The payouts to 311 shoppers who bought jewelry at his Perry's Emporium store in Wilmington, N.C., between Thanksgiving week and Dec. 11 could total more than $400,000. That's quite a sum, but Perry's not hanging his head. He had purchased a $10,000 insurance policy that will cover all the costs. Plus, it was a marketing win. "My sales jumped 34% [in that period] versus last year after I ran the snow promotion," said Perry, who owns and operates the 7,500 square-foot jewelry store in Wilmington. Why did he choose Asheville? "It rarely ever snows in December there," he said. "This promotion absolutely paid off," Perry said. "I've been everywhere talking about it. I've been on 'Good Morning America', Fox News, you guys." Perry is so happy with the result that he's already working on next year's snow promotion. "But I'm going to feature a different city, maybe Wilmington, Delaware," he said. Small pain, large gain: Perry bought a weather-based insurance policy from his longstanding insurer Global Weather Insurance. The "snow policy" that he bought is a type of sales promotion that's recently become popular with merchants, explained Patricia Sleicher, Perry's insurance agent. Since it snowed 6 inches, the insurer -- not Perry -- will pay out the the $400,000 to customers. Perry said checks to the winning customers will go out beginning in February. Sleicher said the $10,000 snow policy was a winning proposition not only for Perry and his customers but for her company, too. "It was great publicity for him and for us," she said. Catching on: Sleicher said other merchants are jumping on the weather policy contest bandwagon as sellers look for inventive ways to rev up sales in a slow economy. "We sell several of these policies nationwide," she said. Some are pegged to snow, others to rain, temperatures and even to wind. The snow policy cost Perry 2.2% of total sales, and they typically range between 1.5% and 5.5%. They policies are especially popular with jewelry and electronics sellers and with car dealers, said Sleicher, who named RadioShack (RSH, Fortune 500) as one of her clients. "We have a jeweler in California who runs a weather-based promotion four times a year, before Christmas, Memorial Day, Fourth of July and Labor day," she said. "He pegs it to rain and temperature levels." Perry has also run a rain-day promotion for the past six years in Wilmington, N.C., promising to refund the cost of an engagement ring if it rains above a certain amount on a customer's wedding day. "I am known as the rain-day diamond jeweler around here," he said. So what was the most expensive -- and now free -- jewelry item bought at his store during the snow promotion? "It was a $12,000 engagement ring," Perry said. "The lady was in the store yesterday to have it resized. She said they'll use the money toward paying for the wedding.

A few brave souls from New York City's tech crowd ventured into blizzard-covered streets Monday for venture capitalist Charlie O'Donnell's second annual tech snowball fight.

O'Donnell, a principal with First Round Capital, organized the fight on Twitter, recruiting participants with the hash tag #techsnowball. He also advertised the battle through his weekly tech newsletter. Typically jam-packed with events, this week the newsletter featured just one: "INNOVATION COMMUNITY SNOWBALL FIGHT!"

As shop owners salted their sidewalks and residents tried to free their cars from beneath mountains of snow, techies gathered at Madison Square Park to network in freezing temperatures.

Although the extreme weather conditions -- and city-wide subway shutdowns --kept turnout down, fears of frostbite didn't deter a few dozen revelers from showing up for snowball-assisted networking.

Nick Ganju, CTO and founder of ZocDoc, a three-year-old startup that helps patients book doctor appointments online, came with a business agenda.

"I came here specifically to hire people," Ganju said in between snowball tosses.

Ganju's startup, which recently closed a $15 million funding round led by Founders Fund, handed out cards reading "ZocDoc is hiring Rockstar devs!"

"You got to hustle," said Alex Taub, a business developer at Aviary, which offers free photo-editing and other Web creations tools.

Other attendees included a team from startup Hashable, an online tool that helps users track their relationships; and Gregory Galant, founder of Muckrack, a startup that collects tweets from journalists.

Most snowball fighters who attended didn't travel far -- a good thing, given the chilly weather and tough travel conditions.

The downtown Manhattan area is jam-packed with startups and investors.

"I would say half the startups in New York are in a six-block radius of this park," said organizer O'Donnell, who picked the spot for its tech proximity. "I like feeling attached to the neighborhood."

And for startups trying to make a name for themselves in an increasingly crowded space, any visibility helps. Paramendra Bhagat, CEO of a fledgling venture called Koya, said that any chance to schmooze is worth grabbing.

"When you're part of a small startup, it's important to feel something big," he said. "This is where a lot of bonding happens."

And as is often the case in the tech world -- where work and play constantly overlap -- a social outing could lead to a new job.

"I found a couple people here that seem like solid candidates," ZocDoc's Ganju said of his hunt for software engineers among the snowball fighters.