Archive for the ‘Finance’ Category

Hot Gizmos and Gadgets – Holiday Shopping 2009 – II

We started this series of articles with Blackfriday trends moved to list out 5 step strategy to get ready for Blackfriday and continued with a shopping plan. Yesterday we moved on to real meaty stuff talking about hot gizmos and gadgets which are currently attracting consumers in this holiday season. It is Digital Readers tops the list with new demand  from book readers. We will continue the list in this article and see more gadgets people are waiting to get hold of.


Hot Gadgets #2 : BluRay DVD Players

Blu-ray has been growing in popularity since around 2007. Both Blu-ray players and discs have substantially dropped in price since last year. This Black Friday will be the first time that many stores will be offering enticing deals on Blu-ray Players, and the first time we will see a Blu-ray player sold well under $100.


BD Live is a Blu-ray disc feature that brings content from the Internet to your Blu-ray movies. This has previously included games, downloadable features, quizzes, and movie trailers. Notable feature which you might want to check out on Blu Ray players is to connect to the Internet from your home and watch movies using Instant Streaming offered by Netflix and others. You can check buyers guide at bfads.net.


Hot Gadgets #3: High Definition TV’s


One of the most sought after items this Black Friday is high-definition televisions. High-Definition televisions are often on the list of big-ticket sales at many Black Friday retailers. A good television should hopefully last you for several years, so this is not a decision to rush into! Big discounts on these expensive sets can tempt you into a quick purchase, but do your homework beforehand and you’ll wind up with a great TV for a great price. Check out the buyers guide from CNET  to educate yourself before you hunt down for the right set.

You can also check out the comparison between Plasma and LCD at cnet.com, two different HDTV technlogy and decide which one suits your need. You can check the current Black Friday deals on HDTV at blackfriday.info. Deals ranging from $125 to $1000 according to the models.

Example:

Sansui 19″ LCD HDTV Model #: HDLCD1909 – $128.00
Samsung 40″ LCD 1080p HDTV Model #: LN40B500 – $597.99 

Hot Gadgets #4: Fully powered, Cheap Laptops and Netbooks


Black Friday deals on laptops are usually among the best values a shopper is likely to find. If you’re in the market for a laptop this year, you’ll probably see a lot of great offers on netbooks in particular. Not to be confused with a notebook, which is just another name for full-sized laptops, a netbook is basically the compact car of the laptop world. It’s smaller, it’s lighter, and it can get you where you want to go for a lot less money. The trade off is that netbooks generally pack less power and fewer features than their full-sized counterparts


Most netbooks do not have a CD/DVD drive, some come with non-Windows operating systems like Linux instead of the more common Windows XP or Windows 7. Netbooks often have less RAM, and a slower processor than full-sized notebooks. Most netbooks are intended for web-surfing and basic office work (Microsoft Word, Excel, etc). They usually carry enough hardware to handle these activities, but not much beyond that. You can learn more about netbooks at bfads.net buyers guide. Check out blackfriday.info for laptop deals for this holiday.



Hot Gadgets #5:
Digital Cameras

Digital cameras just took over the photography from still cameras long time, almost 5 years now. It has become so common to see digital cameras in everybody’s hands mainly because of easiness, flexibility and more capabilities. 

It can be very confusing if you haven’t spent hours researching what each term means. To make your life easier, bfads.net has put together buyers guide to educate and enrich your information.


For this black friday, there are humpty number of deals out there for digital cameras starting for just $59.99 going to $569 and more. Check out the deals at blackfriday.info

Don’t forget to come back and check out the last five Hot Gizmo and Gadget Picks.

Content sources: cnet.com, msnbc.com, inquist.com, bfads.net
Photo sources: promoteyourself.com, letsgodigital.com

Hot Gizmos and Gadgets – Holiday Shopping 2009 – I

In the Black friday article series, we looked at trend of Black Friday, 5 step strategy and final shopping plan. This article and few other upcoming articles will feature hot gizmos and gadgets which many consumers are thinking about shopping this holiday season.


This holiday season is different in many ways and as I previously mentioned  Black friday sale is also going to be different. It might not have the same glitter and gloom like past but will still showcase some new products and will not fail to impress the gadget lovers who plan to hit the retailers door steps on the Black Friday or clog the internet on Cyber Monday.


Every year new gizmos and gadgets garland the holiday season to attracts and dominate the techno saavy consumers mind and make them go running on the sale days to wait for hours to buy them. In 2004, it was Free USB drives and Flash memories cards, Cheap digital cameras and camcorders in 2005, iphone and ipod’s in 2006, GPS and Ipods in 2007, HDTV’s, Wii’s in 2008.  This year also we will see some new products like eReaders, handy camcorders and many more to shake up the market. Obviously cheap laptop computers, netbooks and gaming consoles like Xbox, Wii will continue to interest many parents and younger generation this year too.



Store Openings
On Thanksgiving,
Walmart – Open for 24 hours Thanksgiving Day and BlackFriday
Gap – Open at 9 a.m.,
Banana Republic at 11 a.m.,
Old Navy at noon


On BlackFriday
Target – Opens at 5pm
Staples – Opens at 6pm
OfficeDepot – opens at 6pm
OfficeMax – Opens at 6pm
BestBuy – Opens at 6pm
Toys “R” Us – Opens 12am



Hot Gadget #1 – Digital Readers


Amazon Kindle

Amazon’s launched the Kindle reader on Nov 2007. It took the amazon few years to spread the fire and get more consumer attention in the market. Economy melt down is part to blame.  Currently, it captured the interests of college students and young adults and becoming one among must to have gadgets. Witnessed the growth of the users pool, many manufactures like Sony and competitors like Barnes and Noble are on the roll with their own products to get piece of the pie.












































Kindle

(Global Wireless)

Kindle Wireless Reading Device (6" Display, Global Wireless, Latest Generation)

Kindle DX

(U.S. Wireless)

Kindle DX Wireless Reading Device (9.7" Display, U.S. Wireless, Latest Generation)

Display
6″ diagonal E Ink® 9.7″ diagonal E Ink®

Size
8″ x 5.3″ x 0.36″ 10.4″ x 7.2″ x 0.38″

Storage
1,500 books 3,500 books

Books in Under 60 Seconds

3G Wireless

Wireless Coverage
Global U.S.

Text-to-Speech

Whispersync

Rotating Display


Sony Reader Touch – PRS600

The Sony Reader provides a new way to experience reading. Take your library on-the-go and access your favorite books from anywhere. For added versatility, the Reader supports multiple file formats including ePub and PDF, offering access to more books from more places, including over one million free public domain titles from Google books.




Benefits of the Reader Digital Book

  • It’s Portable — It’s lightweight and easily fits in a purse or jacket pocket.
  • Long Battery Life — Enjoy up to two full weeks of reading on a single battery charge.
  • Large Capacity — Holds up to 350 books with 512MB of onboard memory.
  • E Ink® Vizplex Screen — Provides easy, natural reading from a paper-like display.
    sdf

Pros
Full-featured reader with a good music player

Excellent, intuitive user interface


Cons
A tad heavy and pricey

Requires a PC to add content


Bottom Line
With the addition of ePub support, the Sony Reader Touch Edition shapes up as a formidable competitor to Amazon’s Kindles.

Sony also got inexpensive and lighter version Reader PRS -300. Check out this link for more details.

BN Nook

Barnes&Noble’s new Nook e-reader has a simple task: Win over the die-hard tree killers. The Nook must convince e-book skeptics that this is the time to start moving from Gutenberg to gigabytes.



Snazzier design — The color multi-touch screen, below the main reading screen, helps solve the “dull and uninteresting” display problem that Kindle suffers


Android — Most people won’t care which OS their e-readers run, but the choice of Google’s Android makes the Nook hackable and opens the door to third-party applications.


The “Loan” Feature — This is the big win, the ability for Nook users to loan books they own to other Nook users, as well as to Mac, PC, BlackBerry, iPhone, and iPod touch users.


The New York Times, quoting a publishing consultant, says about 945,000 Amazon Kindle e-readers have been sold, as well as about 525,000 Sony devices. There is quite a big demand raising for these ereaders with many libraries switching to digital mode, they might be popular gadget like ipod in few years to come. We have to wait and watch. My 2 cents, if you are not hard pressed to get them. Don’t get them. Wait for a year and they will surely bit more cheaper.


Deals on this readers:

Many retailers like Best Buy, Staples got great deals on the Sony readers. Check them out at
blackfriday.info. You can buy one for $199 a pot. You can only get Kindle from Amazon and nook from Barnes&Noble online.

Photo and Content Sources: amazon.com, sony.com, pcworld.com

Blackfriday 2009 – Final Shopping Plan

Are you excited about the Black Friday shopping deals with all the hype around?

If you are a first
timer, you better be.  In the last two articles, we saw the trend of Black friday, how you can put together your buy list under the budget using the 5 step strategy.


You have one last thing to do which is plan for the big shopping day. In this article you will see a simple plan that makes your life easier with safe shopping. Whether you are going to start your shopping season on the Black friday or later, the plan filled with tips will surely come-in handy. 



1. Prepare a plan


With families around, it might be hard to find time to draft a plan on the Thanksgiving day. Either involve your family in preparation or do it before Thanksgiving day. It is important to have a plan on which store you want to go and when you want be at the store.  For example, if you want an unbeatable deal of fully powered, high peformance Sony laptop for just $399, you should be at the store at least 5-6 hours early so you one among first 5-10 people for the chance to get this deal. These hot deals are mostly limited in quantity so you have to be among first 10-20 people.  If you only plan to get not so hot items, you can plan to be at the stores couple of hours early before the door opens.


Also with your finalized buy list, you should have an idea which stores you want to hit. Check their opening times and see whether you can go one store after another if they are not opening at same time. Otherwise you might want to decide which item is important to you and go to that store first. If you can join hands with your family and friends it makes easier and fun.

2.Partner with Friends and Families


Divide and Conquer method works very well for Black friday. Partner with family members or ask them to join with you. You can pair up and take different routes and hit different stores. This way you have chance of getting more things on sale instead of hitting them alone.
 
3. Things you need to take

  • Print outs –  Don’t forget to take print outs of your buy/wish list of items and store flyers if you collected/printed them from blackfriday websites like bfads.net, blackfriday.info
  • Bundle up –  Depending up on your city/state, dress accordingly. In most places it might be cold so bundle up if you are planning to stand in line for hours as per the weather.

  • Cash and Credit cards –  Obviously don’t forget to take enough cash or credit cards to purchase the items. As I mentioned in the previous article, avoid using credit card unless you can pay full next month. If you do plan to use cc, choose the credit cards which adds extra warranty or safety on your purchase.

4. Retailers going High Tech


This Black friday in many ways different from the past as we discussed in the first article of this series. Most importantly, many retailers like StaplesToysrus are using social networking media like Twitter, Facebook and MySpace to advertise last minute deals to their subscribers. Don’t forget carry your iphone or  cellphones equiped with text messages to the track and avoid the latest  minute deals.


5. Fast Check out is key


Another trick for faster shopping is to check out faster. You will lose more time in checking out/billing the items at the cash register than picking up the items. So if you are going to shops as a pair, ask one person to stand in check out line as soon as possible when you are crabbing the things. This way as soon as you are done shopping, you can bill your items and on your way to next store.


6. Mail-In Rebate(MIR) reciepts


Don’t forgot get the mail in rebate coupons and reciepts to go with your items. Most of the stores are avoiding MIR this season to reduce cost involved in MIR’s but if you happen to buy an item with MIR, do collect all paper work needed to claim it.


7. Know retailers dirty secrets


Look at the fine print that appears next to an advertised “doorbuster deal” at the bottom of the page in this year’s circulars. It will either say “While supplies last,” “Minimum 2 per store,” “No rainchecks” or “All items are available in limited quantities.” If it says any of these jorgans, you either plan properly to be at the store early to get them or plan to get in different store if it cost bit more.


8. Avoid rush’in


After last year stampede at a Wal-Mart store in New York that led to an employee’s death they are planning to keep it open for 24 hours. The stampede happened because so many of the deals were advertised as limited supply. Plan properly to be at store early and avoid rush’in or try to avoid congestion. 


9. Don’t give up

Many times you can go late to the store even after thee actual opening times and get items on sale if you are lucky. How? Some stores put out the doorbusters in batches and your might be lucky to get them. In other case,  many people who crabbed sale items decided not to get them and throw them in other shelfs, you can just browse the store and might endup getting what you wanted. So don’t give up if you are going after all the opening time. 

10. Drive Carefully and Safe shopping

Black Friday is also one of days for many accidents. Everyone is trying to rush to get things. So be
careful and watch out. You don’t want to get into an accident and lose more than what you want to save to start with.

Hope the shopping plan with tips and tricks were helpful. Come back for Hot picks for this blackfriday and more on mail in rebates.

Photo source: ehow.com