Shopping in Plymouth

Ciara and Jim Stockeland search under fashion runways and in the overlooked recesses of couture closets for women's designer gems to feature at closeout prices inside their well-organized boutiques. Featured on local style blog Minneapolis Picks and ignored by editors at Cat Fancy, the spacious boutiques are neatly arrayed with brand-new duds by name-brand designers, including homegoods and loads of jewelry and accessories ($9.99–$14.99). Designer fragrances ($19.99) allow shoppers to adopt the sweet aroma of a favorite fashionista without the hassle of finding a basset hound with a chemistry degree. Master a back handspring into a pair of designer jeans ($40) or gussy up torsos with an organic tee, tank, or cardigan ($9.99–$32.99).

Googly eyes. Gas masks. Mannequin arms. Blowguns. Ax-Man Surplus Stores dares crafters, DIY enthusiasts, and tinkerers of all stripes to dream bigger, better, and weirder with an enormous stock of new surplus items. Each shop's collection of oddities and odds-and-ends resides in open-air barrels and on easily browseable shelves. Bins entice shoppers to rummage through metal bits in search of the next piece to a welded sculpture, and other aisles hold several decades’ worth of electronic wiring, fans, speakers, and fuses, perfect for building a robot that every generation can relate to. Frequent shoppers are rewarded with a new truckload of treasures every week, along with an ever-changing collection of signs that artistically warn of the hazards of shoplifting and suggest off-label uses for the merchandise. World Famous Design Junkies praised Ax-Man for its signage and its selection alike in 2009, calling it “the greatest place to buy do-hickeys in the entire world.”