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Wii leads the way on healthy Black Friday
http://technoratisam.blogspot.com/2008/12/wii-leads-way-on-h...Black Friday proved to be a relatively bright light in an economy largely characterized by dark, gloomy reports. Overall, retail sales for the day after Thanksgiving were up 3 percent from the same day in 2007, with preliminary estimates putting total sales in the U.S. at $10.6 billion, according to Shoppertrak RCT. (Shoppertrak derives its retail benchmark from a wide range of categories, including consumer electronics, sporting goods, apparel, and general merchandise.) On Black Friday, the Wii had the right touch. (Credit: GameSpot) Web shopping saw an even larger percentage gain for the day, with traffic up 11 percent year over year, per comparison shopping site PriceGrabber.com. Taking the crown as the top product of the day was the Nintendo Wii, according to both PriceGrabber and online commerce giant eBay, which pulled data from its namesake site and other eBay-owned sites including PayPal and Shopping.com. The Wii game console was the most searched-for product on eBay, followed by the Wii Fit companion product. Consumers snatched up 3,171 Wiis over eBay, at an average selling price of $349, followed by the Wii Fit, with 1,059 sold at an average selling price of $140. Market watchers pointed out that, in the dire economy of 2008, online shoppers and consumers generally were likely motivated by widespread discounting by anxious sellers. "Consumers are responding to aggressive promotions and price drops on popular electronics," Ron LaPierre, president of PriceGrabber, said in a statement. The NPD Group offered a similar assessment from the retail front lines on Friday: The overall initial conclusion for Black Friday is that sales and traffic were strong, likely on par with prior years. Consumers were drawn by the appearance of bargains and low prices and electronics are increasingly the primary driver of consumers' interest in Black Friday shopping. According to PriceGrabber, the following were the most popular products on Black Friday--nine of the 10 are gadgets, with the odd product out being one styling of the popular Ugg boots: • Nintendo Wii console • Ugg Australia "classic short" boot • Sony BDP-S350 1080p Blu-ray disc player • Samsung LN52A650 52" LCD TV • Nintendo Wii Fit • Panasonic TH-42PX80U 42" plasma TV • Sennheiser HD 555 headphones • Canon EOS Rebel XSi Black SLR digital camera kit • Acer Aspire One AOA110-1295 notebook PC • Canon PowerShot A590 IS black digital camera The consumer electronics category that saw the largest gains from Black Friday 2007 was Blu-ray/HD-DVD players, up 147 percent, according to PriceGrabber. Headphones were up 103 percent. (By comparison, women's sleep and lounge wear was up 415 percent, women's boots were up 203 percent, and watches were up 202 percent.) On eBay's Shopping.com, a GPS sold every 9 minutes and an MP3 player every 11 minutes. On eBay proper, the hottest products in those categories were the Garmin Nuvi GPS and the iPod Touch music player. Apple seemed to have had a good Black Friday. Fortune's Apple 2.0 blog reported Sunday that on Amazon.com, 10 of the 25 bestselling electronics products (including three of the top 10) were Apple products, led by the iPod Touch. The Fortune report also said that by Sunday the iPod Touch had fallen to No. 4, with Amazon's own Kindle moving into first. Despite the good returns from Black Friday, no one seemed eager to predict continued economic cheer through the rest of the holiday season. "While this is an encouraging start for retailers, there's no guarantee these deep discounts will continue after Black Friday weekend, which could slow spending," Bill Martin, co-founder of ShopperTrak, said in a statement. "Additionally, consumers have just 27 days to shop this year as opposed to 32 in 2007, which may catch some procrastinating consumers off guard, leading to lower sales levels." By Jonathan Skillings via Cnet
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Market down
http://stocksgoupstocksgodown.wordpress.com/2008/12/01/marke...Jump to Comments Fantastic: After Citi, is Bank of America next? Tesla Motors wants $400M from teh gub’ment, so says Elon Musk, the libertarian. Have they burnt all the Ayn Rand books yet? Or maybe the philosophy got upgraded. Analyst smorgasboard: Early data shows strong Black Friday shopping. Online Black Friday Not Quite As Bad As Feared. Holiday shopping off to slow start. Never fear, Apple’s Black Friday bestsellers. Melamine and shitty quality will do it: China is losing its competitive edge as international demand for its products is reduced. The best way to have a thriving economy: Latvian Agents Detain a Gloomy Economist. Let freedom ring. Not very patriotic, Erin Burnett: Cuts coming to CNBC. Drastic Plastic: Some $21 billion in bad credit-card debt was written off in the first half of 2008 and tens of billions of dollars more in losses are expected. Meredith Whitney: Credit-card industry may cut $2 trillion in credit lines. Across the pond: London Scottish Bank collapses. It’s probably gonna happen: American Airlines Charges Fees To Non-Passengers (The Onion). The tribe has spoken: Speaking of the slowdown, it’s official: We’re in recession. And have been for a year. The National Bureau of Economic Research officially declared today that the U.S. economy slipped into recession in December 2007. Today’s economic data backed up the call: The Institute for Supply Management reported itsmanufacturing index fell to 36.2 in November, the weakest reading since 1982. Readings below 50 indicate contraction. This came on the heels of reports of weaker manufacturing activity in China and Europe. 0 Comments Filed under Down Tags: Dead libertarians
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Top holiday sellers so far? Look to Apple…
http://blorge.com/2008/12/01/top-holiday-sellers-so-far-look...Nine iPods on the Amazon Electronics Top 25, as well four MacBooks in the notebook Top 10—lots of seasonal cheer for our favorite fruit company as Christmas shopping gets under way in earnest. As holiday shopping started on Friday morning, according Fortune, Apple’s 8GB iPod touch was the No 1 seller in electronics, [...]
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Wii Leads The Way On Healthy Black Friday
http://dollar-collector.blogspot.com/2008/11/wii-leads-way-o...Black Friday proved to be a relatively bright light in an economy largely characterized by dark, gloomy reports. Overall, retail sales for the day after Thanksgiving were up 3 percent from the same day in 2007, with preliminary estimates putting total sales in the U.S. at $10.6 billion, according to Shoppertrak RCT. (Shoppertrak derives its retail benchmark from a wide range of categories, including consumer electronics, sporting goods, apparel, and general merchandise.) Web shopping saw an even larger percentage gain for the day, with traffic up 11 percent year over year, per comparison shopping site PriceGrabber.com. Taking the crown as the top product of the day was the Nintendo Wii, according to both PriceGrabber and online commerce giant eBay, which pulled data from its namesake site and other eBay-owned sites including PayPal and Shopping.com. The Wii game console was the most searched-for product on eBay, followed by the Wii Fit companion product. Consumers snatched up 3,171 Wiis over eBay, at an average selling price of $349, followed by the Wii Fit, with 1,059 sold at an average selling price of $140. Market watchers pointed out that, in the dire economy of 2008, online shoppers and consumers generally were likely motivated by widespread discounting by anxious sellers. "Consumers are responding to aggressive promotions and price drops on popular electronics," Ron LaPierre, president of PriceGrabber, said in a statement. The NPD Group offered a similar assessment from the retail front lines on Friday: The overall initial conclusion for Black Friday is that sales and traffic were strong, likely on par with prior years. Consumers were drawn by the appearance of bargains and low prices and electronics are increasingly the primary driver of consumers' interest in Black Friday shopping. According to PriceGrabber, the following were the most popular products on Black Friday--nine of the 10 are gadgets, with the odd product out being one styling of the popular Ugg boots: • Nintendo Wii console • Ugg Australia "classic short" boot • Sony BDP-S350 1080p Blu-ray disc player • Samsung LN52A650 52" LCD TV • Nintendo Wii Fit • Panasonic TH-42PX80U 42" plasma TV • Sennheiser HD 555 headphones • Canon EOS Rebel XSi Black SLR digital camera kit • Acer Aspire One AOA110-1295 notebook PC • Canon PowerShot A590 IS black digital camera The consumer electronics category that saw the largest gains from Black Friday 2007 was Blu-ray/HD-DVD players, up 147 percent, according to PriceGrabber. Headphones were up 103 percent. (By comparison, women's sleep and lounge wear was up 415 percent, women's boots were up 203 percent, and watches were up 202 percent.) On eBay's Shopping.com, a GPS sold every 9 minutes and an MP3 player every 11 minutes. On eBay proper, the hottest products in those categories were the Garmin Nuvi GPS and the iPod Touch music player. Apple seemed to have had a good Black Friday. Fortune's Apple 2.0 blog reported Sunday that on Amazon.com, 10 of the 25 bestselling electronics products (including three of the top 10) were Apple products, led by the iPod Touch. The Fortune report also said that by Sunday the iPod Touch had fallen to No. 4, with Amazon's own Kindle moving into first. Despite the good returns from Black Friday, no one seemed eager to predict continued economic cheer through the rest of the holiday season. "While this is an encouraging start for retailers, there's no guarantee these deep discounts will continue after Black Friday weekend, which could slow spending," Bill Martin, co-founder of ShopperTrak, said in a statement. "Additionally, consumers have just 27 days to shop this year as opposed to 32 in 2007, which may catch some procrastinating consumers off guard, leading to lower sales levels."
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Top holiday sellers so far? Look to Apple…
http://mac.blorge.com/2008/12/01/top-holiday-sellers-so-far-...Nine iPods are on the Amazon Electronics Top 25, as well four MacBooks in the notebook Top 10. There’s lots of seasonal cheer for our favorite fruit company as Christmas shopping gets under way in earnest. As holiday shopping started on Friday morning, according Fortune, Apple’s 8GB iPod touch was the [...]
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