Leaves are dropping, days are shortening, and colder air is sweeping in. The holidays are almost here, and for most of us, that means feeling out proper gifts for friends and family – and, if we’re lucky, dropping just the right hints to unwrap what we’re after this year too. The especially good news for gadget enthusiasts being as follows: If your preferred pick happens to be a high-tech item, there’s a lot to get excited about this season.
Tag Archive: holiday
Amazon Posts Strong Fourth Quarter Results
The global economic downturn may have companies in the United States and around the world laying off workers, shutting down facilities, restructuring their businesses, and filing for bankruptcy protection. However, online retailer Amazon.com is bucking the trend, posting strong results for its fourth quarter of 2008 and issuing an optimistic forecast for 2009 earnings. Amazon posted a profit of $225 million for the fourth quarter of 2008 on net sales of $6.7 billion. The profit represents an 8.7 percent increase from the same quarter in 2007, while the revenue increase represents an 18 percent year-on-year jump.
Amazon Claims 2008 Holidays Best Ever
The world might be in the grips of an economic melt-down—and the United States in an official recession—but online retailer Amazon.com is proclaiming the 2008 holiday buying season its best ever…even if it’s not releasing any sales figures just yet.
Amazon claims more than 6.3 million items were ordered from its Web sites on its peak shopping day of December 15, 2008, which translates to almost 73 items per second. On its peak shipping day, Amazon pushed 5.6 million items out the door. The company claims it managed to get more than 99 percent of orders out on time for holiday delivery deadlines.
Economy to Slow U.S. Holiday Online Sales?
The currently economic climate is expected to have a depressive effect on end-of-year holiday sales in the United States—a period of consumers spending many retailers rely upon to keep their businesses in the black. Now, Forrester Research has released its forecast for U.S. online retail sales for this holiday season: on one hand, the picture is rosy, with the company seeing some $44 billion in online retail spending during the period. That would be a 12 percent increase over the same period a year ago, and 12 percent growth isn’t anything to be sad about, right? Perhaps…unless one considers that would be the slowest rate of online holiday sales growth to date.
Online Holiday Sales to Hit $32 Billion?
A new report from market analysis firm JupiterResearch forecasts that online retail holiday sales for 2006 will jump by 18 percent to account for some $32 billion. Overall, the firm estimates a record 114 million people will use online shopping to avoid lines and crowding at retail outlets, a six percent increase in the number of online holiday shoppers compared to 2005.
Amusingly, JupiterReseach also found that as many as one third of online shoppers will make their purchases at the last minute, so retailers offering up-to-the-second overnight shipping options may have an edge over more traditionally paced options.
Online Holiday Shopping Rakes in Cash
Online holiday shopping numbers are up this year in comparison to last, according to new data out today from a survey conducted by Goldman Sachs, Nielsen/NetRatings and Harris Interactive.
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Oakley Thump: Sunglasses Meet MP3 Player
From Oakley’s press release:
Oakley, Inc. today announced the introduction of Thump, the world’s first performance eyewear combining patented optics with an internally integrated MP3 music player. Oakley will launch Thump in December for the 2004 holiday season under an exclusive distribution arrangement with Circuit City Stores, Inc. for the consumer electronics channel. Thump will also be offered by Oakley’s own O Stores, online at Oakley.com and through limited specialty retailers.
Online Shopping Surged For Holidays
E-tailers enjoyed a robust holiday shopping season as total online sales jumped almost 30 percent over the same period last year, according to a market research firm’s report.
ComScore Networks, an e-commerce market research firm based in Reston, Va., said Saturday that online spending for the combined November and December period grew 29.5 percent to $12.5 billion, compared with 19 percent growth to $9.7 billion in the 2002 holiday season.
Read the whole story at CNN.
Eight Dual-Format DVD Recorders Reviewed
Quote from the article at Anandtech:
“The upcoming holiday season has us swamped with recordable DVD drives. In the past few weeks, we have seen recordable devices from just about every major player in the optical storage forum. Typically, only about 5 or 6 unique devices exist in the market, making the life of a hardware journalist fairly easy. Unfortunately, right now, there are literally dozens of devices based on dozens of chipsets. We will take a look at some of these chipsets and burners, and see which one is right for this holiday market.”
