How to shop in Vancouver

I’m not a shopper. I hate having to spend – no, waste – valuable time looking for clothes or anything else. In fact, the rule in our house is – ‘don’t ask me to go shopping if the sun is shining.’

Then along came Karen Henrich and her shopping App for Vancouver.  Henrich is a shopper as much as she is an entrepreneur. (In her other business, Nuit Blanche Tours, she shows women around Paris, including where to shop.) When she put those two pieces of her personality together, Henrich came up with a way to make shopping easy, even – do I daresay it – fun.

Her App, available at the iTunes App Store, describes eight shopping neighbourhoods in Vancouver and one in Whistler. There’s Robson Street and Gastown, of course, but also lesser known Main St. and West 4^th, among others. (That’s Henrich in the photo at John Fluevog Shoes in Gastown.)

Once you download the App to your iPhone or iPod Touch, you see a block-by-block description of every store and restaurant in each neighbourhood. You can even ‘walk’ the neighbourhood virtually first, using Google’s Street View maps.

I got to preview the App recently with Henrich and saw how useful it is. What a timesaver, especially if you don’t know Vancouver well or you want to check out a new neighbourhood, or, like me, you really just want to get your shopping over and done with.

Finally, I have a good excuse to buy an iPhone or maybe even spring for the new iPad. (Shopping on iTunes is something I can handle, rain or shine.) But if you aren’t an Apple fan, a mobile web version of the App is now available for other SmartPhones.

The shopping app is free, but if you download it on Fridays, it’s .99.  Half the money goes to the Canadian Red Cross in support of Haiti so you won’t feel any guilt about shopping for the purpose of shopping!