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The Complete Guide to Online Shopping: Gifts & Stationery
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From chandelier-shaped mirrors to Love Is Enough brooches by Heidi Butler and stylish leather bags, this site has everything the guy or gal about town could want. It even does hand-printed skull wrapping paper to cover them in.
020-7437 7338
By Nature
Like that other popular ethical shopping site, www.soorganic.com, this emporium of all things natural has plenty to tempt eco-minded shoppers. From dairy, wheat and gluten-free truffles to linen photo albums and organic body butter, its products are as affordable as they are stylish.
020-8488 3556
Coco Ribbon
It's a girl's world at this elegant online lifestyle store. If you don't like things sparkly, silky or fringed with ribbon, approach with caution. The same can be said of the clothes, beauty products and homeware on sale at its two London boutiques.
020-7229 4904
Cox and Cox
Its simple layout and regularly updated stock make this a horribly addictive online pitstop for cash-rich, time-poor gift-givers. Its range of grown-up accessories and gifts - from intricate bird stamps for stationery to jigsaw-style cookie-cutters - are always original.
08704 424 787
Design My World
The ideal online store for anyone interested in design, the range of quirky home accessories here includes plenty of smaller, present-friendly items. Recent bestsellers include beautiful and functional stackable shoe boxes.
08708 921 903
Hume Sweet Hume
Jenna and Lizza Hume's collection of knitted home and fashion accessories is run from a remote island in Orkney. The sisters' products reflect the colours of the local landscape, and all come strung with a pebble from the neighbouring shoreline.
01857 677 259
The Inside Man
Set up less than a year ago, this store specialises in luxury gifts for the modern man. With a well-sourced range of stock (everything from belts, books and diaries to sporting prints), this is fast becoming boy heaven.
020-8682 3834
Lisa Stickley
A small site but one that punches above its weight, designer Lisa Stickley's online store stocks a good range of pretty handmade textiles, ceramics and cushions. It also does ironing-board covers lovely enough to make flattening out creases a pleasure (well, almost).
Muji
This is the online version of the brand-free brand from Japan. If velvet-covered notebooks and Christmas-spice-scented candles seem as garish to you as Lawrence Llewelyn-Bowen in your living room, then head here for simple, stylish gifts at good prices.
Mungo and Maud
If you see your pet as an extension of yourself, then it's out with the scruffy dog basket and mangy cat collars. This site proves that animals can be chic - and not in Paris Hilton's diamante-studded pooch way. Think cashmere blankets and designer dog bowls.
020-7952 4570
Papa Stour
What Mungo and Maud do for pets, so Papa Stour does for the Scots. No, everything doesn't have to come wrapped in tartan or laced with a whiff of haggis. For genuinely stylish Caledonian crafts, log on to this chic little site and you won't go far wrong.
01655 883 589
Pedlars
Forget anything as conventional as socks or chocs. Pedlars sells everything from designer tables to T-shirts, and it's especially good on children's gifts, with the latest board games alongside drum kits and false moustaches. For an extra-special gift, splash out on a mind-altering goldfish.
01330 850 400
Pickett accessories
There's nothing gimmicky about Pickett's traditionally styled range of leather goods and home accessories. Sturdy briefcases, elegant luggage, jewellery boxes and backgammon sets are just how the shop's fans like it.
020-7493 8939
Smythson
For a stationery company with such an age-old name, Smythson is surprisingly good at reinventing itself. Its jazzy coloured, silk-lined diaries are always a winner, as is its range of personalised stationery and luxury luggage tags.
020-7318 1515
Where Did You Buy That
From armadillo-shaped breadbins to designer doggie lounges, Porsche kitchen gadgets and bird-feeders that look glamorous enough to appear in a Bond film, this site is a shrine to stylish homeware.
08706 092 468
CAN I RETURN MY GOODS?
Statutory rights apply for online shopping, so if you receive faulty goods tell the supplier as soon as possible. Keep a written note of a phone conversations or keep e-mails. You have the right to clear information before placing an order, written information about a purchase and a "cooling off" period during which an order can be cancelled without reason and a full refund made. You are also entitled to a full refund if goods or services are not provided by an agreed date or within 30 days of placing an order.
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