Shoppers, you should do well on today’s Feb. 11 Strands puzzle, No. 345.

Looking for the most recent Strands answer? Click here for our daily Strands hints, as well as our daily answers and hints for The New York Times Mini Crossword, Wordle, Connections  and Connections: Sports Edition puzzles.

Todays NYT Strands puzzle has kind of an odd theme, but once you figure it out, the words will come easily. Some of them are just four letters long, but one is 11 letters long. If you need hints and answers, read on.

I go into depth about the rules for Strands in this story. 

If you’re looking for today’s Wordle, Connections and Mini Crossword answers, you can visit CNET’s NYT puzzle hints page.

Read more: NYT Connections Turns 1: These Are the 5 Toughest Puzzles So Far

Hint for today’s Strands puzzle

Today’s Strands theme is: “Attention all shoppers.”

If that doesn’t help you, here’s a clue: They’re often found in strip malls.

Clue words to unlock in-game hints

Your goal is to find hidden words that fit the puzzle’s theme. If you’re stuck, find any words you can. Every time you find three words of four letters or more, Strands will reveal one of the theme words. These are the words I used to get those hints, but any words of four or more letters that you find will work:

• MATE, TAME, DENY, BELT, BRAG, BATE, BEAT, TIME, EMIT, TICK, GONE, KITE, SONIC, BEAUT, GRAB, LITE, BITE, BITS, BOLT, ITCH, TOLE

Answers for today’s Strands puzzle

These are the answers that tie into the theme. The goal of the puzzle is to find them all, including the spangram, a theme word that reaches from one side of the puzzle to the other. When you’ve got all of them (I originally thought there were always eight but learned that the number can vary), every letter on the board will be used. Here are the nonspangram answers:

• BATH, HOME, TOYS, BEAUTY, GARDEN, KITCHEN, ELECTRONICS

Today’s Strands spangram

Today’s Strands spangram is BIGBOX. To find it, start with the B that’s five letters down on the farthest left column, and wind across.

Quick tips for Strands

#1: To get more clue words, see if you can tweak the words you’ve already found, by adding an “S” or other variants. And if you find a word like WILL, see if other letters are close enough to help you make SILL, or BILL.

#2: Once you get one theme word, look at the puzzle to see if you can spot other related words.

#3: If you’ve been given the letters for a theme word, but can’t figure it out, guess three more clue words, and the puzzle will light up each letter in order, revealing the word.