Black Friday Online Sales $595 million

Online retailers in the U.S. rang up $595 million on Black Friday, an 11% increase from the day a year ago according to comScore. Amazon got the highest growth 28% while Apple, Best Buy and Wal-Mart sites also experienced double-digit traffic gains. This includes all retail online sales of course not just toys, but is a great indicator. Total e-commerce for the month to date was a cool $10.5 billion.

Amazon maintains it's position as market leader and shows once again that it understands the web business better than any one else.

Amazons Famous Holiday Toy List

Amazon Black Friday Sales

Here it is Black Friday!

Best Technology Xmas Presents

We are now in the Christmas Countdown you can still find most products, some with discounts but I promise you that will change. The Kindle is Amazon's number one best seller and most wished for present. Ever since we had bad weather this year on vacation and my reading material ran out I realised why people buy the Kindle!

Stores Under Ordered by 20% This Year

Economists and retail analysts predict that shortages of popular items will be common because retailers have scaled back their inventories to match weak consumer demand. Compared with the 2007 Xmas season, some large chains have 20% less inventory on hand this year. Others deny they have under ordered. Shop early to be safe and to have the full range of choice.

Black Friday Start of Xmas Shopping Season

Black Friday Coming Soon
This year it's Friday the 27th the day after Thanksgiving.Best Buy, Macys, Sears and Walmart will be apparently open 24 hours to satisfy demand. It signals the start of the Xmas shopping season. The expression Black Friday originates from the feared traffic snarl-ups that day and also reputedly it was the day in the year when the large retailers moved into profit.

The majority of people still buy most of their presents in the bricks and mortar stores but many have researched their purchases online before hand.

At Amazon I always read the buyers comments, read the good comments and the "intelligent" bad ones to get a clear picture :
Research Your Presents at Amazon

Zhu-Zhu Hamsters Hottest Toy in History?

"It’s the hottest toy I've seen since I've been at Toys R Us, and old-timers tell me this is one of the hottest toys in history," said CEO Jerry Storch.

Toy Shortage or Toy Shortage Hoax?

A number of news stories have been running suggesting that the Toy Industry runs "Toy Shortage" stories every Xmas. Well it's true but there always is at least one Toy which disappears off the shelves for the last two years it was the Nintendo Wii where entire deliveries would hot-cake in minutes.

But this year the suggestion is that stores have under-ordered the whole range, that manufacturers have shortened their production-runs due to the immense pessimism of the last 12 months.

So what if it is hoax but you are fooled by it and go out and buy your children their toys a few weeks earlier, is that a PROBLEM or a BENEFIT? Or why not chill it out and have the pleasure of running round the stores at the last minute begging the sales assistants to see if there isn't just one Bakugan Dragonoid
left in the storeroom. As one wag suggested do you think your kids will mind if instead of a genuine Zhu Zhu
you just get them any old furry hamster, you bet they'll mind!

Zhu ZHu Pet Hamsters Flying off the Shelves

Zhu Zhu Pet Hamsters AKA as GO GO Hamsters flying off the shelves
But they are flying off the shelves, with some stockists boasting that whole shipments are sold out between 30 seconds and three minutes after reaching the shop floor.

In the UK initial demand was so high that Toys R Us did not even list Go Go Pets in its Christmas catalog to avoid disappointing customers.

Wii Fit Plus and Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 are HOT HOT HOT