Black Friday

As the Black Friday shopping results reveal that electronics was the most purchased items over the Thanksgiving weekend. Almost over half of all purchases that weekend were electronics. A recent survey revealed that there was $52.4 billion on Black Friday weekend which is a 16 percent increase from last years $45 billion. The most type of electronics that were sold were gaming consoles.



http://www.forbes.com/sites/johngaudiosi/2011/11/28/video-game-consoles-among-top-sellers-black-friday-through-cyber-monday/?partner=yahootix

Tax Free Cyber Monday Shopping

According to a recent survey 106.9 million Americans plan to shop on cyber Monday. This one day of shopping is planed to bring in over $1 Billion. Most of these online purchases will be tax free, that said is it fair? With Amazon leading the group in pushing to avoid collecting sales tax on the state level by lobbying.

 BBY:$25.63
GME:$21.51
WHR:$46.05



http://www.forbes.com/sites/kellyphillipserb/2011/11/26/cyber-monday-sales-tax-free-for-many-but-for-how-long/?partner=yahootix

Best Buy Automated Kiosks

Best Buy has been reported to be expanding into the automated kiosk dvd rental and hardware machine business. Best Buy now has 45 disc rental spots In Canada. Also they  domestic kiosks that sell hardware and electronics, these are found on college compasses.



http://www.bizjournals.com/twincities/morning_roundup/2011/11/best-buy-edging-into-redbox-dvd-rental.html?ana=yfcpc

RadioShack Add Robert E. Abernathy To Board Of Directors

Robert E. Abernathy has been elected to the board of directors. The 57 year old is the consumer products group president for Kimberly-Clark Corp. Mr Abernathy has been the group president since early 2008.
Daniel R. Feehan ,chairman of the board of RadioShack Corp, said "Robert's significant and wide-ranging experience managing businesses in the global consumer products sector will provide a highly relevant perspective to our Board. We are very pleased he is joining us, and look forward to his contribution."

Radio Shack Dividend

Radio Shack share holders will get their annual dividend next month. Radio Shack share holder will be getting a $0.50 dividend next month on the 15th. The dividend plans to be $4.15% of stock prices.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/dividendchannel/2011/11/18/cash-dividend-on-the-way-from-radioshack/?partner=yahootix

BBY:$27.06
GME:$22.46
WHR:$50.68

Office Max sells mobile products with Radio Shack

Office Max says they will start selling cell phones and prepaid wireless products/accessories by January 2012. So far the only stores that will be introduced to it will be in the San Fransisco area. President and Chief Executive Officer Ravi Saligram stated that, "We are evaluating a range of strategic retail partnership arrangements that will improve store productivity and make our stores a highly attractive destination to our customers".

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/OfficeMax-Announces-Mobile-prnews-2160688786.html?x=0&l=1

*Originally Due Oct 29* Hhgregg Announces New Store in OH

Hhgregg is yet announcing another store opening in Ohio. This store will be located in St. Clairsville, the addition of this store will not make a total of 33 stores in Ohio. Jeff Pearson the senior vice president of marketing stated “ Ohio is a very important State for hhgregg and a key part of our Midwest expansion”. To celebrate the opening of the new store they will have a giant grand opening with a big sale and door prizes.

BBY:26:50
GME:26.20
WHR:51.80

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/hhgregg-Announces-New-Store-bw-1603709466.html?x=0&l=1

*Originally Due Oct 27* Best Buy and Citi team up

Best Buy and Citit Bank team up to create a new app. The app will be available for free  for iPhones, iPod Touch and Android devices. The app will let citi rewards program users to spend there points on Best Buy products and search what items they can us it on. They can also scan bar codes and type them in to instantly get rewards points.

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/Best-Buy-and-Citi-team-up-on-apf-435355706.html?x=0&.v=1

Facebook Check In For Charity

Best Buy says that they will donate $2 for every person who checks into Best Buy through Facebook to Boys & Girls Club of America. The program will be Nov. 18 through Nov. 27. Best Buy has stated they will donate up to $250,000 to the nonprofit. I think it was a great move by Best Buy to help charity but Im sure there going to get a lot more traffic in there stores and there probably going to get a small cut in the traffic revenue from face book. 

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/Best-Buy-Encourages-Holiday-thomsonreuters-2231439224.html?x=0&l=1

Best Buy Mobile and the GRAMMY Foundation Team Up.

Best Buy Mobile and the GRAMMY Foundation team up to make a donation to Centennial High School in Franklin, TN. The donation as to help save the school music program. Also they had the band Rascal Flatts to come surprise the students and talk about the importance of music education.

WHR:$54.59
GME:$25.17
BBY:$28.09

Best Buy Pays $1.3 Billion for Cellphone Business

Best Buy paid their partner,Carphone Warehouse Group, for full ownership of their "Best Buy Mobile" Stores. Best Buy bought their stake for $1.3 Billion. Best Buy is also planning to stop expanding and Europe and actually shut down all 11 big box stores that are open now. Best Buy is planning on expanding their mobile phone stores in emerging  markets in China and Mexico.



http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2011/11/07/best-buys-pays-1-3-billion-for-cellphone-business/

Best Buys MindShift for $167 million.

Best Buy has bought MindShift a cloud service company for $167 million. This will provide IT services to small and mid sized businesses. Best Buy sayes that they estimate that there is $40 billion in this market. With Best Buys distribution capabilities, they deffently will have a competitive edge on the market now.

http://www.forbes.com/2011/11/07/best-buy-acquires-cloud-services-company-mindshift-marketnewsvideo.html?partner=yahootix

GameStop to Open More Than 4,400 U.S. Stores for Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 Launch

More then 4,400 Gamestops will be open for the midnight release of Call of Duty MW3. Door will open for the midnight release party at 8:00pm. Fans will be able to play the game while waiting for the release of the game.

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/Stock-Pile-the-Energy-bw-3412227280.html?x=0&.v=1

WHR:51.64
GME:25.69
BBY:27:31

High Tech Holiday Gift Recommendations

Hhgregg has published a list of new tech recommended for this holiday season.  A few of the items on the list kinda of surprised me that they were on there.  One of those items was the camcorder, since the camcorder is kind of a dead technology because now we have phones and tablets that record hd video, I was reading a article on wired.com and they said that camcorders are expected to be replaced within the next 5 years. An item I expected to be on the list is a item we talked about in class, is the Sony wifi streamer player, which streams movies, games and pictures to you.

Whirlpool planing to cut 5,000 jobs.

Whirlpool is facing a high cost for materials and a soft demand, as a result they are planing to cut 5,000 jobs in North America and Europe. Whirlpool has tried raising price to combat higher costs but demand for a big ticket item is low. Whirlpool plans to cut 1,200 jobs here in the United States and completely close down a plant in Fort Smith Ark. They also plan to move a dishwasher production plant from Germany to Poland, the estimated cost of moving is projected to be around $500 million.

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/Whirlpool-to-cut-5000-jobs-to-apf-3248783307.html?x=0&.v=7