From: newsdistribution@gaydata.com Date: Thu, 22 Jun 2000 11:59:08 -0500 Subject: Lavender World Site June 22, 2000 Lavender World Site - www.lavender.ws A Queer site selling the "Straight" goods? There are a large number of queer websites selling queer goods. Check out the shopping sections of any of the queer search engines or directory sites and you will find pride wear, novelties, fashions etc. You will also see sites selling queer books, movies and music. What you will not find is everything else you consume daily. If you do, they are sold to you in major online stores that look and feel very straight. We aim to change that! Our "About Us" section on the homepage says it very well: "We are an online retailer dedicated to providing everyday goods to gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered persons. We strive to have our stores reflect the queer community, however, due to the diversity of the community they may not individually do so. Our inventories focus on everyday goods. There are many fine queer retailers and e-tailers with specific merchandise directed at the community. Our goal is to allow them to thrive by carrying complementary, rather than competing goods, and by providing a site where they may be listed." Face it, we all love to read books and enjoy films that are relevant to us. We love to show off our pride, but we may only buy one pride item per year for the current year’s celebrations. We do, however, spend more of our disposable income on everyday "straight" goods. That is why we have over 500,000 everyday items online in proudly queer stores, and we ship anywhere in the USA. For example, we carry general title books, movies and music. We have pet supplies, sports gear, camping equipment, digital cameras, travel goods, computers, software, electronics, art, and we have an online pharmacy and a wellness store. We are trying to make buying the necessities of life, and some of the luxuries, more relevant and hopefully more fun. Our store names include: "Same Sex Pets", "Ms. Sheeba Chateau’s Pharmacy" (guess how we came up with that name), "Swish", "Equeerlibrium" and "Stud Software". We have a large amount of online queer resources which can be found in the directories and search engines in our "Queer Searches and Zines" section. We are working to build our list of queer goods retailers. Right now most of the queer search engines offer good lists of retailers, but we would like to add additional support to these retailers by listing them directly. Realizing that the big mega stores only carry queer authors after they have "made it", smaller retailers are the ones which offer us the emerging voices which may not otherwise get heard. We want to see these retailers thrive. We hope to offer them a chance to appear on an online portal where queer people go to buy things. They are welcome to register at www.lavender.ws. More information is available at www.lavender.ws or upon request to info@lavender.ws. ------------------------------------------------------------------ Distributed as a public service by GLINN's Gaydata News Distribution Service at www.gaydata.com.