In short, everyone’s happy.

Recognising this burgeoning trend, Blackhawk Network has recently expanded its eGift Card program to include even more retailing options than ever before.

I bet you can already think of a few people you know who’ll be using e-gift cards on Christmas Day!

Last year I wrote a post about the 2009 Christmas sea mail deadlines, directing readers to a PDF on the Australia Post website so they’d have plenty of time to send their gift packages for friends and family living overseas at the much cheaper sea mail delivery rates (another reason to do your Christmas shopping well ahead of time).

This year, on 3 August I visited the Australia Post website and entered “Christmas sea mail deadline”. Nothing came up. So I emailed them asking for the 2010 deadlines.

I was surprised when they said “Despatch dates are not published on our website but are available upon request” and replied that they managed to include it last year.

Anyway, they must have had a change of heart as I discovered a press release dated 12 August that announced the Australia Post Christmas sea mail closing dates for 2010.

The Christmas sea mail deadlines for Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Guyana, French Guiana, Malawi, Mexico, Panama, Paraguay, Trinidad and Tobago, and Uruguay passed as of 17 August. Chile closes tomorrow (19 August).

The United Kingdom sea mail deadline is 21 September and USA is 28 September as they were last year.

While 28 September is the latest for the vast majority of countries (from Albania to Zimbabwe), if you do happen to know anyone at all on Norfolk Island, you’ve got until 26 November to send your Christmas prezzies by ship.

While socks, hankies and power tools have long been the stereotypical Father’s Day gifts in many countries around the world, residents of Taiwan are this year were encouraged to consider a gift that represents a departure from the expected and obvious – insurance policies.

Taiwan celebrates Father’s Day on 8 August. And since the sound of the numeral “8″ correlates to “wealth” in Chinese, those clever marketing gurus at New York Life Insurance thought of a new prezzie for dear old Dad.

Even in spite of the increasing numbers of working women, fathers are still the primary breadwinners for many households and therefore have the greatest need to be properly covered. Many insurers and other industry stakeholders are this year recommending products that have been specially packaged for Dad. Not very sentimental maybe, but eminently practical.

No doubt the industry will be watching the Taiwan experiment closely to observe how popular the idea is with its citizens (my Dad would be thrilled, I’m sure). And with Australia, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea and Fiji all celebrating Father’s Day only a few weeks later on 5 September, there may yet be some tinkering and fine-tuning of the “insurance for Father’s Day” message.

Oh, and did you know 2010 is the 100th anniversary of the very first official Father’s Day? The first time men got socks and jocks as official presents was in 1910 in Spokane, Washington.

You don’t need to have a baby of your own to know that creating the patter of tiny feet around the house (no, not the furry kind) has become a pretty expensive business these days.

Well yes, even little furry feet come with their own financial demands, but that still isn’t a scratch on the costs associated with having a baby. It’s no surprise, then, that expectant mums in the UK are now throwing baby shower parties in record numbers. And it isn’t just for the warm, fuzzy feelings they inspire, either.

The UK gift company Carte Blanche recently polled 3,000 women about all things baby-related, and came up with the surprisingly unsentimental finding that 40% of the respondents admitted the main reason they have a baby shower was for the booty, and we ain’t talking cute little knitted baby booties – nor Beyonce’s type of booty.

Yes, it’s the gifts from friends and family these expectant mums have their eyes on – all those essential baby items such as change tables, bassinets, nappy services, soft toys, etc. Combined, these things can cost a bomb, so the baby shower party is fast becoming a necessary part of the whole process, according to a whopping 67% of expectant mums in the UK.

But the invitees to these parties are also happy to go along with the expectation. After all, everyone loves shopping for babies. It gives us the perfect excuse to tap into our own inner baby. Picture it… you’re in the toy shop with a cuddly giraffe in one hand and a brown bear with a squeaker in its tummy in the other. Be honest. Just who are you really buying for?