When Wal-Mart told Reuters that it was doubling its offerings of organic food, it set off a debate over how the world’s biggest retailer would impact farming. Traditional grocery stores have also jumped in with wider selections of oganics. Now comes word from Advertising Age that the strategy may not be paying off because consumers are balking at high prices.

You tell us — are you buying organic food? Is it worth the price? And do you trust organic foods from major manufacturers and mass retailers?

    Wondering what to get that woman in your life– who doesn’t want to sacrifice style or ear comfort — for Christmas this year?
    How about an interchangeable headband that can double as a headset for your cell phone or a headphone for your MP3 music player?
    At the DigitalLife conference in New York on Thursday, which was crowded with tech heavyweights like Microsoft and HP, Stephanie Card had set up a small booth to show off the headbands she designed after finding that none of the headsets or headphones on the market, with their large sized earbuds, comfortably fit in her ears.
    “I could not keep those earbuds in my ear,” she said.
    So she went about looking for a way to design the perfect hands-free headset for woman — and came up with the Steffi Thomas headband.
    The headbands come in a variety of styles, ranging from solid silk colors like black and brown, to white cotton eyelet and teal pastel paisley.
    A coordinating headset or headphone can be purchased to click in to the headband - quickly transforming the band from a simple fashion accessory to a technology accessory.
    The earphone on the headsets and headphones are attached with a bendable arm — so women aren’t forced to shove the buds in their ears, but can rest them next to their ear if they want.
    “I was quite shocked that no one had come up with an idea like this before,” Card said.
    Card said the bands currently sell online at swapsets.com and in roughly 200 boutiques in the United States and Europe. While she has been getting the word out about the bands at fashion shows, the DigitalLife conference was the first “techie” show she was attending.
    Card said she was curious to see how the show’s attendees would react to the headbands. 
    The initial reaction seemed to be positive–with women walking up to the booth and immediately exclaiming what a good idea the headbands were, since earbuds never fit in their ears either.
    

Forty-three percent of shoppers expect to give consumer electronics as gifts this holiday season — down from 55 percent last year, according to NPD Group’s 2006 holiday survey.

Does that mean a gloomy holiday for U.S. consumer electronics retailers? Not necessarily, according to NPD’s Marshal Cohen.

One reason for the decline is that many of today’s teens and adults already own hot tech gadgets like MP3 players and digital cameras — so they are not asking for them like they did last year.

But prices have fallen enough on these gadgets that those teens and adults may turn around and give one of those tech gifts to a parent, Cohen said.

The other reason the decline isn’t as worrisome is that one very large electronics purchase that consumers will make this holiday season – buying that sleek new flat panel television — doesn’t get captured in the survey’s results.

“When I’m sitting there buying a gift and then I buy a flat-panel for myself, I don’t count that as holiday spending if I’m a consumer,” Cohen said.

The survey found that “tried-and-true” items like clothing, toys, books, music and fragrances will be big sellers again this holiday season — especially in the absence of a new wave of electronics making it on to wish-lists.

And how much to shoppers thing they will spend?

They plan to spend $728 this year on holiday gifts, up from $681 in 2005 and $655 in 2004.

The survey was conducted between Sept. 12-19, and was based on information from 1,823 completed interviews from NPD’s online consumer panel.

    Audrey Hepburn may have window shopped at Tiffany’s, but the Gap says that her fans have been lured inside its own stores, as the style icon’s new ad campaign fills shop windows and television screens this fall.
    On Thursday, Gap Inc. cited its Audrey Hepburn skinny black jeans television and print campaign as “supporting improved store traffic in September” that contributed to a less–than-expected overall same-store sales decline of 3 percent. Wall Street had been anticipating a fall of 4.2 percent on average, according to Reuters research.
    The television ads feature the waifish Hepburn wearing a beatnik uniform of black turtleneck and cigarette pants in the film “Funny Face” but dancing to AC/DC ’s rock anthem “Back in Black.”
    The exuberant ads, evocative of Apple Computer ’s iPod TV campaign, have everyone talking in the blogosphere, and retail analysts on Wall Street wondering whether the campaign can drum up sales for the struggling brand.
    In cyberspace, some bloggers gush about the ads while others are offended to see Audrey hawking pants.
    “At least she’s not dancing with a vacuum cleaner like was done with Fred Astaire,” wrote “Caff” in a recent response to the ThirdWay advertising blog, a reference to Dirt Devil ads in the 1990s.
    Financial analysts weighing in on the campaign give mixed predictions over the ultimate success of the campaign.
    While some express skepticism that the target Gap audience of young men and women will even recognize the star, others say the ads bring a jolt of much-needed excitement to the retailer, which has struggled this year with slumping sales and merchandise missteps.
    “From a marketing point of view it’s back-to-Gap genius,” said Roth Capital Partners analyst Liz Pierce recently.
    A recent Merrill Lynch September sales preview of various specialty retailers noted that the ads “were successful in raising the brand’s profile and cutting through the ad clutter that pervaded this month.”     
    But on Thursday, C.L. King analyst Mark Montagna noted in a research note that the key issue for Gap merchandise, despite its improvements, was whether it has improved relative to the rest of the market. Montagna noted a “wide gulf between Gap and the more relevant brands of today.”

    Couldn’t find the perfect million-dollar holiday gift in the legendary Neiman Marcus Christmas Book? Try Wal-Mart.
    The world’s biggest retailer, best known for selling everything cheap, said on Friday that its Sam’s Club warehouse stores would offer “once-in-a-lifetime” gifts including a $2.7 million Cessna Citation Mustang jet.
    Cessna calls the plane a “breakthrough combination of power, speed and true jet affordability”, capable of speeds up to 391 miles per hour and altitudes of 41,000 feet.
    Other special Sam’s Club offers include four Super Bowl tickets, complete with an invite to football legend Dan Marino’s VIP reception, and a trip to London for an evening with singer Tony Bennett.
    This is the third year that Sam’s Club has offered such lavish holiday gifts. In previous years, items have included a $198,000 custom-designed 1969 HP Camaro, and a trip to the National Football League’s Pro Bowl all-star game in Hawaii.
    There is a catch, however. Not only do you have to be rich, you also have to be a Sam’s Club member.

The following table lists select U.S. retail companies that have reported September sales at stores open at least a year, a key retail measure also known as same-store sales.The table includes the range of mean estimates given by analysts polled by Reuters, and the average of those means, and the actual change in same-store sales reported by the companies.
All figures expressed in percentage change over the same period last year except number of estimates.

Read our full story here.

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For those unconvinced that Starbucks coffee shops are ubiquitous, the company has opened a new location — on Apple Computer ’s  iTunes Web site.Starbucks and Apple agreed to set up a separate Starbucks Entertainment area within the iTunes online store. The store will allow users to download music from Starbucks’ Hear Music catalog, which includes songs from Ray Charles, Willie Nelson and others.