If so, you’re in luck. There are a handful of options for getting packages delivered in time for Christmas, especially if you live in one of the markets where retailers are testing same-day delivery services.

In case you didn’t already know, today was pretty much the deadline for consumers to place orders online and to reasonably expect their packages to arrive on time. For example, Sears, Nordstrom, Macy’s, Walmart and even Amazon stopped offering rush shipping this afternoon on most orders.

As I previously reported, last week was the peak for e-commerce spending, and this year that shouldn’t be any different. But there are a number of ways to still get deliveries sent to your home if you don’t feel like fighting the crowds at the mall.

Amazon is promising on-time deliveries for some orders placed on Saturday and Sunday for some items in select cities. But it won’t be free. For those with Amazon Prime, it will cost $4 and up — on top of the $79 you pay every year to be a member.

Then there’s same-day delivery. Though the services are being characterized as tests, these merchants are trying to see if it can be economical to deliver items that are kept locally at stores (and not at distant warehouses) to homes within a few hours. It’s clearly another strategy for brick-and-mortar retailers to try to compete with e-tailers that offer the convenience of delivery.

Two of the major trials are being conducted by eBay and Walmart.

EBay’s service is called eBay Now. Consumers can place orders from a mobile app that will deliver goods to you at your home, in a park, even at a bar, within about an hour. The company is working with a number of local retailers on the service, including Target, Best Buy, Nordstrom, Toys “R” Us and Bloomingdales.

According to an eBay spokeswoman, eBay Now will be available from 9 am to 6 pm (local time) on Christmas Eve, but closed on Christmas Day. The service is currently being tested in San Francisco and parts of New York City.

Walmart is another retailer that is testing same-day delivery. The “Walmart to Go” service allows customers in a handful of markets to buy and receive items on the same day for $10. Inventory is limited to popular items, including toys, electronics, sporting goods and other gifts. The service is in Northern Virginia, Philadelphia, Minneapolis, the San Jose-San Francisco Bay Area and Denver.

Walmart will be offering same-day delivery until Dec. 23, but will be closed on Dec. 24 and 25. It will resume on Dec. 26.

There are smaller alternatives, too.

For example, TaskRabbit is a marketplace where you can find people who are willing to complete small projects or services for a fee. The service operates in a number of major markets around the country, and due to its independent nature, a spokesman claims, “The Web site and iPhone app are never closed.”

In fact, once a “rabbit” has received a background check and activated, “they can work when they want, and not when they don’t.” Popular tasks this month include holiday shopping, which is averaging $57; gift wrapping, $38; and hanging lights, $85. If that sounds exorbitant, remember that consumers should expect to pay a premium on holidays.

Finally, another service in San Francisco is Postmates, which is offering same-day delivery by dispatching a nearby courier to run an errand. A spokeswoman confirmed that it is operating on Christmas Eve from 8 am to 6 pm, and on Christmas Day from 11 am to midnight.

Additionally, as part of the iPhone app, Postmates is creating a shopping guide that lists major retailers where last-minute purchases can be made, including the likes of Apple, Tiffany, Uniqlo and Nordstrom.

While there seem to be a lot of last-minute options, Forrester Research analyst Sucharita Mulpuru said that this year is no different from other years in at least one sense. Retailers, and especially e-commerce companies, are always trying to push the limits when it comes to how late orders can be placed.

“It does drive a spike in sales as you approach the shipping deadline. I’d estimate a 20 percent lift on that day over an average holiday day, but by no means would it eclipse the Thanksgiving weekend or Cyber Monday,” she said.

Of course, if you miss all of these options, there are always gift cards. And there’s still the local mall.

From where he sits now, high-tech companies surround him: Zynga is across the street, and Airbnb will soon move in upstairs. But even though the young professionals are buzzing all around him, they rarely patronize his store.

Based on watching his four twentysomething children, Padis says he understands why: “Literally, all of their processes start online,” he said. “A great deal of young people don’t even think of walking into a store to make their decision and purchase.”

That reality is hard for most local retailers to swallow. Online retailers continue to gobble up local sales with the lure of convenience and, often, cheaper prices. In the jewelry business, the main opponent has been Blue Nile, which got its start selling engagement rings online back in 1999, and now operates as a lucrative publicly held company.

But instead of bemoaning this trend, Padis now hopes to benefit from it by partnering with a new e-commerce site that is launching today.

Ritani, a New York-based designer of engagement rings and other jewelry, is unveiling a new way to buy engagement rings that unifies both the online and offline shopping experiences. Under the new model, consumers will be able to purchase an engagement ring from the Web site and have it delivered directly to their home. Or it can be sent to a local jewelry store, where they can decide whether to buy it or return it.

The new business marks a major transformation for Ritani, which quietly got started about nine months ago with $15 million in funding led by Cantor Ventures.

As part of the overhaul, it hired a 20-person e-commerce team in Seattle, and named Brian Watkins president. Watkins, who previously worked at Blue Nile and Nordstrom, said the first-generation of online engagement stores, like Blue Nile, are missing out on the opportunity to offer personal service. He estimates the engagement ring business at $60 billion annually, of which less than 10 percent occurs online today.

Watkins said Ritani is going after the substantial percentage of people who like shopping online and doing research online, but are uncomfortable with buying one of the biggest purchases of their life without seeing it first. “That’s the gap we are going after,” he said.

Ritani’s main purpose, however, is not to take away sales from local retailers.

Generally, you can think of local jewelry stores as an extension of Ritani. Customers can create a custom engagement ring online and have it delivered to a local jeweler, without any obligation to buy it. Since Ritani is a manufacturer, rings can easily be sent back to its New York plant, where the metals will be melted down and the diamonds will find new settings. Every order offers free overnight shipping and a 30-day return policy, no questions asked.

That’s the process that the customers will see, but on the back end, Ritani has formed tight partnerships with local retailers to make it work. The most complicated part is in the revenue share: Ritani will share a percentage of every sale made within a certain distance of a jeweler, regardless of whether it played a role in the sale. Likewise, if that customer ends up patronizing that retail store in the future — to service a ring or to buy a watch — the retailer must share a percentage of the revenue back to Ritani.

“If you truly believe in integrating the online and offline experience, then putting people out of business is not good,” Watkins said from the company’s Seattle offices, which are a short drive from Blue Nile, his old employer and new competitor.

For Padis, it was easy to say “I do”: “These are customers that we otherwise may not have seen. I like the idea of a revenue share; it eliminates the animosity between online and offline retailers. We are cooperating.”

In addition to working with Steve Padis Jewelry, Ritani has partnered with a handful of other stores for today’s launch: London Jewelers in New York; Underwood Jewelers in Jacksonville, Fla.; Fink’s Jewelers in Virginia and North Carolina; Bachendorf’s in Dallas; and Brown & Co. Jewelers in Atlanta. More territories will come as Ritani expands the number of jewelers it works with. It plans to lean heavily on the 380 stores that sell its jewelry today.

In addition to setting up the back-end infrastructure, the company also had to completely redesign its Web site. Previously, it was just a catalog of rings; now, it has the look and feel of a glossy magazine with joyful pictures of newly engaged couples. Watkins said they were also careful to create some balance, so the site was attractive to both women and men. For men, that meant having a heavy spreadsheet component, where diamonds could be compared side by side. Other features include high-end photography and videos that offer 50-times magnification of the diamonds. There’s also a service called “Virtual Gemologist,” which provides one-on-one consultations with diamond experts.

Watkins said all those steps are necessary in order to make customers comfortable about buying online. Even as the head of merchandise at Blue Nile, which is the largest diamond buyer in the world, he would order four diamonds and inspect each one before selecting the very best.

The acquisition being announced today on the company’s blog is Llustre, a U.K. copycat of Fab that is identically focused on selling home decor, apparel and other items from independent designers. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Fab previously purchased Casacanda in Germany and FashionStake in the U.S. to launch a clothing vertical.

Given that Fab has only been around for a year and has seen such significant growth, it appears to have identified just what consumers want: Hard-to-find, quirky and stylish products, gadgets and clothing that are not easily found in Target, Walmart or even on Amazon.com.

The inventory may be shallow, but the product types are vast. Yesterday, the site was selling earphones shaped like bullets, vintage-looking vases, toilet seats that function as bidets and motion-activated cameras for the outdoors. In other words, it’s a hipster’s paradise.

It took Fab four months to hit one million subscribers, six months to hit 1.5 million and 12 months to hit 4.75 million. Fab has not been shy about its successes over the past year, and has raised lots of capital along the way, including a $40 million round in December from Andreessen Horowitz and others.

Now, Fab is claiming it is entering Europe in a serious way, and expects the region to contribute about 20 percent of the New York-based company’s sales this year. Fab is now shipping to 20 countries; it has 360 employees in five offices, including New York, Berlin and London.

Llustre has also moved quickly since launching only two months ago. Founded by Tracy Doree and Vivienne Bearman, it has 25 employees, works with more than 500 designers; membership and orders have tripled in the past five weeks to some unknown quantity.

Starting today, Llustre will become Fab UK. Doree and Bearman will remain on board, heading merchandising and product and operations, respectively.

Of course, e-commerce is a beneficiary of economic belt tightening, but there are much bigger factors at play. Economic pressures are combining with technology-driven disruptions to create a perfect storm of online opportunity. These disruptions are nothing new; what is new is the pace at which they are happening. Big, established retail players are having trouble adapting to this accelerating pace of change, while nimble start-ups feed and thrive on it.

I see three megatrends driving e-commerce change that I call the Three P’s: Personalization, Pinterest and iPad (well, iPad almost starts with a P). Together they ensure that U.S. e-commerce will continue to experience double-digit growth and pass the $100 billion mark in less than five years.

I recently attended D10, the D: All Things Digital conference, and the message from leaders like New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, Tim Cook, Reid Hoffman and Larry Ellison confirmed enthusiasm on the future of ecommerce.

A lot of the private discussions I had at D10 also focused on the magnitude of this re-invention. Most agree that these three drivers are fundamental, and that the pace of change has never been this aggressive.

P1: Personalization — It’s All About You!

The emergence of the visual web — touchscreens and other new front-end technologies — enables a much easier personalization experience. For the first time, e-tailers can dish up very realistic virtual renderings of personalized SKUs that are then made to order.

Brands like Bonobos, Cafepress, Customink, Gemvara, Modcloth, Nike, Quiksilver and Vans are all revolutionizing online shopping, providing a rich, interactive and even creative experience. At Gemvara, for example, you can customize a piece of jewelry by selecting a design template and filling in your desired metal and stone. In real time, you see a realistic, virtually-rendered representation of your one-of-a-kind piece of jewelry. Gemvara then builds the jewelry to your specifications and delivers it in less than 10 days.

Another way to personalize the shopping experience is through social curation of products. Social technologies are enabling e-tailers to identify and target consumer tastes increasingly accurately.

With social sentiment tools, analytics and “big data” insights, e-tailers today can match products to consumers more scientifically, and on a much more granular level. Modcloth is a great example of an e-tailer applying a synergistic mix of analytics and social technologies to procure the right products for its community of consumers.

Innovative e-tailers are further personalizing the online shopping experience by empowering customer service and creating intelligence concierges. Imagine sales reps armed with answers to frequently asked questions, your purchasing history and your personal tastes. This emerging customer service looks and feels much different from the traditional help desk you have learned to dread. The best e-tailers are leveraging data to deliver a personalized customer experience that is not only better but more cost-effective.

P2: Pinterest — The Power of Eye Candy

Pinterest’s rise has been meteoric, even by social media standards. Launched in March 2010, the image-sharing site hit the 10-million-user mark in record time, and is already the third-largest social media platform behind Facebook and Twitter, driving more referral traffic than Google+, LinkedIn and YouTube combined.

According to a recent Shopify study, much of that referred traffic converts to sales. While Facebook still drives considerably more traffic, Pinterest referrals are 10 percent more likely to lead to a purchase. Some other significant statistics:

• Pinterest users are older and have more purchasing power.
• Pinterest-referred purchases are twice as big as those that are Facebook-referred.
• The most popular retailers on Pinterest are Nordstrom, Williams Sonoma, Barneys, Vera Bradley and Neiman Marcus, indicating a higher-end user base.
• In the year ended March 31, 2012, Pinterest’s share of social-media-driven revenue for retailers leaped from 1 percent to 17 percent.

Online retailers at the forefront of product customization agree. Gemvara reports that Pinterest referrals are outpacing other customer acquisition channels. Ultimately, I expect Pinterest to do for e-commerce what Facebook did for advertising. I see Pinterest as the platform that helps power the next generation of “lean-back” e-commerce experiences.

P3: iPad — The Ideal “Lean-Back” E-Commerce Device

Don’t get me wrong. If you know exactly what you want, search is still a very good tool. However, if you are in a more casual “gathering” mode, search comes up short. In my mind, iPad + Pinterest enable what Web 1.0 lacked and what physical catalogs have provided for many years: a “lean-back” e-commerce experience. Pinterest and the iPad interact seamlessly, further fueling the e-commerce channel shift toward a more delightful and engaging shopping environment.

According to a 2012 Q1 Mobile Study sponsored by RichRelevance, mobile’s share of e-commerce grew nearly 250 percent in the year ended March 31, 2012 — and the iPad accounts for two-thirds of the shopping, browsing and purchasing in this emerging channel. Compared to other mobile shoppers, iPad users:

• spend significantly more time and money on retail sites,

• have much higher conversion rates,

• spend dramatically more, while buying fewer, more expensive items.

In fact, 90 percent of all mobile revenue is generated via iPads. The iPad’s average order value is even creeping ahead of desktop-based orders.

E-Commerce Roadmap

Disruptive forces, both technological and economic, are driving the retail channel shift inexorably toward e-commerce. This shift is accelerating as customer-facing technologies improve — especially those within the Three P’s described above.

E-commerce players must innovate quickly and continually to succeed under such rapidly changing circumstances. These factors clearly favor nimble start-ups, although companies like Nike are proving that established brands can adapt. Startup or not, companies vying for a piece of the e-commerce pie must innovate around the Three P’s or die.

The winners will be the brands who understand the Personalization, Pinterest, and iPad mega-drivers and leverage them to create rich and delightful customer experiences.

Sergio Monsalve @vcserge is a Partner with Norwest Venture Partners.

The partnership and funding is a huge vote of confidence for the brand, which up until today only existed on the Internet.

If you haven’t seen the ads and don’t already know, Bonobos is known for “better-fitting” men’s pants, and while I’ve heard many men say it’s true, it’s apparently hard to explain why — sort of like why the company is named after a kind of over-sexed chimpanzee. Wait, maybe it’s not that difficult to understand. Ahem.

To be sure, the company has a large selection of nice pants.

Bonobos said the round of funding was led by Nordstrom, along with full participation from existing investors, such as Accel Partners and Lightspeed Venture Partners.

In a statement, Andy Dunn, founder and CEO of Bonobos, said “We understand there are people who still want to touch and feel clothing before they purchase. We realized we needed help expanding beyond our web-only roots.”

Since launching in 2007, Bonobos has expanded to offer a full clothing line for men. Beginning in April, Nordstrom will carry the top two product lines of Bonobos, including chinos and cotton trousers. The brand will launch at 20 of Nordstrom’s stores and within the Men’s Shop on Nordstrom.com.

“Our investment with Bonobos will enable Nordstrom to participate in the young company’s phenomenal growth, and we look forward to what we can learn from each other as we build the business together,” said Jamie Nordstrom, president of Nordstrom Direct.

Last March, Nordstrom acquired HauteLook, an online retailer that offers flash sales.

Like Bonobos, several venture-backed companies have cropped up over the past couple of years that encourage men to shop more online, such as Indochino, J. Hilburn and TrunkClub. In December 2010, Bonobos raised $18.5 million.

“There’s an excellent growth opportunity for U.S. retailers outside the U.S.,” said Michael DeSimone, CEO of FiftyOne, a logistics company. “E-commerce is much more nascent [outside the U.S.], but our merchants are seeing extraordinary growth by building their brand with a new customer base.”

As it turns out, however, shipping and selling goods internationally is extremely complex.

First, there’s currency translation, then there’s the complexity of dealing with customs. And there are other considerations: For instance, a down pillow or a snakeskin purse may have to be cleared by the U.S. Department of Fish and Wildlife or require a permit if the animal is on an endangered list.

“The opportunity for a bad customer experience is very high, unless you have a repeatable process in place,” DeSimone said.

In other words, done well and executed efficiently, it can be a moneymaker, but if done poorly, you can hurt the brand.

FiftyOne helps U.S. retailers ship products to 106 countries worldwide, by assisting retailers with currency conversion and global shipping logistics, including customs and returns. It manages a central distribution in Columbus, Ohio, where all the packages exit and enter the U.S.

The New York company works with dozens of online retailers, including Macy’s, J.Crew, Overstock.com, Saks Fifth Avenue, Nordstrom, Pottery Barn, Gilt Groupe and Wet Seal. Since FiftyOne started focusing on international logistics, back in 2008, it has seen e-commerce start to take off internationally, DeSimone said.

Last year, the company’s gross merchandise volume, accounting for the total amount of all international purchases made, was $136 million, almost up twice from the year before, when it recorded $78 million. In 2009, its business totaled $26 million.

The biggest international markets for U.S. retailers today, FiftyOne said, are English-speaking countries such as Canada, Australia and the U.K. But South Korea, Brazil and Mexico are also all growing close to 50 percent year over year.

In addition, DeSimone said, the average order size increased to $265 in 2011, up from $237 the year earlier.

Here’s a graphic detailing some of the challenges in shipping internationally:

Amazon’s promotion will give shoppers up to $5 off on most purchases made using its price-check application. The event serves as a way for Amazon to increase usage of its bar-code-scanning application, while also collecting intelligence on pricing in the stores.

Large and small retailers alike often consider Amazon one of their toughest competitors, but this time around they say the company’s initiative is a direct attack.

“It’s wrong to try something in the store and then buy it online,” said Lesley Tweedie, who owns a bike shop with her husband in Chicago and is hoping that the mantra “buy it where you try it” takes off.

Tweedie is also the founder of Little Independent, a six-month-old marketplace where local stores can feature products online.

“I don’t know what their [Amazon's] motivations are. I would like to believe it’s about business and it’s not about deliberately trying to hurt a retailer,” she said. “But this affects our little bike shop in Chicago, Target, Wal-Mart or Nordstrom. It affects them all.”

The promotion brings into question a shopper’s moral compass just in time for the holidays.

Does price or convenience win? Or, is it more important to shop locally to support jobs and nearby businesses?

From the consumer’s perspective, it’s hard to walk away from Amazon’s offer. The application compares prices, gives product reviews and, on Saturday, will also offer a discount to those who use it to make a purchase online.

Still, it seems consumers are becoming increasingly aware of the online-versus-local debate.

EBay recently conducted an online survey on the subject, and based on more than 1,000 responses, found that nearly 50 percent of shoppers plan to allocate up to half of their holiday budget to buying local this season. EBay says it tries to be an advocate for local stores. Its bar-code scanning app, Red Laser, not only shows people the cheapest price online, but also provides a list of stores where the item can be purchased locally.

Yesterday, the Retail Industry Leaders Association made a much less emotional argument.

Jason Brewer, the association’s VP of communications and advocacy, said Amazon is anticompetitive because it does not collect sales tax in most states, so it will nearly always have a price advantage over a physical store.

“Our retailers aren’t afraid to compete on price — that’s a part of retailing,” he said. “If the price check app replaces the Sunday newspaper circular, that’s fine. But what retailers can’t do is not collect sales tax.”

Tweedie says the one silver lining of Amazon’s promotion is that it is bringing the conversation out into the open.

She frequently catches people pulling out their phone in her store and often even hears them wonder out loud if they find it for less on Amazon. “It’s hard as a retailer without alienating the shopper. But they’ve never thought about it, and they aren’t trying to be rude. … What I think is so exciting is how many people are talking about this.”

Amazon will offer the discount on up to three qualifying products in eligible categories, including electronics, toys, music, sporting goods and DVDs, and is anticipating that Saturday will be one of the biggest days of the year for the application.

This closely follows moves by other major retail chains, such as Lowe’s, Home Depot, Nordstrom and Urban Outfitters, in embracing what could be called iCommerce.

As in the other cases, the devices are not intended to replace the cash register, but rather to assist customers. Associates will be able to tap the screen to check available inventory, order products online and access product information and videos, right where the customer is standing.

I’ve written previously about how retailers of all different sizes are now using iPads, but it’s amazing how much tablets are redefining both digital e-commerce and physical shopping experiences.

The retailers include large chains — Lowe’s plans to roll out 42,000 handheld devices in the U.S. and Canada — and midsize companies, such as Pacific Sunwear, which expects to buy up to 900 devices this year for its apparel stores.

Even smaller retailers, such as wineries and coffee shops, are using iPads, often as a replacement for registers, which can not only cost a lot but can also be very bulky. Companies such as Square, Verifone and Intuit have built applications and accompanying swipe dongles to assist with credit card payments.

Sears also believes there’s a practical purpose to rolling out the devices. It said that employees will be able to use them to manage tasks and increase productivity, including assisting customers faster than before.

As part of the tech push, Sears will also be offering free Wi-Fi to customers so they can use their own smartphones or tablets to surf the Web, shop online or compare prices before they purchase.

The major e-commerce spending days typically fall around the holidays at the end of the year, with the day after Thanksgiving or the first day back to work after Thanksgiving typically being some of the biggest retail highlights of the year. But traditionally, retailers have also marked down items heavily on Labor Day to draw in crowds over the three-day weekend before school starts.

However, in an unofficial survey of how online retailers handled the holiday yesterday, it seems traditional retailers such as Best Buy, Toys R Us, Fry’s Electronics and Old Navy offered the most specials, while many of the new e-commerce companies — like daily deal or flash sales sites — failed to mention the holiday at all.

There were two major exceptions: One Kings Lane, which sells home decor, offered a Labor Day Blowout Sale, discounting pillows and bedding, lanterns and polka-dotted tea sets. But oddly, there was no direct tie to the holiday since the sale ends Thursday. Zulily, a flash sales site focused on children’s apparel, also offered a specific Labor Day sale, which in addition to having hundreds of items for sale for kids and moms also was promoting a Labor Day shipping special, offering free shipping on all additional orders placed between Friday and Monday at midnight.

But after those two examples, mentions of Labor Day were fairly weak, and many missed the opportunity to call out the holiday in the subject line of the emails they normally send every day. It appears that sites that normally offer discounts have a hard time knowing how a sale tied to a marketing opportunity, like a holiday, can stand out on its own.

For instance, HauteLook, which is a flash-sales site owned by Nordstrom, offered a sale on some jewelry, including necklaces, rings and earrings. (Ironically, from what I could see, Nordstrom made no mention of Labor Day at all on its site.) The Clymb, which is a flash sales site focused on outdoor apparel, offered special Labor Day discounts on an assortment of hoodies, dog jackets and portable picnic tables. But in either case, nothing made the items particularly appropriate or timely — and the discounts seemed regular.

The Gilt Groupe perhaps tried a little harder by creating a section called Labor Day gifts, which discounted a handful of random items, such as wine glasses, picture frames, vases and photo albums.

Meanwhile, Groupon and LivingSocial, two of the biggest mass emailers, let the day pass without calling attention to it.

Regardless of how relevant the offer is, the biggest mistake of all may be not mentioning the holiday. After all, it is something that consumers were searching for.

Yahoo said that searches for “Labor Day weekend 2011″ were up 1,889 percent his month, and that “Labor Day sales” was one of the major search terms, along with “Does FedEx deliver on Labor Day?”

(Answer: No, it does not.)

And there are more significant deployments underway.

Lowe’s announced last week that it was rolling out 42,000 handheld devices at stores in the U.S. and Canada. That closely follows announcements by Home Depot, Nordstrom and Urban Outfitters.

While some of the retailers are a little shy about saying which devices are being deployed, for the most part they are using Apple products — an iPhone, an iPad or an iPod touch. And while the devices may eventually be used to accept payments, many of them are starting off as tools for salespeople to look up answers or to check on product availability.

It’s not just large retailers, either — small stores are also jumping on the mobile bandwagon.

I happened to see an iPad being used in a small winery in eastern Washington state. The device, which was mounted on a mechanical arm, was still in the process of being set up, as evidenced by the nearby iPhone, calculator, traditional credit card point-of-sale machine and cash register at the nearby counter. But a complete changeover was in the works.

And the list keeps growing, according to South Plainfield, New Jersey-based Global Bay, a company that develops mobile software for the retail environment.

It is announcing today that it is helping Pacific Sunwear, a retailer known for surfer-style apparel, to roll out iPads in 300 stores, with plans for 500 to 600 more by next year.

Global Bay CEO Sandeep Bhanote said he’s been in the business of mobile retail solutions for a long time, but it is “the Apple line of products that has reinvigorated the market and is bringing it [mobile] to the mass market … Everyone is looking at the Apple technology line. No one is looking at Android, or at the older generation of devices … It’s an Apple world in retail, although that could change next year.”

A variety of companies, including Google, Square and Verifone, are also racing to get a piece of the action.

Bhanote said Global Bay did its first iPad deployment last year, in November.

It was at a mall store called Things Remembered, and the iPad served as a self-service kiosk where customers could select the right engraving for a particular item, such as a jewelry box.

“Why not use the iPad to streamline the experience?” Bhanote asked.

Even in these early stages, there’s evidence that handheld devices may evolve, moving from tools that automate annoying or painful processes to becoming sales-generating machines.

“The next phase is introducing a commerce component,” he added.

Bhanote declined to say how many iPads it has helped to deploy in the past year, but said that retailers are already starting to see results. One retailer reported that it experienced a 12 percent increase in average order transaction when a customer was serviced with an Apple device in the store.

PacSun associates will carry iPads in the store to help customers place online orders when products are out of stock. Using an application built by Global Bay, store associates will be able to find a shirt or pair of shorts and then order it from the iPad, accept the customer’s payment and ensure it is shipped to the customer’s home.

Bhanote said for an apparel chain of that size, being able to close five more transactions a day per store means a lot of money.

However, there are still some logistics to be worked out. If a mobile device replaces the register, where do you store the cash? What happens if a salesperson drops and breaks that $500 device? Worse yet — what if a customer drops it?

Bhanote said PacSun is putting security tags on its iPads, so if someone walks out of the store with one, an alarm will sound. He said other customers have used rubberized cases for protection; in the case of the winery, there was that mechanical arm.

But the winery’s second iPad wasn’t as lucky. The device was being used by associates, who walked around the store with it, and it was accidentally knocked off the table by a customer. It was a very expensive lesson for a small company — especially when the customer only bought one bottle of wine.

Photo Credit: Beekman1802.com.

Flash sales sites — which specialize in liquidating unsold inventory at greatly reduced prices — are on the rise.

In July, traffic to the sites increased 368 percent, and by 109 percent when compared to the same month two years ago and last year, respectively.

But increasing interest in discounted merchandise in a down economy is not what’s surprising — nearly everyone enjoys the thrill of catching a really great deal, right?

What’s more revealing, in a report published by Experian Hitwise, is who the market leaders are, in terms of number of visits to their sites.

Most flash sales sites entice shoppers by sending them emails with colorful images of clothing, toys, furniture, wine or high-end apparel. From there, buyers click through to the site to see prices and make purchases before the inventory runs out.

According to the report, the top five sites are Zulily, Ideeli, LivingSocial Escapes, Woot! and HauteLook. (See the top 15 in the chart below.)

What’s worth noting about the list is that Zulily, the Seattle-based flash sales site that specializes in kids’ clothing, announced last week that it raised $43 million in venture capital. New York-based Ideeli raised $41 million in April. And another heavy hitter, Gilt Groupe, which recently raised $138 million, ranked No. 7.

Also worth noting is that Amazon is associated with three of the companies in the top 15. The e-commerce giant is a major investor in LivingSocial, which ranked third. The company, which is known for competing against Groupon, also operates Escapes, which offers discounts on travel. Amazon also owns the fourth-largest site, Woot, which it acquired more than a year ago, and it owns MyHabit — in 11th place — a flash sales site it launched in May. Despite being only two months old, MyHabit’s traffic jumped 128 percent since launching, according to Experian Hitwise.

Other findings: 

• The market is still extremely fragmented. The leader, Zulily, had only 16.3 percent market share, followed by Ideeli with 9.3 percent and LivingSocial Escapes with 8.6 percent.
• HauteLook, which was acquired by Nordstrom, ranked as the fifth largest.
• In the past six months, visits to Ideeli increased 42 percent; Gilt.com was up 14 percent and HauteLook went up eight percent.
• Flash sales shoppers were over index against the online population for household incomes over $100,000 and creditworthiness.

In comScore’s Q1 2011 State of Online Retail presentation yesterday, it said the e-commerce share of retail spending totaled 8.6 percent, its largest share ever, up from 8.1 percent in the year-ago period.

Specifically, the report paid attention to the impact of mobile shopping trends, group buying, such as Groupon and LivingSocial, and flash sales sites, like Rue La La, HauteLook (now owned by Nordstrom), ideeli and Gilt Groupe.

In group sales, also known as local commerce, users are offered 50-70 percent off a restaurant, spa or other service if they pay for a voucher in advance. In flash sales, excess inventory is sold at a discount until the merchandise is all gone. Both typically reach their audiences through daily emails.

ComScore found that both Groupon and LivingSocial have watched their online audiences triple in the past year. For Groupon, the bulk of deals sold, or 56 percent, are for restaurants. LivingSocial has a broader mix of categories, including books and magazines, which is its top category at 41 percent.

Groupon’s awareness is much greater than LivingSocial, comScore found, but both tend to sell the same percentage of deals. In the past three months, 60 percent of Groupon users have purchased a deal, compared to 55 percent of LivingSocial users.

A constant question is whether LivingSocial, which is backed by Amazon.com, is gaining on the leader Groupon, which is eyeing an initial public offering in the near future.

While both are rapidly growing their audiences, LivingSocial is seeing a slightly higher churn rate, which is defined as the percent of subscribers leaving the site. Groupon’s churn rate is 18 percent, and LivingSocial’s is slightly higher at 22 percent, according to comScore.

As for flash sales sites, at least 17 percent of consumers can at least name one, and among those who subscribe, 51 percent say they’ve made a purchase.

Rue La La, which is partially owned by eBay, saw the biggest jump in visitors to its site, increasing 131 percent year over year because of its broad appeal to both middle and high-end income households. The only site comScore tracked that lost unique visitors in March was ideeli, which reportedly saw 21 percent fewer visitors.

Overall, the e-commerce industry has seen positive gains for the past six straight quarters, year over year. In the first quarter, sales totaled $38 billion, up from $33.9 billion in the same period a year earlier.

It still makes up a very small slice of the retail industry, and going forward, could be negatively affected by inflation or a rise in gas prices as consumers dial back discretionary spending. ComScore estimates that for every 15 cents per gallon increase in gas prices, you can expect a 1 percent decline in e-commerce.

But perhaps rising gas prices will be offset by free shipping. For the past two quarters, nearly half of all orders didn’t charge for shipping.

Photo Credit: Coffee Core.

The round was led by Andreessen Horowitz, which contributed $30 million. Other participants included existing investors Polaris Venture Partners and LightSpeed Venture Partners.

John O’Farrell, general partner at Andreessen Horowitz will join the board.

The Santa Monica, Calif.-based company sends members a monthly selection of shoes, handbags and jewelry based on their preferences. They can choose to buy one item every month for $39.95, or they can skip a month. The packages are sent in the mail in a pretty box tied up with a ribbon. If subscribers don’t do anything, and forget to pick an item or opt out, they will be charged and have $39.95 in credit.

So far, the service has attracted three million subscribers.

The company was founded by Brian Lee, along with fashion celebrity Kim Kardashian. To date, the company has raised $60 million in capital.

Lee said the cash will be used for launching new product categories and expanding into international markets. In a couple of months, it will launch in the U.K., and then Asia and South America. Today, it operates in the U.S. and Canada. Lee also expects to grow the size of the company from its current base of 135 employees.

A “tiny” amount of the round was used to cash out the stock of the founders, Lee said. Lee previously co-founded LegalZoom.com.

O’Farrell said that they’ve been looking to invest in a new e-commerce company for awhile, and that ShoeDazzle stood out from the pack. “It has a strong financial model and delights customers with fashionable products.” And, he notes, it’s a business that can make significant profit.

ShoeDazzle’s business model is a little different and is a bit similar to the old CD clubs, where members would get a new album in the mail every month based on a particular genre. However, subscribers can easily skip a month if they don’t like any of the products. It also has strong ties to Facebook, where it has nearly a million fans.

The entire product line is branded “ShoeDazzle,” and is sourced by the company directly. That’s one of the aspects that O’Farrell really liked. “One of the key things in e-commerce is inventory management and the supply chain. ShoeDazzle is able to have really high quality products at acceptable prices and still get margins,” he said.

Already, there are companies following in ShoeDazzle’s footsteps. In March, Nordstrom-owned HauteLook launched Sole Society, a monthly shoe club.

The forecast was included as part of the company’s first-quarter results released today.

In February, Nordstrom agreed to acquire four-year-old HauteLook, marking the department store’s first foray into online private sales. Such sales, also called flash sales, liquidate excess inventory by offering steep discounts to members who have signed up for daily email.

Nordstrom paid $180 million in stock for the company, which is now close to HauteLook’s annual sales. If the company meets certain performance goals, the transaction size could jump to as much as $270 million over time.

For Nordstrom, the revenue stream is fairly insignificant. In the first quarter, net sales for the department store totaled $2.23 billion, an increase of 12 percent compared with the same period in 2010.

The acquisition will also hit the company’s bottom line. Charges associated with the HauteLook acquisition, including stock-based compensation, reduced earnings per share in the first quarter by four cents, and is estimated to impact full-year results by about $0.20 a share.

Gilt Groupe, which is also in the flash sales business, announced earlier this week that it had raised $138 million in capital at a reported $1 billion valuation. It previously said it expected to record $500 million in revenues for its fiscal year ending in June.

Next week, the company will launch its best guess: a platform that enables brands and merchants to launch the equivalent of a mail-order catalog on the iPad.

TheFind’s Catalogue app follows a similar app called Catalog Spree, which was developed by the start-up Padopolis and launched last month.

“We’ve been working on iPhone apps for awhile and have about 12 million searches monthly,” said TheFInd’s CEO Siva Kumar. “It’s a large part of our traffic, but the question is, what do we do with tablets? And, how do we engage with users?

“It’s more about discovery than it is about search.”

The application, which is expected to launch early next week, will be different from TheFind online and on the phone. Rather than starting with a search box–and having a specific product in mind–users can browse large photos and digitally window shop.

Kumar said the application will include roughly 35 different catalogs in the beginning, including Sephora, Nordstrom and Crate and Barrel. It will also have some unconventional companies that aren’t known for catalogs, such as eBags and Stella & Dot.

Likewise, Catalog Spree, which launched last month, has a number of partners, such as Dwell Studio, Serena & Lily, Tea Collection, Nordstrom, Filson and Artful Home.

Both expect to add more catalogs over time and offer fairly similar experiences, such as a homepage presenting thumbnails of all of the catalogs, which can be subscribed to like newsfeeds via RSS.

TheFind has raised $26 million in three rounds and has been cash-flow positive for the past nine quarters. Menlo Park, Calif.-based Padopolis has raised $1.3 million in seed funding.

Padopolis and TheFind both believe they’ve created an interactive platform that enables shoppers to sift through lots of merchandise quickly, like sitting on the couch and thumbing through a catalog. But they also have integrated the applications into merchants’ e-commerce sites, so consumers can get more information about a particular product and ultimately place an order.

“We’ve been working on how to re-imagine the catalog with pinch and zoom and take full advantage of the pictures. It’s been a technical challenge to make it so you can flick from page to page easily and reflect the actual state on the Web. We wanted to marry up the two things to make [the catalog] alive on the tablet,” Kumar said.

Catalogue and Catalog Spree are free, and both companies collect commissions from sales. TheFind anticipates launching an Android version soon, and following it up with a similar experience on Facebook.

If either are successful at digitizing the catalog, the opportunity could be significant.

Roughly 20 billion catalogs were mailed last year in the U.S., jumping from 18 billion two years ago. That translates to a more than $100 billion annual business, often representing the single-largest revenue generator for retailers.

This will be the first time vente-privee, which translates to “private sale,” will enter a non-European market. The site is expected to launch late this year, and like its counterpart in France, will offer designer apparel at low prices for limited amounts of time to people who sign up for a membership.

Vente’s move to the U.S. was expected. The joint venture with American Express was not. One might even go as far as to call the match-up perplexing. (Maybe we should warn vente-privee now that American Express is a credit card-issuer and not some sort of patriotic speedy deliver service, like FedEx or UPS!)

As part of the agreement, the two will be equal partners. However, terms of the deal were not disclosed, such as the size of investment or the kinds of resources the companies would be required to contribute.

To be sure, vente was wise to enter into a partnership for its North American debut. It’s the American Express part that’s easy to get hung up on.

Despite vente-privee being more than a decade-old and well established in Europe, it will be walking down an already crowded catwalk. Many start-ups here have done a good job imitating vente’s model and making it its own. Perhaps its closest competitor is Gilt Groupe of New York, which just raised $138 million. Also a contender is ideeli, which just lined its pockets with $40 million in cash. Others with offerings include Amazon and Nordstrom.

Earlier this week, Gilt’s CEO Kevin Ryan downplayed the significance of vente’s impending entrance in an interview with me (like a model would diss another model’s photo shoot).

“There’s only one player in the world to watch,” he said. “But if you weren’t covering this business, you would have asked ‘Who? I never even heard of them.’ That’s the reality, and for them to enter, they’ll have to set up warehouses and sign up members. Basically, you are a start-up…I don’t worry about international players, even ones that are bigger than we are.”

American Express presumably won’t be able to help vente with warehouse space, but the two claim to have a few synergies. In a press release, American Express Enterprise Growth President Dan Schulman said that both brands have a heritage in the luxury market and place a high premium on delivering quality customer service.

Schulman has been busy heading up American Express’s two-month-old digital payments platform, as of recently. He characterized the joint venture as helping the company reach a new audience. Earlier this week, American Express started working with SCVNGR’s LevelUp app to help redeem coupons at a few Levi’s stores.

Founder Jacques-Antoine Granjon didn’t reveal anything more in his statement, either: “The brands where we have strong relationships are excited about extending their offerings into the U.S. market through this joint venture. There is no question that American Express was our partner of choice. As leaders in B2B and B2C market approaches, we will now combine our skill sets to deliver experiences that are unmatched in the U.S. market.”

Participants in the fifth round include the Japanese-based telecom conglomerate Softbank Group as well as Gilt’s previous investors, General Atlantic and Matrix Partners. Other new investors include: Goldman Sachs, New Enterprise Associates, Draper Fisher Jurvetson Growth, Pinnacle Ventures, TriplePoint Capital and Eastward Capital.

Softbank’s involvement is two-fold.

Not only will it be contributing $62.5 million of the round, which will all be going toward Gilt’s U.S. operations, it will also invest a smaller undisclosed amount into Gilt Groupe Japan. The two companies will each own 50 percent of the joint venture.

In all, Gilt has raised $240 million. The fifth round values the company at roughly $1 billion before the round is taken into account. The round was first reported in a regulatory filing last week.

Gilt’s CEO Kevin Ryan, who is known for being one of the first 20 employees at DoubleClick, launched the members-only site in November 2007. In roughly four years, the company has created a name for itself as the online destination for discounts on brand-name luxury items. Targeting affluent young professionals, the site lures consumers in with beautiful photography and creates a sense of urgency because the deals are gone once the inventory sells out.

In addition to selling men’s and women’s apparel, it has branched out into new markets, such as children and home decor. It has expanded into travel and local deals through its Jetsetter and Gilt City brands respectively. [Read our Q&A with Ryan here.]

The funding will go toward launching new verticals and making acquisitions to get into new markets. In the next couple of months, Gilt has committed to launching a gourmet food site and a full-priced men’s online retail apparel site, but others are also on their way.

Ryan said the round ended up being bigger than they expected and they could have easily raised up to $200 million. But there’s a delicate balancing act between raising enough and diluting the company too far.

“It will be great not to have to do this for a long time,” he said, adding that this will be the last time the company raises a private round.

The next step will be an initial public offering. ”At some point, but we have no specific plans. It’s not happening any time soon,” he said.

Softbank, which operates wireless and broadband networks in Japan and has investments in hundreds of companies–including Yahoo! Japan–will contribute other services and intangible property to help expand what Gilt has already started in Japan.

“It’s not that it wasn’t going well. We are the flash-sales leader in Japan, but when we started talking to them, it was clear that they would add value,” Ryan said. “We don’t need a partner, but we were convinced that they would add value and be a great partner. We are a leader, but we want to be a lot bigger and it’s sometimes hard to be as successful in Japan without a partner. I think that will help.”

To be sure, the round will be helpful in establishing Gilt from among the copycats flooding the market.

The company previously said its revenues would total up to $500 million for the fiscal year ending June 2011. Ryan would not provide an update on that figure, but said the overall company, which has 670 employees and 100 job openings, is not yet profitable.

Its business model is not too dissimilar to well-funded Groupon or LivingSocial. Other direct competitors, such as Rue La La and HauteLook, have recently been acquired by eBay and Nordstrom respectively. And in the past couple of weeks, one of its closest competitors, ideeli, raised $40 million in capital. E-commerce giant Amazon just began another direct competitor called MyHabit. Additionally, Vente Privée, the big French flash-sales site, which already has billions in revenues, is reportedly launching in the U.S. in the coming months with an announcement slated for this week.

Here’s the full press release:

Gilt Groupe, Inc. Announces $138 Million in New Funding
Accelerates Business in Japan with Establishment of Joint Venture with SOFTBANK

NEW YORK, NY, May 9, 2011 – Gilt Groupe, Inc., an innovative online shopping destination, today announced it has raised $138 million from new and current investors. The new financing will be used for various growth initiatives, including acquisitions, new business categories Gilt plans to launch, as well as the acceleration of growth in existing categories and geographies.

Participants in the financing round include SOFTBANK Group; Gilt Groupe’s previous investors, General Atlantic and Matrix Partners; as well as a syndicate of new investors including Goldman Sachs, New Enterprise Associates, Draper Fisher Jurvetson Growth, Pinnacle Ventures, TriplePoint Capital and Eastward Capital.

SOFTBANK Group, a Japanese telecommunications, internet and media conglomerate, has invested $62.5 million into Gilt Groupe. In addition to that investment, SOFTBANK Group has made additional contributions into Gilt Groupe Japan, of cash, services, and intangible property to establish a joint venture between the two companies, representing a 50% stake for SOFTBANK Group in that business. The other partners invested a total of $75.5 million into Gilt Groupe in the US.

“We are very excited about each of the partners we’ve chosen and the opportunities this financing creates as we continue to expand into additional categories as well as make strategic acquisitions to complement existing business lines,” said Kevin Ryan, Founder and CEO, Gilt Groupe, Inc.

In the next several months Gilt will launch a gourmet food site as well as a full-price men’s online retail store as the Company continues to expand beyond its original business of off-price apparel and accessories through the flash sales model. In November 2007, Gilt Groupe launched as an invitation-only site for coveted women’s apparel and accessories. Today, Gilt Groupe has added business lines in home (Gilt Home); children (Gilt Children); men’s apparel and gear (Gilt MAN); vacation travel (Jetsetter); local services and experiences (Gilt City), and has founded the leading flash-sale site in Japan (Gilt Groupe Japan).

“I am very excited to see further expansion of Gilt’s offerings to Japanese customers,” said Masayoshi Son, Chairman and CEO of SOFTBANK Group. “With our Internet technology and Gilt’s innovative service, we look forward to working together to bring the Japanese market to a new stage of online shopping.”

”In just a short amount of time Gilt has successfully brought the flash sale model to Japan as well as introduced local city experiences through the launch of Gilt City Japan,” said Peter Glusker, CEO, Gilt Groupe Japan. “This newly formed joint venture with SOFTBANK will allow us to expand our offerings in Japan at a faster rate as well as benefit from SOFTBANK’s unique set of assets and expertise in Japan.”

To date Gilt has secured over $270 million in total financing since establishing operations in November 2007.

About Gilt Groupe, Inc.

Gilt Groupe, www.gilt.com, is an innovative online shopping destination offering its million members special access to the most inspiring merchandise and experiences every day, many at insider prices. Gilt continually searches the world for the most coveted brands, including fashion for women, men and children, home décor, hotels and travel experiences on every continent, and unique activities in a growing list of cities and destinations. We believe that every day is an opportunity to inspire and be inspired.

Gilt Groupe Japan, www.gilt.jp, was launched in March 2009, and has established itself as the leading flash-sales site in Japan with over 600,000 members.

The new site at MyHabit.com offers up to 60 percent off top brands such as Doo.Ri, Elizabeth and James, Halston, and Vera Wang. Like other members-only sites, the merchandise will go on sale in the morning, and be available until the inventory sells out.

While you have to belong, it costs nothing to join, and in this case, users can sign up with their Amazon username and password.

The idea of flash sales sites is as trendy as a Coach clutch.

Last week, New York-based ideeli raised $41 million in a third round of capital. Ideeli and Gilt Groupe both offer discounts on brand name apparel. Other sites, such as One Kings Lane, has also raised a lot of cash to offer discounts on home decor. Other apparel sites include Rue La La, which is partially owned by eBay, and HauteLook, which was acquired recently by Nordstrom.

The launch of MyHabit is Amazon’s latest attempt to tap into the designer apparel market. It also operates independent sites, such as Endless.com, which is focused on shoes, and Shopbop.com, which sells designer shoes, clothing, bags and accessories at full price.

MyHabit will leverage some of Amazon’s regular perks, such as free shipping and returns. Orders eligible for return will receive credit redeemable from MyHabit, Amazon.com and Endless.com.

While operating a little like Amazon, the site looks entirely different aesthetically. Instead of a large inventory of items displayed by small thumbnail pictures, the merchandise on MyHabit is a small subset that’s presented with video that offers a 360-degree view of the clothing on live models.

New York-based Ideeli, which operates a members-only flash sales site aimed at the affluent, has raised a hefty $41 million in a third round of capital.

Similar to Gilt Groupe, Ideeli offers limited-time sales to its members in apparel, accessories, home, shoes, kids, travel and lifestyle categories. Most sales start in the afternoon and last 40 hours before they expire or the inventory is gone.

The round was led by Next World Capital with Cue Ball Capital, StarVest Partners, Constellation Growth Capital and Kodiak Venture Partners also participating. In total, the company has raised $64.8 million.

The company, founded by CEO Paul Hurley four years ago, said the equity will be used to support growth and expansion plans, including new categories, partnerships, technology initiatives, marketing campaigns and hiring.

With four million members, it claims to be the fastest-growing members-only shopping company.

Gilt Groupe, also based in New York, has not disclosed how many members it has, but as of about a year ago it said it had 3.5 million members. Gilt has raised close to $50 million with the last round coming in December. However, it’s been reported that it could be close to raising a much larger round totaling $100 million.

Both companies fit squarely in the niche of finding new channels to reach shoppers, who are lured in by deep discounts on a small “curated” set of items that fit with their lifestyle.

Other companies riding this wave include GSI Commerce-owned Rue La La, HauteLook, which was purchased by Nordstrom for up to $270 million in February, and One Kings Lane, which is focused on home decor and recently raised $23 million.

Catalog Spree, which launched yesterday on the iPad, aggregates a number of catalogs in one place, similarly to a mall, where consumers can go to find multiple stores.

So far, the app includes catalogs from Dwell Studio, Serena & Lily, Tea Collection, Nordstrom, Filson and Artful Home. More will be added regularly.

On the surface, the application may sound like a bunch of pretty pictures, but Padopolis’ co-founder and CEO Joaquín Ruiz makes a big case for the idea, which investors were willing to bet on.

After 10 months of boot-strapping, the Menlo Park, Calif.-based company has raised $1.3 million in seed funding from El Dorado Ventures, Blackberry Partners Fund and Andrew Jenks, an angel investor. The company, which officially launched in November, didn’t know it was on to something until Christmas.

Ruiz said they started having discussions with retailers, who reported that anywhere from 2 percent to 10 percent of holiday purchases occurred on the device in the months leading up to Christmas. That’s up from zero the year before since the iPad didn’t exist.

Ruiz said the catalog industry makes a great target because unlike other print publications, such as newspapers and magazines, it’s on the rise.

Roughly 20 billion catalogs were mailed last year in the U.S., jumping from 18 billion two years ago. Those catalogs translate to more than $100 billion in annual revenues, he said, representing the single-largest revenue generator for retailers.

But despite their effectiveness, there’s two downsides: distribution costs–including paper and postage–and, of course, consumers who don’t want the clutter (Ruiz swears 65 percent of people who discontinue catalogs still want to shop from that store, they just don’t want the paper).

That’s where the iPad can make the difference on both sides of the equation.

“There are three ways to interact with the customer: brick and mortar, there’s the Internet and there’s the catalog,” he said. “An Internet-only shopper spends an average of $120 a year. If you buy in the store, you spend an average of $180. If you’re a catalog shopper, your average spend is $240. But if you shop on all three, it’s more than $1,000. There’s a fourth channel. Mobile is going to become a significant part of that fourth channel.”

When you first enter the app, you are greeted by “Sally Spree,” a cartoon-ish blond-haired woman in high heels with a big smile who is galloping across the screen, carrying four shopping bags. The image portrays how fun and easy the shopping experience can be (instead of fighting crowds at the mall in any kind of shoes–much less pumps).

Once inside the app, there are miniature pictures of several catalogs, much like iBooks, where Apple sells the latest bestsellers from a digital bookshelf.

A user touches a catalog to enter, where they will see a nearly identical layout of the real catalog with pictures and descriptions. The difference, however, is its interactivity. Users can tap on an item to receive more information or to buy it. They can search to discover new catalogs and subscribe to feeds or be alerted to promotions. A favorite item can be posted to your Facebook feed.

On the back end, the catalog is linked into the retailer’s e-commerce site, so it’s intelligent enough to know if an item is in stock. Likewise, if a friend clicks on an item from your Facebook page, it won’t take you to a broken link or an iPad app, but to the company’s regular Internet site.

The application is free to consumers to download and to browse. Padopolis plans to take a percentage of revenue from each sale it helps generates on behalf of the retailer.

For now, the company seems to be ahead of the curve.

A search in the iPad store reveals a competitor called Catalogs.com that has products from Home Depot, Petco, Speigel and others, but it has only received two stars. Its biggest competition likely is the retailers themselves that have the resources to create their own standalone applications. As of launch, a search reveals that none of its partners have taken that route.

Since debuting late last year, the well-selling Xbox accessory has been tweaked to create the world’s best shadow puppet; to operate a computer, like Tom Cruise in Minority Report; and now to help redefine window shopping.

Nordstrom, the Seattle-based department store, has installed it in the window of its flagship store in Seattle to enable people to draw illustrations using light on the white backdrop, reports MSNBC.com.

Here’s what Nordstrom says about it on its blog: “With the help of Kinect’s infrared technology and their technical genius, our teams created a seamlessly interactive display that anyone can ‘paint’ on using just the motion of their hands in front of the glass.”

Nordstrom had previously experimented with the technology at its Spring 2011 Designer Catalog event.

At least once before, Kinect was used in a window display. In Moscow, passers-by could browse products and search for information in catalogs using only their motion to interact.

Here’s a look at the Nordstrom window display:

The company, which offers 48-hour sales events for all types of clothing, is bringing the music-club phenomenon back into style.

But this time, instead of teenagers getting a CD from an artist they potentially never heard of, fashionistas will get a pair of the latest shoes (I hope you have a large closet!).

It works like this.

Registration is free, and your shoe style is determined after taking a short quiz. Each question asks you to pick from a series of photos what best represents your style. One question asks of three Gwen Stefani looks, which do you prefer?

Based on your preferences, Sole Society will then send you an online selection of “designer-quality” shoes every month for $49.95 per month. The styles range from heels, wedges, flats or booties. In response to a question about what designer brands will be offered, a spokesperson said it is offering its own exclusive brands of shoes, including a brand called Marco Santi at launch.

Just like with the music clubs, you are allowed to opt out, however, you must remember to choose to do so by the 5th of the month, or else you will be charged for a pair of shoes and begin to accumulate credit. HauteLook says you will never accumulate more than $150 or three months at a time.

The terms are very flexible, but much like the original music clubs, the catch is whether you were disciplined enough to either pass when not interested or return unwanted to shoes.

There’s no limit to the number of months you can skip, and even if you choose to skip a month, you can change your mind and purchase as many shoes as you would like. If you are not satisfied with your shoes for any reason, you have 30 days to return the shoes for full credit with a prepaid UPS label.

As an added bonus, Sole Society members can earn a free pair of shoes if  they refer three friends to the site that result in a sale.

HauteLook is one of the companies competing in a new wave of e-commerce, which leverages group sales to offer discounts for limited time. Others include Gilt Groupe and Rue La La. The broader category includes Groupon and LivingSocial, which are focused more on offering deals for local services, including discounts to restaurants and spas.

Seattle-based Nordstrom announced last month that it acquired HauteLook for $180 million in stock. However, the transaction size could jump to as much as $270 million if the company meets certain performance goals.

HauteLook will operate an independent, wholly owned subsidiary, to be managed by its current leadership. The transaction was expected to close by the end of this month.

While Nordstrom is now a department store, offering a full range of items for sale, it kicked off as a shoe store. In 1960, it was considered the largest independent shoe chain in the U.S., and its downtown Seattle store was the largest shoe store in the country.

Nordstrom will acquire the company for $180 million in stock. However, the transaction size could jump to as much as $270 million over time if the company meets certain performance goals and vesting requirements for the existing management team.

At that price, the transaction gives a lot of weight to a burgeoning new area of e-commerce, fueled by private/flash sales and other group-buying trends.

Los Angeles-based HauteLook offers discounts of 50 to 75 percent off home, beauty, travel and local services for women, men and kids. In the last two years, HauteLook says it has conducted 2,500 private sales events for 1,000 high-profile brands.

Seattle-based Nordstrom said HauteLook will operate as an independent, wholly owned subsidiary, to be managed by its current leadership. The HauteLook brand and Web site will remain separate from Nordstrom, and there are plenty of incentives to keep the management team in place.

While Nordstrom is primarily a physical department store, it has a fairly sizable online presence and recently has spent time integrating its online and store presence, so customers can see what inventory is online and what’s available in the store.

The transaction is expected to close in the first quarter of 2011 and is subject to customary closing conditions, including regulatory and HauteLook shareholder approval.