Cyber Monday Profile: Lekker

This weekend Bostonist made a little trip over to Wikipedia. We wanted to find out what else had been named “Black Friday.” Turns out that once upon a time it did refer to a stock market crash, one in 1869, like its brothers Black Monday (of 1987 and also 1929), Black Tuesday, and Black Thursday of Great Depression fame. There are a whole host of other Fridays that Black Friday has referred to, but presently, for most US consumers the term refers to the day after Thanksgiving when the Christmas shopping season commences. The neologism this weekend was “Cyber Monday,” coined in the anticipation that people, upon returning to work, would drop their productivity levels and use their work computers and broadband connections to shop online. Bostonist had recently told you about a web-store gone to bricks and mortar, and today we call attention to Lekker. It began as a store, with a door, and has branched out and experienced much of its sucess on the web.

Lekker is located just down the street from the Union Bar and Grill in the revitalized (or gentrified - take your pick) Washington Street Gateway area. The store opened in early 2003 and been very successful at its location on Washington and Waltham Streets. They’ve captured a Cyber Monday crowd of customers around the country, in addition to those around Boston, with their savvy website. Bostonist stopped into Lekker on Saturday (ok, ok, so it wasn’t on Black Friday) and found there to be so many great looking things for our home we considered moving to an apartment that would actually go with them. Proprietors Natalie van Dijk Carpenter and her husband, Curt Carpenter, have stocked a wide array of European-designed home goods with an even wider selection in their online store. The online business has been supplementing their less-than-amazing foot traffic on Washington. A slick design, easy navigation, and free shipping and gift-wrapping have the allure to draw mention in major style magazines for the South End shop. Bostonist is sure to return: with free gift-wrapping those slightly-out-of-price-range items are looking a little more reasonable for Aunt Bostonist, who expects her Christmas gift to be shipped promptly. The drawback to the online shop is not knowing how to pronounce the names on all their crazy international imports. When Bostonist reads on our computer screen about the newly stocked items from Pol’s Potten we can’t help but think of a certain ousted, late leader.