Bob

If you've ever searched high and low to find the perfect present for your odd cousin Bob only to find that everything you see in the store is generic or just wouldn't fit his unique personality, then you're the type of consumer Amazon.com aims to please with its latest store. Amazon announced today the addition of Amazon Exclusives, which aims to give consumers direct access to innovative products from popular and up-and-coming brands.

Sport Chalet is being acquired by a company that owns Eastern Mountain Sports and Bob's Stores. Sport Chalet, with 50 stores in the U.S. western states of California, Nevada, Utah and Arizona, announced it was looking for potential partnerships and/or investors last year as the retailer set to expand its technological strategies. Under the agreement, Sport Chalet will keep its stores open and keep its name. Sport Chalet CEO Craig Levra will continue to manage the business out of Los Angeles, the companies said.

In these still-not-entirely-unrecessionary times it’s important to find a way to escape the commodity-style pricing wars and strengthen the marketing backbone of your company.

Catalog established: 1980 Headquarters: Charleston, S.C. # of employees: 35 (full- & part-time) Merchandise: Men’s neckwear, shirts, eyewear, shoes, slacks, jackets, some women’s apparel Customer demographics: Professional men, 45-plus, who prefer traditional clothing # of SKUs: 5,000-plus WHAT GOT YOU HERE: Both Sue, the company’s president and daughter of Ben Silver, and Robert, managing director, earned law degrees and spent time working as attorneys. Prior to taking over the family business following Ben’s death, they worked together in the wholesale jewelry business. “We found that the items we were selling weren’t being promoted in a meaningful way,” Sue recalls of the wholesale jewelry business. So when she and Robert