My Registry

Whoever first came up with the idea for baby registries at stores was a business genius. Think about it.  Before registries, people would just buy a gift from anywhere they pleased.  Now, if you get a baby shower invitation noting that "So-and-so is registered at Babies R Us," people will go out of their way to find a Babies R Us and purchase the product there.  It totally drums up business and keeps people coming to one specific store instead of spreading their purchases out among numerous stores.  I'm pretty sure that people purchasing from registries have to make up a huge chunk of Target's business . . . it seems like everyone registers at Target, even though, in my opinion, Target doesn't really have that much variety as far as baby stuff. A few weeks ago, I went with my future sister-in-law to BuyBuyBaby in Greenwood, which is probably around 40 minutes away.  Why?  Because she needed to purchase a baby shower gift and the mom-to-be had only registered at BuyBuyBaby.  I would like to mention here that there is only one BuyBuyBaby store in the entire state of Indiana.  Not very convenient for anyone who doesn't just happen to live in Greenwood. Now, you can often buy the exact same item from a different store that's closer to home (or from somewhere where that item is cheaper, on sale, or where you have a coupon), but then you won't be able to mark it as purchased on the registry and will risk someone else buying a duplicate present. So, in the interest of capitalism, I'm going to try to not register at any particular store or stores for baby stuff.  Instead, I'm building an online registry at http://www.myregistry.com/. Visitors to this site can see what baby items we want and need, but are then free to purchase them anywhere - from any store, from an online site, etc.  If you click on the item, it will redirect you to a particular site.  Some of the items link specifically to Target or Babies R Us or Wal-mart or an online retailer, but that doesn't mean you would have to purchase the item from that store.  You can search for the same item anywhere, then come back to my online registry and mark the gift as purchased.  I like the fact that this gives people more choice about where to shop, as well as more choice as far as picking out specific colors or patterns, since in most cases I don't care as long as it's gender-neutral. If you'd like to view what we have on our registry so far, go to http://www.myregistry.com/ and type in either my name or Greg's name under "find a registry".  When our names come up, click on "go to registry."  You will first come to our welcome page, and can click on "view registry" near the top of the screen to view our wish list.  If you purchase a gift, you will need to mark it as purchased by returning to our registry, clicking on the item, and then marking in the pop-up screen that you purchased the item. I thought this post would be timely because of Black Friday coming up, and I know some of our family members are going to want to use our registry to guide them in their Christmas shopping.  Our registry is far from complete - there are a lot of things that need to be added before it is "baby shower ready" - but it's started for anyone interested in looking at it.

From Loving the Life We Live