Cubalaya Blog UK

The Race for a Wii

Although Nintendo plans to make another million Wii gaming consoles this month, with less than three weeks left until Christmas, it looks as if the supply of the ₤180 console will fall well short of demand.  Finding a Wii on store shelves is nearly impossible, and the eBay auctions have them going from ₤400 and up.  Some retailers also charge higher prices, often because they choose to offer the Wii with a few games and accessories, rather than just selling the console by itself.

The Wii has been selling so fast in its first year on the market that it has caught many by surprise, including Nintendo itself.  Usually video game sales slow down during the summer season, allowing the manufacturers to stock up for the Christmas shopping season.  But the Wii has been selling so well all year long that Nintendo's warehouses are reportedly empty, hence the shortage.

Nintendo's senior vice-president, George Harrison, is well aware of the current shortage.  His advice is to check when brick-and-mortar stores receive shipments of the console (by asking sales clerks, for instance), and try to get to the retail stores at opening hour on weekends. Why weekends? Because most stores run big advertisements in weekend newspapers, and therefore save some consoles to stock the shelves with then.  Another factor to consider is that retail stores apparently receive more stock per store than specialized game stores.

 

Online, you can check out the offers for a Wii on Cubalaya, and also take a look at our Wii Product Review.   

Christmas Bargains Online

Christmas shoppers can bag substantial savings by going online rather than to the high street, research by consumer group Which? shows.

It found that savings of more than 1,000 pounds could be made on a shopping list of five popular gifts -- a flat-screen television, camera, camcorder, hi-fi and DVD recorder.

Researchers compared prices on 72 products at 111 retailers and found that online savings ranged from 11 percent on digital camcorders to 29 percent on LCD and plasma televisions.

Savings could also be made on everything from books (14 percent) and MP3/MP4 players (11 percent) to CDs (7 percent) and champagne (2 percent).

But games consoles -- such as the Wii, Xbox 360 and PS3 -- were found to be similarly priced.

"The trick to bagging a bargain is to discover which stores offer the most extras," Which? said in its November magazine.

"For example, while John Lewis sells the PS3 for 398 pounds, HMV sells it for 425 pounds, but with four games (which cost up to 50 pounds each) and an extra controller -- which is the best deal we found."

Consumers could be missing out on savings of up to 240 million pounds a year by not shopping online, recent research by the Office of Fair Trading shows.

People's top 10 reasons for shopping over the Internet include ease of price comparison, avoiding crowds, price competitiveness and more choice, according to a poll of 2,343 Which? online panel members.

Source: Reuters (London)

Social Shopping Experiences

Online shoppping is quickly becoming more social-oriented, as ebay's and Facebook's recent upgrades show.  While the former is first and foremost an e-commerce giant, and the latter is the leading social networking online service, they have each taken steps that bring them closer together. 

ebay has launched "ebay neighborhoods", which are micro-social networks focused on a single product or category.  Inside these neighborhoods one can find blogs, guides, reviews, product searches and users- all content found across ebay.  Members can join these neighborhoods and add to discussions, post photos, invite friends, write reviews and meet other like-minded people.  It is also possible for users to start new neighborhoods for specific products, sports teams, hobbies or any other idea.

Facebook has thousands of applications for members to use as add-ons, but the most interesting addition is "My Shopping".  This application, powered by SecretPrices.com, allows users to shop within their own Facebook user, where they can search for products, rate items they want or already own and get advice or make a recommendation on a product.  A recent survey shows that many teenagers communicate with their friends while shopping- either by shopping together physically, talking on cell phones, texting or IMing.  Facebook is looking to enhance the social aspect of online shopping through its social environment.

It will be interesting to see if these two leading Internet services end up competing with each other as social shopping networks, and how this will affect the rest of the online shopping world.

Online Payment Methods

With Amazon starting its own full-blown online payment system, PayPal and its owner eBay have found a worthy competitor.  Although some people only look to Amazon as a place to get that out-of-print long-lost paperback, it has become a shopping giant for new and used items, the latter traditionally considered eBay's forte.  An online payment system makes life much easier for private merchants, allowing them to receive their payment without going through the fuss of working with the credit card companies.

But not just the merchants benefit from this kind of system- giving personal information online, especially a credit card number or an electronic check, has always been a bit risky.  Online security has improved substantially over the years, but the fear of electronic fraud has been one of the major factors in PayPal's success.  They act as the middleman between the customer and the merchant, and keep the fomer's financial data to themselves, offering a stronger sense of security, not to mention making purchases a quicker process.  In fact, eBay determined this idea so useful to its business model that it purchased PayPal in 2002. 

And then came Google Checkout.  Waiving all transaction fees through the end of 2007, Google is looking to expand its circle of merchants during the holiday season.  While still lacking many of PayPal's features, the Google has a wide range of online stores which accept Google Checkout, allows payments through a mobile phone (soon to be extended further with the GPhone?), and, unlike PayPal, has great customer service.  And looking at the recent upgrades to the Checkout service- it seems Google takes customer feedback to heart.

UK iPhone Released on November 9th

Today it was unofficially announced that the release date of the iPhone in the UK will be November 9th.  The expected price of the 8GB model is 269 pounds, or around $542, which is a considerable leap in price compared to the US.

O2 will be the service providers, and there will be free Wi-Fi service from The Cloud, a pay-as-you-go public Wi-Fi provider.  This free service is probably a compensation for the poor 2.5G data service available on the continent, and for the lack of 3G capability on the iPhone (due to high battery consumption). 

   

Apple is currently developing an iTunes Wi-Fi Music Store, which will enable users to download music directly to their iPhones, wherever Wi-Fi is available.  This service is expected to launch before November, and therefore should be available by the UK release.

Furthermore, you can win a free unlocked 8GB iPhone by entering a comment on this CrunchGear blog, as they are looking for people from the UK to voice their opinion on the iPhone.  Also check out the TechCrunch blog, talking about the upcoming release.

Cubalaya Launches a Product Review Service

To enhance the Cubalaya shopping comparison service, we have started a product review section on the site. The reviews are mini-product reviews, giving you the short story rather than the lengthy technical description. For instance, if you're interested in the new Nokia N95 mobile phone- you should check out its review; however, if you're not sure what you should be looking for in monitor, the relevant buying guide will help you figure that out.

Each product review page is divided into 3 parts:

• Ratings- the product rated according to its design, features and other attributes. Each category of products has its own specific attribute list, making product comparison easier.
• Overall Review- a written review of the product including technical details, features and other important information.
• Summary- The no-nonsense bottom line.

So far we have covered some popular products, and soon we hope to expand our reviews database and create another useful tool for online shoppers.

Furthermore, at the bottom of each review page you can find a link to full-length review from a different site.  Besides being more detailed, these sites usually have consumer reviews as well.

Last, but not least, each product has its own video review as well. These videos give you a good first look at the product and also a visual explanation of its functions. The following example is a video review of the RIM BlackBerry 8800 Smartphone:

Online Wine

Since the well known online wine retailers published data from the festive trading period, it has been clear that a number of factors are at play driving a boom in online sales of fine wines and champagne. Majestic reported a 17% year on year growth in champagne sales which suggests that the public’s palette is becoming more discerning.

There has also been a growth in niche specialist online retailers like Champagne Direct who serve a specialist market offering next day delivery in the Dublin region. Rather than compete with the big multi nationals they offer specialist gifts such as this special edition bottle of Veuve Clicquot in a Louis Vuitton designed cooling case with two Champagne flutes- available for 199 Euros including delivery.

Wine was one of the products that were popular online from the first days of e-commerce. It simply made sense to order a case and save time, money and importantly effort in getting the wine of your choice delivered. Now champagne and wine remain popular online despite the supermarkets hitting back with cut price offers, it seems the public are just as interested in quality as quantity.

The Cubalaya Team

Cubalaya is an online shopping comparison site, and has been active since November 2006.  Besides the shopping comparison engine there are also product buying guides and this blog, all an integral part of the Cubalaya site.

Behind the site stands the Cubalaya Team.  Courtesy of Vuvox, try to find its members hidden in this slide-show:

Diana Concert - Wembley Stadium

Whether it was your cup of tea or not you have to say that the Diana concert held at Wembley stadium yesterday was an impressive event. Seeing all those major international stars perform one after the other was great to hone our celebrity driven shopping tips. Judging by the amount of facial hair on display from David Beckham and the usually clean cut Take That one could argue that they are all in need of a decent new electric shaver to clean up those forested faces. Does anyone look better with facial hair?

We loved the Lilly Allen set and then noticed that along with Fergie (of Black Eyed Peas Fame pictured here) and Nelly Fertardo that it is clearly essential for women to be seen in a beautiful party dress along with classic and elegant high heel shoes. Whilst it may not be the most practical look to go shopping or collect the kids from school we have been known to suffer at the hands of fashion many times before, so I'm sure we'll do it again. Let us know what you liked about the concert or dare we say it, didn't like.

The Cubalaya Shopper

Sony Ericsson W960i

Sony Ericsson recently announced the launch of their W960i mobile phone. It's a nice looking model as you'd expect with a large screen to give you 'tv quality images'. One of the key selling features of this model will be the integrated sony walkman technology. It will have the latest touch screen functionality making the most of that larger screen. It will have 8GB which they claim will allow you to store up to 8000 tracks. This is another move prior to the new Apple iphone to integrate two of the key portable technologies of mp3 players and mobile phones. There are plenty of other neat functions that will come with this phone such as the music recognition software and 3 click music download option which clearly play further to it's portable music player persona. You will be able to record a few seconds of music and get back the song and artist name in full which is probably a novel feature to impress friends rather than a life enhancing function. It will also naturally come with all the other functionality you expect on a phone today such as the digital camera. We are now arguably seeing the type of phone that was expected from the Sony Ericsson marriage and it is going to be interesting to see just how good this latest model is when it launches in several weeks time.

Useful Sites and Links

Official Sony Ericsson site

The Cubalaya Shopper