How to get the best netbook deals on Black Friday
Friday, 27 November 2009 19:32
administrator
Black Friday is a red letter days for shopper all over the Western world. But many cynical consumers challenge whether or not there are real deals to be had. Called Black Friday by retailers because they have to take their deepest discounts and contend with hordes of shoppers on the same day, the tradition of Black Friday shopping as the day after Thanksgiving has long marked the official start of the holiday shopping season. Shopping smart for Black Friday means following some unconventional methods not really employable on any other day of the year. But if your holiday shopping budget is a constraint and you have a long list of recipients, shopping smart for gifts on Black Friday can be simpler following these tips. 1. Shop for the Family If the family wants a collective gift, everybody should scan the papers or the shelves for a price and item that fits the needs and desires of that family. Shopping Black Friday smart may mean highlighting the one deep price discount that the whole family has been waiting for. Giving a bunch of stuff to each other may be pointless, but a backyard barbecue or indoor gym set might be just what everyone really wants. A new netbook can make every family outing productive. The family may surprise you by preferring a set of train tickets to the Grand Canyon than a pile of stuff that will sit in dresser drawers all year long. Have a meeting on Black Friday with the family while shopping. A weekend trip to Hawaii in the off-season for four people may be more affordable than ten gifts per person, entertainment, and gift cards additionally. Ignore the tradition of a mountain of gifts in front of everyone and shop smart. Black Friday will have a lot of items dramatically priced low, especially if the retailers think they can get marketing value without selling a lot deeply discounted merchandise. This seems counterintuitive, but those ads are full of things that Black Friday retailers are betting consumers won't buy. netbooks are hot. Retailers hope consumers will buy the high markup foreign imports purchased extra cheap. If the whole family really hankers for that deluxe campfire tent for the trail and the outdoor store has its price slashed to the bone, this could be the smart gift that keeps giving all year long. This goes for travel packages or cruise ship tickets as well. Think "out of the box". These items added to Black Friday advertising might be just the steal that's perfect for you. 2. Shop Online Shopping Black Friday smart can happen without backing the SUV out of the driveway. Many incentives online are meant to attract traffic for online shopping. But shopping smart for Black Friday can mean checking every electronics store for the model laptop or cellphone you want. netbook models are now in their first or second generation. Seeing what Internet specials exist can save an expensive wait in line to return something later. Shopping smart for Black Friday specials means knowing model numbers, specs, and manufacturers quality before the checkout button gets pushed. Review return policies before committing credit card information, especially if the gift is for someone living far away or unfamiliar with the Internet. 3. Research Ahead of Time. Trying to find an available computer in a store stuffed full of bargain seekers is impractical. Research product reviews and consumer feedback from multiple websites and retailers before plunking down hundreds or thousands of dollars. Shop smart for Black Friday by putting focus on one or two key items. Technical assistance, repairs, voltage, international and travel use, as well as component replacement availability and authorized vendor repair locations should be verified before the purchase goes through. Pictured models may look like the one you want, but battery life, electrical frequency, and parts availability for that model may be impossible or incredibly costly. 4. Shop Currency Smart If the currency in your area is favorable to a neighboring currency like Mexican pesos or Canadian francs, there may be some advantage to a Ebay or Amazon purchase of an item otherwise too expensive in your area. Online currency calculators can help online shoppers shop Black Friday smart. Buying abroad is covered by some credit card consumer protection policies. Netbook reviews are published online. Black Friday will have many opportunistic online specials. If a seller in another country is motivated enough, the price may just come out right. Shop smart by researching the seller's reputations.If buying travel abroad, try to secure that day's currency against your credit card or bank's exchange rate. Prepay to cement the rate of exchange. 5. Go In With a Partner If there is a really mouth watering deal but the astronomical price point spears your budget, try to find someone to go in on the deal with you. Black Friday can be a godsend replacing those extra short skis or the dream ubertech snow gloves that normally cost $175. That killer rowboat for the lake or the amazing motocross mountain bike need only get every other weekend's worth of use. or a two pound netbook with a ten hour battery life could share the commuter (and your back muscles). Most recreational luxury goods get packed away to storage or the garage for the chief part of the year anyway. If you've been craving that new fishing rod model slashed for Black Friday or can't stop reading the specs of that portable sewing machine with every stitch you ever wanted, or that new ACER netbook computer, find a buying partner. Half the cost when the price is right is sweet indeed.
Last Updated on Friday, 27 November 2009 19:36
L A Times Netbook article review
Sunday, 23 August 2009 14:48
administrator
The Los Angeles Times writes a strange article about netbook customer satisfaction and comparison to Apples, based on some sort of customer service call in delay quotient. But Apple customers aren't the netbook tech customer, anybody writing a tech section for a major news daily should have known that. Netbooks are ultraportable student friendly laptops whose capability has been underplayed by key laptop manufacturers while they catch up to lost market share and poor visibility in the most robust consumer electronics market after televisions today. The Times is about 4 months late in figuring out (and reporting to readers) that netbooks are cheaper and more user-ready than some of the best brands in laptops.
Last Updated on Sunday, 23 August 2009 14:56
|
8 ways to shop smart for Black Friday
Friday, 27 November 2009 19:25
administrator
1. Make a List Make a list of gift recipients. Assess how much money during Black Friday "should" be spent. Move this dollar figure as low as you can.The economy is bad, money is precious, and people are not as inclined to use their credit cards as they once were to cover spending gaps. Even netbooks are pricey. This is the perfect year to "reduce" spending per item without apology. Many mutually obligated gift exchanges are based in habit. Making a list narrows what goods apply to your gift giving, and reduces the likelihood of being overwhelmed. 2. Stick to the Math Once a Black Friday budget had been worked out, the hard part is over. With a price ceiling on items, scanning any store for the items in your gift price range is easy. If you can get twenty $5 cans of three way popcorn to give, and you have twenty gift recipients on your list, snap them up. If your Black Friday shopping budget is ten dollars per person, you can add a gift certificate for a movie rental or something else. If you have a long list, look for mulitple discounts. Three netbooks might get a cash volume or credit discount. Add up department store incentives to spend more and get an additional discount off. 3. Gender Bias When in doubt, try gender based gift giving. If twenty dollars is your Black Friday gift shopping price limit for Stan and Helen, get Helen $10 worth of spa candles and get Stan a book on his favorite sports franchise team. If you split the money down the middle, you are still committing to your budget and giving the pair each something to open. His and hers flannel shirts, matching pairs of ski socks, or sport sunglasses or instant cameras can make "gag" gifts with practical uses. Make sure women do the shopping for women and men do the shopping for men. Don't assume a woman doesn't want a netbook. 4. Stay away from Schlock Those calendars, cookie jars and kitschy items you fell in love with at the store for the price? Black Friday is designed to make schlock look good. Don't go out of your way to disappoint your gift recipients. Shop smart and if it isn't genuinely cute, fits their house colors, or would be something you might own for yourself, think twice. Black Friday lines will be full of people second guessing what they did or didn't grab. Closets get stuffed with items nobody wants to give or get. Stay out of "general merchandise" areas stuffed with seasonal imports that won't last or don't appeal to your gift recipients. Don't buy the wannabe netbook when the real one is practically the same price with financing. 5. Scan the Black Friday Newspaper Review the paper and be reasonable about how much ground you can cover. Black Friday parking lots, coffee shop lines, and gas station waits will be triple what you expect. Remember, higher prices items will more likely be still there after "daybreak" hours. Limits are set to some netbook discount sales. Divide newspapers by creative geography. Black Friday is betting on you not being able to get everywhere by ten a.m. One person can do the elite department store, one shopper can do the discount mall stores, one person can hit the specials at the electronics store, and another person can hit the drugstore for specials. 6. Use Credit Carefully If you have on credit card that gets air miles or cash back credits, make sure the bulk of purchases make a double benefit. Black Friday may be the first day in a long time when consumers feel opening a new credit card account is a good idea. Is the netbook for sale anywhere else at the same price? Try not to open new credit lines or credit card charge accounts unless you would have committed to paying cash anyway and the credit account is the only way to obtain the additional discount. Determine which stores will execute price matching for a netbook sale. Closing the account by cash payment should have no penalty, but check with the credit department before charging. Black Friday deals can make it worthwhile, however. 7. Don't be a Snob The best deals for Christmas this year on Black Friday may be discount and neighborhood chain stores who planned months ago for holiday shopping. To compete with Black Friday dollars being spent on the other side of town, chain stores and drugstores may have dollars off or bulk money spending rewards inside the store. Many corner drugstores today have equal buying power, merchandising and access to the gifts and items medium to low level mall stores have. Look for netbook acessories where you get dollars off coupons in your email. Netbok accessories like wireless mouse items, mouser pads, flash cards and memory cards might work. Every netbook owner likes new headphones. If giving a cheap digital camera, flannel lap blanket or cozy pair of slippers to everyone on your list is what you want to do, buy the Black Friday deals with incentives and get the rewards. Go to nearby stores if there is a buying limit. 8. Stay in the Spirit It's fairly evident when men get the great gifts on Christmas Day and the women get things like aprons, towels, and pillowcases that something went awry. Gift giving is hard because a lot of hidden feelings, attitudes, and prejudices emerge. Black Friday can make it easy to buy the wrong gift. Men should avoid buying lingerie and provocative book or video material, women should avoid anything like personal grooming or intimate apparel as well for the opposite sex.These kinds of gifts can backfire easily. Even if there is a stack of pornographic DVD's on sale or beefcake calendars, ignore them. It's just not appropriate. What seems funny in the store when you're tired can fall flat in front of Aunt Martha and the kids.
Last Updated on Friday, 27 November 2009 19:32
Netbooks Have Been Misunderstood
Monday, 03 August 2009 22:40
administrator
Netbooks have been misunderstood. The many misconceptions of the netbook in today's new media culture need to be expanded upon and defined. While this fantastic product can open windows onto everyday portability and personal computing, it does more than its reputation conveys. The netbook enhances the ease of use for remote and lightweight computer work productivity and video and music entertainment. But a netbook is more than just a smaller laptop, a reduced efficiency lightweight computer, or a junior echelon desktop minus the big screen. A netbook is a small footprint portable laptop machine that makes sport of previous laptop computer portability. Netbooks are so lightweight and slight in dimension compared to conventional portable laptops, entirely new product lines of computer carrying cases, laptop bags, computer backpacks, and "skins" have been manufactured to meet netbook accessory demand. The original laptops were impressive reductions in footprint over the fairly clumsy, purposefully bulky workstations of the 1980's. Computers themselves were distrusted and companies had to strive to convince the public of their worth and use. IBM was the putative designer-manque in what was a collaborative sequence of desktop computer design efforts that coalesced for the consumer market by IBM due to its promotion savvy, "mainframe" reputation, and distribution arm. Even IBM couldn't manufacture these new products fast enough and fabled Radio Shack back-of-the-truck point-of-sale scenarios of dawn auctions for the ungettable units are now mere computer buff nostalgia. As computers sequed from networked office accessories for the privileged to home units for the well-employed, a broad home consumer demand evolved. Monoliths of corporate business became entrenched during this period, with a smattering of tough overseas competitors. Soon, computer companies were eager to capture the home market over the competitive office market packed with business partners and discounted trade deals. Home computers were increasingly designed with features computer companies deigned ideal for home computer use. Yet startup businesses, telecommuting, remote offices and home offices began to gain popularity during this time. Compatibility with printers became a sentitive issue and bundled sales packages became computer sales models for consumer electronics for home and office. The first desktop volumes that went portable would have been the Compaq model with a separate processing volume running at 3.11 DOS Windows for Compaq. This early adaptation of the Microsoft operating system should emphasize for historians the early advantage Microsoft had, enabling competitors to appear on the world stage of computing on a leased pass.
Last Updated on Monday, 03 August 2009 22:43
|
