But the cosy relationship between shop window and inventory owner may not be all that appealing to customers.

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He challenged the shop to build up inventory of all 40 pieces.

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It's an Amazon-like office supplier with no shop front, near zero inventory and a few staff.

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Thirty years ago, if you were a shop owner, you spent a large chunk of your time poring over inventory, keeping your books, clinking away at your calculator, double checking your numbers, and going through enough correction fluid to whitewash a fence.

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Whether you order in Roos' shop or at his own Web site, he can tap into an inventory of 35, 000 United Stationers products from more than 500 manufacturers--from a single Bic pen to a 325-pound fireproof safe, and all kinds of computer ware in between.

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The following year Korean department stores Lotte and Galleria came to the pair asking them to open what is called a "shop-n-shop"--the designer pays the department stores rent and manages the inventory and display (versus the U.S., where department stores buy stock of the brands they carry).

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Inventory throughout the 800 store chain is readily available to customers whether they shop in a store, on the Internet or on a mobile device.

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Spare inventory stays in the fields, rather than being stored in the back of the shop.

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Of course, Americans may confound skeptics again by continuing to shop, and many economists don't think stronger growth recently can be dismissed as a mere quirk of the inventory cycle.

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