New ShopMyNorth.com Northern Michigan Shopping Website Performs Well Black Friday & Cyber Monday

Nov. 29, 2012 - PRLog -- Northern Michigan Publisher of Traverse, Northern Michigan’s Magazine and Traverse City Area Retailers Sell Online to MyNorth Media’s Audience of One Million

Traverse City, MI (November 29, 2012)--MyNorth Media, publishers of Traverse, Northern Michigan’s Magazine, today announced the successful launch of its new online store http://www.ShopMyNorth.com which has sold more in two weeks of November 2012 than the previous store sold in all of November 2011, attracting 6,000 visits to 27,000 pageviews of Northern Michigan products. The new ShopMyNorth.com is a spin off of the popular website http://www.MyNorth.com and offers branded MyNorth clothing and cottageware as well as gift packages including MyNorth Media’s books and magazines. In addition, ShopMyNorth.com includes local products from several Northern Michigan retailers, including Grocer’s Daughter, Higher Grounds, Great Lakes Bath and Body and more.

“For more than 30 years, one of the missions of MyNorth Media has been to connect people who love Northern Michigan with the products and services created by our region,” says MyNorth Media president and founder of Traverse, Northern Michigan’s Magazine, Deborah Wyatt Fellows. “We have done this successfully in print, in online advertising and directories, in video, in enewsletters and now, through this gorgeous store that looks and feels like a Northern Michigan experience.”

ShopMyNorth.com launched with stunning photography in an new slide show on the home page. Improvements also included new additions to the MyNorth product line, such as the significant expansion of its Sleeping Bear Dunes collection, including a Sleeping Bear Dunes T-Shirt featuring the work of Northern Michigan artist, Glenn Wolff. In the last month, ShopMyNorth.com has added the products of local entrepreneurs including everything from handmade soups and candles to luxury chocolates to snowshoes made from recycled tires.

“Our goal has always been to promote the creative energy of our entrepreneurial retail community in Northern Michigan,” says Fellows. “MyNorth.com reached more than a half million people last year in every state and 180 foreign countries. By offering specific products for sale online through ShopMyNorth.com, we are expanding the reach of our retailers and making it easy for people who love Northern Michigan to buy our local products, no matter where they are. We are really pleased that the new design of ShopMyNorth.com shows off Northern Michigan’s lifestyle with the same clean format, stunning photography and simple approach that characterizes an afternoon shopping in Northern Michigan’s villages and boutiques.”

“Customers love the addition of the featured Northern Michigan retailers, telling us that they like the diversity of products,” says Drew Warner, the MyNorth Media account executive working with retailers displaying products in the store. “They can find gifts for everyone on their list and the store makes it really easy to send Northern Michigan products to multiple locations through just one order.”

MyNorth Media worked to have the internet retailing website ready for business by the kick off to the holiday shopping season, the Thanksgiving weekend, flanked by Black Friday and Cyber Monday. ShopMyNorth’s November sales surpassed last year’s November totals even before Thanksgiving this year. Now weekend sales are on pace to take this year’s November total beyond even December 2011’s peak sales.

“We are committed to putting Northern Michigan products in people’s hands year round,” says Fellows, “and we couldn’t be more delighted with the enthusiasm buyers showed for ShopMyNorth.com over Thanksgiving weekend.”


http://shopmynorth.com/featured-retailer.html includes:
Belle Banquet
Campmasters
Great Lakes Bath + Body
Grocer's Daughter
Higher Grounds
Just Good Chocolate
Leelanau Candle Co.
S&S Snowshoes

Giving Northern Michigan Retailers Access to Online Shoppers

“Our goal is to provide Northern Michigan retailers with a means of selling online, easily and affordably,” says Fellows. Retailers can participate with as little as one product. To take advantage of the slideshow at the beginning and other promotional benefits, retailers are featured for as little as $200 and 25% of sales revenue.

“Northern Michigan’s shopkeepers can sell their products online in a matter of days,” explains Warner. “By putting products on ShopMyNorth they don’t have to worry about processing credit cards online, security, privacy or design and development—all of which can take months and cost thousands. Plus we market the site to the MyNorth Media audience, now exceeding a million, through Traverse Magazine, MyNorth.com and in broadcast media.”

Over the Thanksgiving weekend, buyers have come from California, Arizona, New York, Maryland, Wisconsin, Ohio, Montana, Illinois as well as cities in southern Michigan. Even Ontario, Canada.

The Mark Lindsay Collection calendar sold within a half an hour of going up on ShopMyNorth. The initial inventories have sold out for both MyNorth Media’s fleeces and t-shirts with Glenn Wolf’s watercolor illustration of a Sleeping Bear Dunes map. Hats embroidered with MyNorth Media’s signature N and compass point, a graphic that means “Up North” to its fans, have been so popular that MyNorth Media added a winter beanie. And of course MyNorth Media’s Beautiful Sleeping Bear Dunes photo book and Journey Into Sleeping Bear Dunes DVD are selling very well in a combo package, which Fellows attributes to the National Lakeshore’s popularity and visibility with the Good Morning America audience.

“I’m not sure what’s more exciting,” says Fellows. “Watching our clients’ products sell or hearing the enthusiasm of shoppers at their ability to give gifts from Northern Michigan.”

About MyNorth Media

MyNorth Media, founded as Prism Publications Inc. in 1981 by Deborah Wyatt Fellows, publishes Traverse, Northern Michigan's Magazine, Northern Home & Cottage, MyNorth Vacation Guide and MyNorth Wedding, in addition to several other print and online publications. It also produces MyNorth.com, the online home of Traverse, Northern Michigan’s Magazine.

Traverse Magazine and its staff have won more than a dozen national and international awards for excellence, including a 2008 silver award for general excellence from the City and Regional Magazine Association and the 2007 “Magazine of the Year" award from the International Regional Magazine Association.

MyNorth Media has also published Reflections of a Life Up North, a coffee-table book of stunning photography from Traverse Magazine paired with a collection of Fellows's columns, The Cottage Cookbook, 101 Ways to Love Traverse City and The Red Hot Best of Northern Michigan 2011-2012. MyNorth Media is also a proud sponsor of many events including the Traverse City Film Festival, Traverse City Comedy Arts Festival, Traverse City Wine & Art Festival, Traverse City Friday Night Live, Paella in the Park and Elk Rapids Harbor Days. The privately held company is headquartered in Traverse City, Michigan. For more information visit www.MyNorth.com or call (231) 941-8174.