holiday season – Page 2 – Downtown Magazine

With Black Friday around the corner, we are edging towards the time of year when gift-giving hits its peak. For those that refuse to give a gift card and instead prefer to give something personalized, there is no shortage of gift options out there for the 2016 holiday season. Here are six high-end yet affordable gift suggestions for the foodie in your life:

1) FAWEN Soups

FAWEN makes soups that are vegan, organic, and gluten-free. The soups — currently offered in three flavors: Beet & Cabbage, Broccoli & Cauliflower, and Sweet Potato & Red Lentil — are ready-to-drink, perfect for both a mid-day snack and a mid-exercise consumption. The couple behind the brand, Fabio Fossati and Amanda Bowen, are New York-based.

2) Pumpkin Beer Making Kit

Every year, pumpkin-flavored items seem to be hitting shelves earlier and earlier. The Pumpkin Beer Making Kit from the Brooklyn Brew Shop contains everything that one would need to brew their own craft-quality pumpkin beer. In turn, one can have pumpkin almost any time of year. As an added, beer-making can be a wonderful, rewarding process. For those looking more ahead to Christmas, the Brooklyn Brew Shop also produces a Peppermint Porter mixing kit.

3) Hamptons Sea Salts

The Hamptons are generally associated with the summer, but the Hamptons Salt Company provides year-round excellence with its salts and spices. Infused flavors to its products include Black Truffle, Garlic, Ghost Pepper, Smoked Hickory, Rosemary, Garlic, Smoked Mesquite and Espresso. Founder Peter Pierce splits time between Manhattan and Southampton Village.

4) Snake River Farms Holiday Gift Box

Don’t let the name of the brand fool you: Snake River Farms produces some of the most tender, quality-oriented meats that you will ever encounter. Chefs like Thomas Keller, Wolfgang Puck, Gabriel Rucker and Michael Mina are fans, hence why Snake River Farms’ beef can be found at Per Se, Bouchon, Delmonico’s, Aureole and Charlie Palmer Steak.

Snake River Farms offers gift collections of all price points — Hugh Acheson’s Curated Steak Box consists of two 8 oz. American Wagyu filet mignon, two 6 oz. American Wagyu ribeye filet, one Lodge skillet, one Mercer saucing spoon, one Bragard kitchen towel, and Jacobsen’s Flake Finishing Salt and Hugh Acheson’s Steak Cooking Guide — and I am ready for my next set.

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5) Fleishers Craft Butchery Subscriptions

Just in time for holiday gifting, Fleishers Craft Butchery has introduced a brand-new jerky subscription program. This is not the typical beef jerky that you will find at a big store, rather these are flavors like Pastrami, Maple Pepper and Triple Chili. The beef is 100% grass-fed, free of gluten and unnecessary additives. Fleishers also sells Roasting Kits and Jerky Crafting Kits, in case that you yourself want to try making some jerky.

6) Mrs. Fields Cookie Boxes

After you have experienced the soup, beer, salt and meat mentioned above, you are probably craving something on the sweeter side. Mrs. Fields is a legendary cookie company founded nearly 40 years ago. The brand offers a variety of holiday-themed towers, tins and baskets, featuring not only chocolate chip cookies, but also brownies, popcorn, pretzels and bark. Countless options are available, and on Cyber Monday, online shoppers can save 25% at www.mrsfields.com when using the coupon code “FIELDS25.”

While the holiday season is often supposed to be a time to relax and recuperate, in contrast, it is the busiest time for retailers. Although having the city at our disposal is extremely convenient, with unpredictable weather and schedules, online shopping has become a go-to method for many. Retailers have worked to make online platforms even more convenient, enjoyable, and luxurious for their loyal customers during this holiday season.

The better the experience, the more online consumers are going to order. In addition, shopping online eliminates the issue of how much one can carry while walking down the streets of Manhattan and how time consuming holiday shopping really can be. When it comes to ordering holiday gifts online, the sky is the limit.

In order to appeal to consumers, the movement of rich media is necessary. Retail websites try to create an experience for consumers, as close to in-store as possible. The solution of the Zoom, 360-degree views and video content features, allows for online shoppers to visualize themselves with an item and able to decipher the quality of a product. These features allow for customers to make the final decision of clicking “add to shopping cart.”

While luxury and detail is how retailers aim to please, they also make efforts to “keep it simple” in the hustle and bustle of the holiday season. Retailers work to give their consumers fast access to purchase their holiday wish list. They can find these items through the grid page search, allowing customers to quickly browse through a selection of products that fall into one broad category. This makes for quick and easy finds for everyone, and for a user-friendly page.

The beauty of online shopping is that it can be taken anywhere. Consumers are able to order from their laptop, mobile device, or tablet anywhere at any time. This is a trend that is not going away. To make the entity of online shopping appealing, retailers have learned to resort to adaptive design and dynamic imaging technology, which work together to resize content to fit to any screen and adapt to the experience. Retailers are now able to deliver a five star experience, no matter how their consumer engages with their site.

Before panicking about last minute gifts, realize that retailers have worked this season to appeal to the public. Rich media content allows for an experience that is as close to in-store as possible, and that adaptive media allows shoppers to take that experience with them anywhere. This holiday season continues to create satisfied consumers and successful retailers.

-Deirdre McAndrew