Black is the New Green

Black Friday sales have turned out better than expected according to retailers. Between the earlier store opening hours in the wee hours of the morning, to the online payment system Pay Pal reporting a 25% increase in the amount of money being exchanged on Thanksgiving morning, black is making retailers green with happiness.

The big sellers are TVs, (deals on these home staples are through the roof), laptops, and the Zhu-Zhu pets. OK I’ll save the Zhu Zhu for the kids, big boy and girl toys are TVs, now is not the time to go small. The deals are big and the screen sizes should be BIG.

Searching on the web, this caught my eye from Electonics Expo

– A raffle for a 55” Samsung LED, now that’s worth some cyber window shopping at the very least. These folks are on top of the social media technology thing as well, you can follow Electronics-Expo on Twitter for up to the Tweet deals.

Not to be out done, Cyber Monday buyers are tracking with their own website, no seriously a website called what else www.cybermonday.com It tracks a bunch of store and online deals. Shippers, including Manna Distribution who sponsor this www.Roominations.net site, are geared up (pardon the pun) for 25 days of hauling and installing.

Black Friday, Cyber Monday, pretty soon the whole weekend following Thanksgiving will be given its rightful name, “Consumer’s Weekend” I suggest. Have at it gift givers, this is your time. Happy consuming, it is better to give than receive.

Baby Boomers Shock the World – Gobble Up Online Deals

This is one of the best bar–or in this era–coffee shop bets this holiday season. Ask your drinking partners what age group buys the most products online. Then watch their jaws drop when you cite this study that shows 65 year olds and up are the largest group of online shoppers.

Seventy-Seven percent of them said they are “most likely” to shop online, and–get this–in the survey this group is called “matures.” Following close behind are Baby Boomers with 71% of them shopping online. The study, called “Life Stages & Life Styles: Turning Generational Differences Into Media Opportunities,” included more than 1,500 consumers across generations conducted by the Cable and Telecommunications Association for Marketing.

The surprise is that “matures” have discretionary income, on average $800 per month, and boomers, despite economic woes, still spend an estimated $2 trillion annually. More of those dollars are going to online purchases.

Get ready Cybershoppers your day is near. These stats blew me away. Remember last year in the teeth of the market crash? Last year online shopping grew, yes GREW from 2007 to 2008, here are the big three days from 2008

Date	2007	2008	% change
November 27 (Thanksgiving Day)	$273	$288	6%
November 28 (Black Friday)	$531	$534	1%
December 1 (Cyber Monday)	$733	$846	15%

Source: comScore

This year the competition for holiday sales is fierce, but there is a bit of energy, this week the Dow hit a 52-week high, and interest rates are at historic lows.

Retailers see a golden opportunity to offer values early in the season. Whether it’s electronics, accessories or appliances
shopping this season may well be fun. Eli Sakkal at Butterfly Photo in New York, one of the largest selection of consumer electronics and appliances online has some great insights, “The market is shifting, there are great deals to be had at both the high end of the product line and the lower end of the line, for both Plasma and LCD High Definition televisions during the next 3
weeks,” said Sakkal. Some of the deals include a Samsung 40” model 40B550 a highly rated model is at $799 at Butterfly Photo and a pre-Black Friday, pre-Cyber-Monday deal of a 50” Samsung Plasma for $1,499.85 These prices were at the time of writing this post and may change.

This holiday is a consumers’ market. Here are a couple of other Manna customers for great holiday deals and high-speed, white-glove delivery.

Electronics Expo

B & H Photo

Santa’s Being Practical This Year

As the economy shows signs of improving it’s still a ways from playing “Happy Days Are Here Again” If you are the numbers type, the Conference-Board says consumer confidence is down, the RBC Cash Index says consumer confidence is at a 12 month high. Retailers continue to fight for their customers and appliance manufacturers have recorded declining sales numbers all year.

All these numbers add up to a practical holiday gift season with significant values available. The kitchen remodeling may need to be done in phases, so let’s start with the things we know we need and can build around. Here’s another set of numbers that makes sense, the life expectancy of kitchen appliances, get out the trumpet and blow taps for these kitchen necessities if they are past their prime.

Then move on to some of the latest and greatest of practical household appliances. My once white, 15 year old dishwasher is showing its age and wrinkles. Even a simple white upgrade will do a lot to brighten the place up. One product appliance segment that reported increased sales was freezers and the speculation is that more people are buying in bulk to save money. A pretty practical idea and there is evidence of this from news articles that say “Sam’s Club’s strong sales during the March five-week period benefited from robust member demand for Sam’s value on food and consumables.”

These practical household appliance necessities might not fit through the chimney, but the savings in this soft market can make up for a lot of tradition.

Here are a couple of appliance resources that use Manna’s High-Speed delivery to ensure your gift will be there for the holidays.

1. Curtos Appliances
2. AM Royal
3. Universal akb
4. Evvive