Three Man Chairs and reminder what the gals shop for while the dudes wait—shot with iPhone X, today, at Westfield UTC in La Jolla, Calif. Vitals, for the Featured Image: f/1.8, ISO 20, 1/800 sec, […]
Tag: shopping
Thanksgiving Times are Changin’
On Nov. 20, 2005, I marveled at Tower Records’ holiday hours—the store being open on Thanksgiving and also Christmas. A year later, the retail music chain was gone—and, tragically, a broader cultural experience/lifestyle with it. Major bookstore chains, like Borders, followed along later—all casualties of the digital content economy (or lack of it because of piracy) enabled by Internet distribution.
Finding anything open for business on the third Thursday of November was a challenge 12 years ago. Today, retailers can’t wait to welcome shoppers. Black Friday deals have been available pretty much everywhere all week, while bargain hunters can shop today at their favorite stores. That is, if not scouring Amazon deals from ye `ol smart device while sitting on the couch, watching football, chugging brewskis, and belching.
Seriously?
Oh, Please! It’s not even Halloween! Fashion Valley decks the mall with mounds of folly—fa, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la! You won’t forget to spend your money—fa, la, la, la, la, la, […]
Pop Goes the Body Bubble
Some people so surprise me by their brash behavior. Yesterday, I walked over to Frock You!, looking for a vintage leather mini-backpack. My daughter asked for one as present celebrating her 23rd birthday next week. […]
#OptOutside is Brilliant Marketing
Well, Hell, I just spotted an email sent by REI three hours ago, and I am having a “Miracle on 34th Street” moment. It’s like Macy’s Santa sending customers to Gimbels. The outdoor clothier and gear retailer will close for the biggest shopping day of the year. While other sellers countdown to sales, REI ticks time until doors closed.
Marketing tagline: #OptOutside. And there is a website, to socially share and join the community going outdoors rather than inside the concrete jungle of rabid, frothing sales seekers. You know the breed. They’ll attack anyone and anything—no prey is too large—to save two bits on a dollar. They roam in vast herds of destruction across the retail prairies the day after Thanksgiving. They are vicious, vindictive creatures. REI is right to free employees from serving them, or customers encountering these beasts drawn to discounts like they were pheromones of heat.
Amazon Brews Unexpected Coffee Deal
I best be watchful, for my wife is smarter than she pretends to be. If not, she’s the mother of all coincidence. Because by all appearances, the woman used the vendor online tracking everyone suspects to snake a great discount from Amazon. Maybe you can turn to advantage persistant invasion of your privacy.
Our story starts on Feb. 11, 2015, when following days of price comparisons she ordered a 12-pack of one pound Café Bustelo from the Internet retailer. Price: $52.90. As we consumed coffee, she returned to Amazon on March 17, when a shocker waited: Same item cost $69.31. Ah, yeah. That’s a 31 percent increase. But by apparently gaming the system, she later purchased for 19 percent less than previously paid.
Someone Wake Me From This Nightmare of Black Friday Sales Gluttony
Cough. Choke. Collapse. That’s me nearly needing the Heimlich maneuver during breakfast while looking over Samsung Black Friday deals. You can preorder them. Seriously. What the frak is that?
The routine started all so innocently. Samsung sent a promo email, and I curiously clicked the picture of a Chromebook and “Reserve Computing Deals”. You can, today—as in right this very minute—preorder either Samsung Chromebook 2 for assured savings ($20 or $50) between November 27 and December 1 for one and until the 27th for the other. I understand that Black Friday is late-month this year, but, c`mon, beat me with a sack of cash, sales preorders?
Amazon Sale is ‘Predictably Irrational’
I can’t stop chuckling over one of Amazon’s many marketing sleight-of-hands today. I awoke to email promoting a one-day sale and “up to 60-percent off select SanDisk products”. Heck, my BetaNews colleague Wayne Williams even wrote a news story. But based on my recent experience buying a “SanDisk Ultra 64GB MicroSDXC Class 10 UHS Memory Card” I wonder about all the savings.
I purchased the card on July 2nd for $34.99. For the one-day sale, Amazon sells the same card for a dollar more, although a newer version (e.g., refreshed packaging and SKU) is available for $31.99. Amazon claims 64 percent and 51 percent savings—$64 and $33—respectively.
The Empty Commandment
Late last summer, a rap rap brought me to the door and face to face with a Sierra Club fundraiser. I’ve done quite a bit of fundraising myself, and I deplore going house to house. People aren’t home or they rudely close the door. Those folks who take the time to talk often aren’t interested in donating, particularly, as in the case of Sierra Club, if some type of commitment is required. I respect the work the Sierra Club does and pitied this road-weary fundraiser, so I made a donation. For my money, I also got a subscription to Sierra magazine.
The September/October magazine arrived today and turned out to be better reading than some of the other issues. Opening Ways and Means column, “The Devil’s in the Retail: A cult of consumerism is sweeping the planet”, really caught my attention. Carl Pope, Sierra Club’s executive editor, starts by discussing a multi-denominational religious service he attended in San Francisco. Leaders of different faiths—Christians Hindus, Jews, and Muslims, among others—gathered in defiance of what they perceived as a common enemy.
Global Village
As a Cusper, I share some Baby Boomer values, although I shun most of them. However, I am drawn to some of the Boomer idealism, granted with pragmatic bent. And I’m still pretty idealistic, even in my, uh hum, forties.
The World Wide Web appealed to me because of my idealism, and the belief that the vast communications network would empower the masses.
Deals at the PC Thrift Store
I have never paid full price for a PC, and I’m not talking about bidding for junk on eBay. The best deals, both in price and reliability, come in refurbished, also known as “reconditioned”, PCs. These are models returned for some reason, occasionally for defect but mostly because the buyer changed his or her mind. Once returned, the seller can no longer sell the PC as new.
Most major PC makers sell refurbished computers online, including Dell, Gateway, Hewlett-Packard, IBM, and Sony. Vermont-based Small Dog Electronics specializes in Apple refurbs, and PC Connection serves up a wide selection of reconditioned computers.
Portable Power
Until recently, I had never owned a name-brand computer. Really. All my systems were custom-built jobs made for easy upgrade ability and packed with solid-performing hardware. My last system, built around Intel’s 430 chip set with 150 MHz Cyrix 6×86 processor, 64 MB of RAM, 4 MB Diamond graphics card, 3.1 GB Western Digital hard drive and NEC 17 inch monitor, is a UNIX Web server in Presque Isle, Maine. I sold it before abandoning the far northern reaches for a more-southern city.
I decided a notebook would better suit my new job and our small apartment. My 2½-year old daughter would get the room that in other times would have been an office. I chose, with great anxiety, a Micron Millennia Transport. The Millennia Transport was a favorite when testing portables for review and Micron offered a 15 percent reporter’s discount.