web analytics

JerseySmarts.com

Are You Getting Into the Holiday Spirit?

Posted on by

So, are you getting into the holiday spirit? Christmas is only a few weeks away with New Year’s Eve coming in close behind and we’ve already passed both Halloween and Thanksgiving. This is the time of the year that most people absolutely love with all of the holiday parties and the family gatherings, etc. But I wonder if you’re getting into the holiday spirit this year.

I think that for the first time in a long time, I’m not really “into it” yet. For me, I think there are three specific reasons why I’m not so much into the spirit yet this year. First, the weather! Maybe it’s because I’m thinking back 20+ years, but I always remembered December through March as being a vicious time of the year with respect to snowfall. Nowadays, though, if we get two major storms and a few flurries in between, that’s a lot. I think that there’s something about the snow and watching a snowstorm that makes this time of the year special. When it’s t-shirt and shorts weather, though, it’s pretty tough to get into the spirit of the season.

Second, the stores aren’t doing it for me this year. If I recall correctly, last year I would walk into the Wal-Mart and the Target and even the Monmouth Mall and everything was draped with “Merry Christmas” signs or “Happy Holidays” banners and you’d see Christmas trees set up around the store, etc. It was a very festive scene! However, this year the local stores seemed to have toned it down a bit which might be a result of cost cutting measures, who knows. I always think that the Christmas season, though way too commercialized these days, is always augmented in a positive way when commercial outlets dress themselves up in the season. On a related note, the Christmas music on Sirius XM’s channels has been so-so at best this year. They’re mixing in a lot of different stuff and I believe that the diversity in generations of musicians takes away from the overall impact.

And finally, I’ve been really busy over the last three months so I admit that I haven’t really had a chance to stop and think about presents or decorating or attending any Christmas parties, etc. Of my three reasons, this is the only one that I think I have an ability to change, but I really don’t think a change on my part is necessary since in about a week’s time all of the things that are taking up most of my free time will be over (teaching and taking a course).

Maybe next week it’ll be a little colder, the stores will put out more of their Christmas decorations, and I’ll have more free time to take it all in. Until then, though, the days seem to keep on flying by just like any other time of the year!

A Brief Review of Black Friday 2009

Posted on by

Another Black Friday has come and gone and I’m reminded of my previous comments about this shopping holiday: 2008, 2006, and 2004. Frankly, I think that these retailers aren’t trying any more. Sure, you can find a flat screen, high definition TV for a few hundred bucks on Black Friday – but what about those of us who already have a flat screen, high definition TV? Are we supposed to care that we can get ANOTHER one for $200?

What I’ve noticed in the last few Black Fridays is that there is a disconnect between the major retailers (Best Buy, Wal-Mart, Target, etc) and the consumer-based desires of the middle class. Don’t get me wrong – these stores have the market cornered when it comes to mass producing somewhat inexpensive electronics and shoving them out the door to the masses. That’s great and I think that it is actually a service to many families in America. However, once you have that good or product, you’re not going to to go back and get another one – especially in the middle of a recession where each dollar is/should be scrutinized before it is spent.

I also think that the DVD and Blu-Ray DVD market is going to stay stagnant this Christmas season. Frankly, people don’t know whether or not they should start buying Blu-Ray discs in bulk or if this medium will be outdated in two or three years like the standard DVD. Plus, the cost of a Blu-Ray DVD is a bit out of range for the mass market. Not good for the electronics retailers.

I think that I’m going to become a Cyber Monday guy. There’s something about sitting in front of my computer to get the same exact sale price on an item that I could travel to the store to get (and that’s if there are enough items per that store and if I want to get to the store at the crack of dawn). Here’s hoping that your Black Friday adventures were more enjoyable and fruitful than mine were this year. If you have a good Black Friday 2009 story, I’d love to hear it in the comments section below!

Circuit City Closing Up Shop For Good – Duh

Posted on by

Circuit City announced last week that it was closing up shop for good. Put aside the fact that the national electronics chain has been in a financial mess for the last 18 months – anyone watching CNBC or FBN knows that story. What surprises me is that people would be surprised by this news at all.

I’m not sure about the rest of you, but there are two Circuit City stores that I used to frequent and another few stores that I’ve been in and out of from time to time. The main store that I went to was in West Long Branch and while I knew some of the people who worked there a few years ago, I have no issues with saying that the customer service at the local store was horrendous. I’m not necessarily saying that the people who worked at the store were rude, but the local store never had the cash register open. In order to pay for your items, you actually had to stand next to the register in a line waiting to go to customer service to pay! What sense does that make?!

And almost without fail you’d reach the front of the line and the person in front of you would have an issue with the item that they were buying or you’d be caught behind a person who was returning an item in an overly involved transaction. I don’t fault the customers in these situations, but you have to wonder about the quality of the store when these types of things pop up during each trip to the place…

And it would appear that many consumers did begin to question the quality of Circuit City and instead started to spend their ever-scarcer dollars at the bigger box stores like Target and Wal-Mart. But there is another reason why my local Circuit City quickly fell out of favor with consumers…

The prices!

Circuit City was notorious for charging 15% – 25% higher for DVDs and CDs than what you could buy them for at Wal-Mart or Target! And to show you how out of touch the Circuit City people are with both the market and what their consumers want, I went to big liquidation sale at the local store over the weekend and I saw that DVDs were marked down 20%. Are you kidding me? Even after the 20% discount you still wind up paying more than you would by just going to Wal-Mart in the first place!

It’s incredible, really.

And to add an insult to the bargain shoppers, the local store had no price cuts on video games, computer hardware and software, or car radios and speakers. Amazing.

So while I do feel extraordinarily bad for the 30,000 employees who will now need to find a new job, I can’t say that Circuit City closing down is a surprise. They didn’t care about basic customer service, charged way too much for their products, and didn’t stay competitive with the times. What else could you expect from such a company?

Are You Finding Big Deals Out There?

Posted on by

With the economy in the shitter, there is a lot of talk about how retail stores are almost being forced to drop their prices in order to bring in more revenue. The other day there was an article in the New York Times that started with a great little sentence which put this phenomenon into a concise statement:

For weeks, reluctant consumers have forced retailers to lower their prices — and lower them again and again — before they even considered opening tight wallets and purses.

Consumers have every right to be cautious with their dollars! You can read the rest of the article (which is pretty good) at your leisure, but I loved that first sentence so much that I wanted to create an entry around it.

I’ve also been looking around in the post-Christmas shopping scene looking for some good deals. As I suggested in a previous post, the post-Christmas sales are the best time to store up on stuff for next year’s holiday. I spent $25 on a new Christmas tree at Target and about $25 at Wal-Mart on Christmas cards, bags, candles, blankets, and some other stuff for next December. All of this stuff was half-price so it was a pretty good deal.

But I haven’t found any major, big ticket items that I’ve wanted to purchase. So I wonder if anyone out there has seen anything like that in their travels. Have any of you seen a big “Black Friday” type deal in any of the post-Christmas sales? Better yet, did you buy whatever item caught your eye? I think that many people will be looking for these deals, finding them, and then opting not to spend their money on the big ticket item anyway.

Times are tough and, as if they didn’t already know it, retailers are in for a rocky 2009.

Are Republicans Lacking Excitement in 2008?

Posted on by

Right now? Yes! One of my favorite blogs to visit, Riehl World View, put a post up this morning that said the following:

Funny, everyone will say Romney is done for coming in second, but Hillary is fine with third? I’ll make this short, because Iowa only proved one thing – the Republicans are in big trouble.

The energy and participation is off the charts on the Dem side. It went up on the Republican side due to the Evangelical vote. That’s great, but it isn’t enough to win a general election.

The fact is, as things stand, the Republicans don’t have a candidate that can win nationally in 2008.

This is dead on target. Obama is going to turn a lot of the established Democratic heads with the amount of younger support and independent excitement that he brings to the table in this Presidential race. And as a guy who generally does not vote for the Democrats, I’m even excited about something new coming from Barack Obama – though I’m not quite sure what his exact policies are and how they would have a direct effect (if any) on me.

It seems that the Riehl World View post is correct and that Republicans are lacking both excitement and new participation. There really is no, “Oh my God, I have to go vote for this person,” candidate on the Republican side. The only one that comes close is Ron Paul and he’s more of an old school, late 1800’s/early 1900’s conservative (we call them Libertarians today) than he is a modern-day Republican.

While on this topic, I also want to comment that if you’re paying attention and watching the Republican race you can see that the voters WANT someone to be excited about and someone to be jumping up and down over. The majority of voters were disenfranchised with Rudy Giuliani going into the race and then they discovered Mitt Romney and you saw some excitement. Then the voters learned more about Romney and how he’s more of a return to politics as usual and you saw the excitement transfer to Mike Huckabee. Now you’re seeing some of that excitement transfer to John McCain in New Hampshire, but the fact still remains that Obama is bringing new and younger voters out to voice their opinions. No one else is doing that in either party, period.