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"Every day, the website\u00A0AHAlife\u00A0delivers unique products from categories like fashion, food, beauty, accessories, home d\u00E9cor, tech and travel experiences right to your inbox. The site exudes &amp;quot;tastemaker status&amp;quot;, pairing a glossy editorial vibe with celebrity curators including Tim Gunn, DVF, Carmindy, Wendi Murdoch,\u00A0Daniel Boulud,\u00A0Bobbi Brown,\u00A0Petra Nemcova,\u00A0Cynthia Rowley, and Tina Brown in an attempt to cut through the noise in the online fashion world.\r\n\r\nToday, the\u00A0New York City based e-commerce company\u00A0is officially launching international shipping\u00A0to 106 countries, targeting cities like Mumbai, Beijing, Mexico City and Sao Paolo and accepting 42 major currencies. To celebrate, it's donned a tasteful online makeover featuring vertically stacked &amp;quot;shelves&amp;quot; of products.\r\n\r\nAHAlife\u2019s founder and CEO\u00A0Shauna Mei is anything but unimpressive. She\u00A0was born in Inner Mongolia,\u00A0raised in China and moved to the US shortly after the Tiananmen Square massacre. The 28-year-old entrepreneur (who was mentioned in our\u00A0epic run down of NYC\u2019s tech scene)\u00A0studied computer science and electrical engineering at MIT and upon graduation, went to work at Goldman Sachs, where she worked on the sale of\u00A0Neiman Marcus.\r\n\r\nAfter Goldman, she co-founded a luxury investment boutique with Jeffrey Aronsson, (the former CEO of Marc Jacobs), Donna Karan and\u00A0Oscar de la Renta. However, when the recent recession began, Mei decided to move to Stockholm, where she studied design and ran the Swedish activewear brand Casall. Not long after, Mei returned to New York and launched AHAlife\u00A0in fall 2010 during NYC\u2019s fashion week.\r\n\r\nAHAlife\u2019s\u00A0vibe is similar to other fashion sites we love like\u00A0Of A Kind\u00A0and Svvply\u00A0with a mission to provide a curated experience of the best lifestyle products from all over the world where the consumer can come, discover, learn about and seamlessly purchase what AHAlife\u2019s tastemakers love.\r\n\r\nWhy do I love AHAlife? I don't know many other online\u00A0boutiques\u00A0that showcase Chinese inspired vases, high end make up, charitable gifts and Jimmy Jane vibrators all on their front page. It's the wide selection of &amp;quot;things I want to own&amp;quot; that keeps me coming back, even if it's just to window shop.\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\nUnlike discount giant Gilt\u00A0(where this starving writer admittedly does a lot of online shopping), AHAlife.com\u2019s full price, full value business model has (unsurprisingly) received a fair amount of acclaim from industry\u00A0insiders. \u201CI do not believe true luxury goes on sale and niche brands are finally starting to realize the damage flash sales and heavy discounts can do to their business,&amp;quot; says Mei. \u201CIt was my mission to create a sustainable platform to not only sell unique crafts of artisans and designers from all over the world but also to tell their story. I am excited to be able to deliver to a global audience of intelligent, sophisticated consumers.\u201D\r\n\r\nThe company is backed by DCM, FirstMark Capital, and a few prominent leaders in media and commerce. The company also recently announced the addition of wellness expert, Deepak Chopra, to its board of directors as well as the opening of an offline boutique in Beverly Hills (an unusual move for an online retailer)."^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://thenextweb.com/insider/2012/02/24/the-tastemakers-shopping-site-ahalife-launches-in-over-100-countries/>