Personally and professionally, I love stores. But in the past three days alone, I've observed too many of them failing on the basics.

Amidst a world of digital snippets and statistical click bait, ELLE Magazine printed a well-researched longread on retail trends an sentiment in its January 2017 issue. I read it with interest because it's a fresh source talking to a different reader than the mainstream business publications. I wanted to know which themes they're seeing -- and reinforcing.

I think we've hit a new high this year in the quantity of gift guides published. Instead of recommending items for purchase, I'm sharing ideas for where to go shopping if you want to have fun browsing and find desirable gifts.