A friend just passed on this fun story about a blended business to borrow a term from the education field. It’s an outlet and secondhand store – but they sell items on site and online. Here’s a description from the Mankato Free Press…

Travis Fjeld’s new outlet store in Winnebago combines traditional second-hand and warehouse liquidation offerings with an array of Internet-based services for customers.

“Without the Internet access, we couldn’t do this in a small town,” said Fjeld of the community of 1,300.

He opened The Outlet Store on Main Street a few weeks ago. He sells other people’s items on consignment as well as warehouse liquidation inventory he purchases through online auctions.

I think it’s a nice example of economic development application of broadband – both for this individual business but for the community served by this business as well.