slamboard

My site gets search traffic from a few people everyday who are curious about Walmart Prepaid Visa Cards. I assumed that this was because I was one of the few business bloggers that made a point of commenting on their launch last year. I also assumed that the product was popular. I was surprised to learn that when a firm surveyed 800 lower-income consumers, only 1% of them actually got these cards. These are people that go to Wal*Mart almost 5 times per month.

So, the cards aren’t explosively popular. The issuers are still happy with their bottom line, although there are worries that the government may make additional rules about terms and charges that will restrict the potential for profit. General Electric Co.’s GE Money subsidiary is the issuer of the Walmart card.

Source:Digital Transactions

I have just made Great Discovery: www.ZenniOptical.com can provide you with prescription glasses for as little as $8.

They can do this as a Global volume and price leader. They manufacture their own lenses and they don’t spend a lot on advertising. I have looked carefully at the economics of online contact lens providers in the past and I suppose many of the same advantages exist for glasses. The shipping cost per unit will be a bit higher. Hold the phone, I went back to the site and read that they only charge a flat rate of $4.95 per shipment regardless of the size of your order.

I got my first ever pair of reading glasses last year. I am still a little shy of thirty, so I will probably need a few more pairs in my lifetime.

This early report comes from the folks at Mastercard. Growth in consumer spending from last year’s Christmas shopping season is a low 3.6%. While it is disappointing, it is not unexpected. Gas prices and economic pressures related to the housing market are major factors. I think another factor was the lack of cool stuff. I am a bit out of the loop, but I can’t think of an iconic must have toy for Christmas 2007. There was a largely failed attempt to get people worked up about a possible Wii shortage. There have to be more buyers than there are items for a shortage to exist.

“If you see one, buy it. Don’t assume that you can come back later and find one.”

On a brighter note, the same report says that online spending for the same period is up 22% from last year.

Sources for this story: NYT, engadget

If you have a few names left on your list and you have run out of ideas I have a quick suggestion. FAIR TRADE GIFTS will let people know that you care. Certified fair trade products provide a fair return to the farmers and crafts people that produce them. Coffee is probably the most well known product that can carry a fair trade certification, but fair trade certification is expanding to many other goods, the most recent being flowers.

This is a comprehensive list of stores that may have fair trade products. I found the list at TransfairUSA and I added a few stores to the list. The ones in bold are personal recommendations.

10,000 Villages

Costco
Carr’s
CostPlus World Market
Dominick’s Finer Foods
Fred Meyer
Genuardi’s
Giant
H-E-B
Harris Teeter
Kroger
Publix
Quality Food Center
Randall’s
Safeway
Sam’s Club
Shaw’s Supermarket
Stop ‘n’ Shop
Target
TJ Maxx
Tops
Trader Joe’s

Vons
Wegman’s
Whole Foods Market

Wild Oats

Merry Christmas Everyone

A Kohl’s coupon from eDealFinder.com can be used to get great items for Bed, Bath, Kitchen, Dining, Furniture, Home Decor, Home Care, Luggage, Backpacks, Electronics and even Games. There is also clothing for the whole family.

The Kohl’s deals at eDealFinder.com range from 10-15% off.

They also have an Overstock coupon section. This store also has a huge range of quality items.

The coupons for computers from Dell and HP are in stiff competition with each other. The electronics coupons section is a great place to work on your math skills because one dealer with give a dollar amount off their products over a certain price floor while the other will just go with a percentage discount. You get the impression that they don’t want to make direct comparisons easy. At eDealFinder.com, you can at least find the competing deals on the same page.

JacarandaStyle is an online source for beautiful handmade jewelry and household decor items. They are all made in South Africa.

I remember an incident when I was a young child during the days of Apartheid and I was asking my parents to avoid buying South African goods. At that time there was some boycotting going on, but it was not broad or strict enough to put real pressure on the oppressive regime of the day. It is great to be in a position now where I am encouraging people to buy items that are made in South Africa.

JacarandaStyle donates part of the proceeds from each item sold to the Ethembeni School in South Africa which helps hundreds of physically disabled and visually impaired children. The items really are beautiful.

My personal favorite are these interlocking salt and pepper shakers. I prefer images of guinea fowl to the real thing. They are very noisy birds. My neighbor used to have a small flock of these birds.

The founder of JacarandaStyle lives in New York but she was born in South Africa. Finding a way to help a community in her motherland that makes use of her education and experience in art and design is a dream come true.

I have teenage daughters that I cannot buy clothes for because they are so self conscious about their friends seeing them in any item that came from somewhere that has been deemed not cool. I think there are a couple of items that they would like among the various Cafe Press store on the internet.

The advantage of buying them something that is an original print from a less run of the mill page is that they will have to judge an item of clothing on it’s own merit rather than what store it came from. I know their taste from before the middle school vampires got them and I think they would love a cupcake shirt.

I have heard several different success stories relating to online marketing and I have noticed some recurring trends. Often there is an engaging personality who creates something in an online social setting to which other people ascribe a value. At first there may be an informal non-monetized way in which the supply and demand is met within the original social network. And then a voice says “You should have you own website and have an online store!”

This voice might be inside the creator’s head, or it might be a friend or a fan.

I have actually witnessed one instance where the person in question ignored that voice. If you have heard that voice but you are having trepidation, take some time to look at the ecommerce hosting and cheap business web hosting solutions offered by AQHost. They are a design and hosting service with packages ranging from an amazingly affordable starter pack right up to corporate hosting.

All packages include an easy to use control panel. When you get a business level, you do away with a few limitations that are inherent in the starter packages. You get an unlimited number of email accounts. You get an unlimited number of FTP accounts. You even get unlimited MySQL 4 Databases. Money making websites range from eStores that sell homemade jewelry to paid membership sites that sell ideas and insider information. A merchant account with AQHost will mean that you can accept credit card payment from major credit cards. I was not surprised to read that 85% of transactions online involve credit card payment. If you have a business model up and running that does not accept credit cards, you could expect at least a 40% increase in business from just that one change.

Dimout.com has a wide range of Lingerie. The items vary from demure and sophisticated to, well pretty much risqué novelty items. I have a very old, very personal story that I am going to render less personal before I put it on my blog…

It was Valentine’s Day and I had purchased an item from a lingerie store that is famous for its sexy silky negligees. When my lover opened her present, she was upset that I had bought her a conservative plaid flannel nightgown. If it hadn’t been Valentine’s Day, she would have been happy. If the practical item hadn’t come from a store renowned for its romantic impracticality, I would have been alright. This was a perfect storm of a man’s poor present buying. This was a long time ago and I have grown older and wiser. I know that there are danger zones at either extreme.

The safe zone for lingerie purchases will vary according to taste and according to relationship status. This red and black chiffon bra top with ruffled trim might be too sexy for your mate. I think it is remotely possible that for some women it might not be sexy enough.

The online lingerie store that I am browsing does not have any items appropriate for use as an example of not sexy enough.

My somewhat improved judgment has steered me towards this velvet babydoll as an example of just right. Both of these items are featured in the Christmas section at Dimout.com. I think they would make good Valentine’s gifts as well.