Articles by Christine Epps
When your life involves bargain shopping every Saturday on Charles St. with your mother, gabbing about new and upcoming Maryland designers with your best friend, and appreciating trendsetting sculptures in Charm City galleries, studios, and restaurants with your aunt and uncle, you can begin to understand the sincere emotion for Baltimore- and for fashion- our owner and founder Christine Epps has. Always in her ear and on her mind, her two great loves share a love-hate relationship with each other. Even though the Old Line State is overflowing with talent, over the years Christine watched it receive little national press, confining that talent to our state borders. Christine always wanted to start her own retail marketing firm to personally address the relationship. Through the years she took lessons learned in school and always found a way to apply them to her then potential company. In fact, the logo for Epps Consulting was inspired by a drawing she created in high school at the Institute of Notre Dame, which featured her initials. After graduating from Villa Julie College with a degree in Interdisciplinary Studies, she knew the time was coming to officially start Epps Consulting. Originally, the company was designed to combine her two great loves and promote them on a higher level, but eventually it became something more. Christine learned to look beyond appreciating the industry and unraveled its inner workings. Over time, she became more informed and shared her knowledge of the marketing industry with her clients, empowering them and forming a learning cycle. Epps Consulting became an example of the power of continual education, and how taking what you love and applying it to your career can be powerfully rewarding.
When Greg Schmidt was shopping for a bathroom vanity just before Valentine’s Day, paying regular price never was an option. When he found one he liked on clearance — its price slashed more than 30 percent — Schmidt knew it was time to find a manager of the Alton Lowe’s store.
Women are starting to buy clothes for themselves again, an encouraging sign for retailers as spring approaches. A new report suggests that women, middle-income ones in particular, finally are feeling good enough about the economy that they will splurge on a piece of clothing.
Lure of a global marketplace has craftspeople competing for shoppers through such sites as Etsy.com, Artfire.com and 1000 Markets.
J.C. Penney Co. knows it scores with consumers on quality and price. Now it wants credit for style with a new tagline that pokes fun at itself: “New look. New day. Who knew?”
Imagine getting a promotion and being publicly praised by the boss for your hard work. On the way home, do you buy a fancy watch or comfy couch?
Adidas and the National Basketball Association are hitting the malls. Adidas, which is the league’s official uniform provider, has inked a deal with the NBA and mall-based retailer Champs Sports for an “Official NBA Shop at Champs Sports.” The NBA Shop will debut in 69 Champs Sports stores this month and will be in the remaining 486 Champs Sports stores nationwide by the start of the 2010-11 NBA season, per the companies.
The spring campaign for Candie’s featuring singer Britney Spears was shot by three famous photographers, including Annie Leibovitz.
Hoping to bolster flagging sales, Build-A-Bear Workshop Inc. has teamed up with another local toymaker: Cepia LLC of Clayton, which sells Zhu Zhu Pets, the robotic hamsters that became a sensation last holiday season.
Disney, the company that created “the happiest place on earth” and cornered the market on pink, is embracing a darker aesthetic as it reaches out to an unlikely audience for new merchandise: female “goths.”
This just might be the boldest fashion statement at the shows so far—letting shoppers actually buy the clothes.
Walgreen Co., the biggest U.S. drugstore chain, agreed to buy Duane Reade Holdings Inc. from affiliates of Oak Hill Capital Partners for $1.08 billion, including debt, to expand in metropolitan New York.
Simon Property Group would further consolidate its hold on the major shopping destinations of Massachusetts if it succeeds with its $10 billion offer for bankrupt rival General Growth Properties, operator of Faneuil Hall Marketplace and the Natick Collection.
The mobile phone is more than just a device for speaking to people while on the go. Consumers are using it more often to compare and shop for deals and products.
Reality show stars Kim, Kourtney and Khloe Kardashian can now sell the clothes right off their backs to their fans.
Retail sales rose in January as consumers bought more electronics and appliances, but a separate consumer-sentiment index fell in February, highlighting the mixed signals coming from the economy.
Fur made a comeback Saturday at New York Fashion Week. There were more fur coats on the runways of Peter Som, Prabal Gurung and Adam by Adam Lippes than in recent seasons. Alexander Wang had a cool leather trenchcoat with a strip of mink running entirely down the back.
Much like some fine jewelry shops, some e-commerce sites are making prices for items difficult to spot. Only by adding the merchandise to their shopping carts are consumers able to see the cost.
Back-to-back snowstorms on the East Coast have brought a blizzard of sales of shovels, groceries and booze. For airlines and department stores, the region’s wintry weather has resulted in millions of dollars of lost revenue.
If you want to make your sweetheart fall in love with you all over again (or for the first time), you have to find them the perfect Valentine’s Day gift. The perfect gift should be thoughtful and exciting, but it doesn’t have to be expensive. Christine Carter, owner of Epps Consulting did all of the dirty work for you! She found some of the most creative gifts on the planet!
As more retailers look to develop effective social-media strategies, a new study finds that Facebook is by far the most effective way to woo would-be shoppers.
