Hey gang! Exciting MindField Online cashout news for the New Year!
We are excited to announce two new cashout options! Starting in first week of January 2013, you will be able to request cashout with a Sam’s Club or WalMart Gift Card. Just click through to cashout and you’ll see the icons listed among the options available. Both options will require the same $5.00 threshold as PayPal.
Yay, more options! Happy New Year!
First of all, I don’t hate the practice of regifting as much as the idea that they had to make up a word for it. (English major rant!) But it looks like regifting is here to stay.
You get a gift, and it’s not to your liking because the giver is clueless or you’re a stupid selfish baby (see previous post.) What do you do? If you don’t want to stand in line at the WalMart service desk (because you have a life) you just might hold on to that bamboo steamer or necktie organizer and pass it along to the next victim a loved one next year.
And, the survey says you aren’t alone.
Regifting, once a social taboo, is gradually gaining in acceptance. According to a nationwide consumer-spending survey by American Express, 58% of people believe it is OK sometimes to regift an item. That figure rises for the holiday season, when 79% of respondents said they believe regifting is socially acceptable. The survey, which polled about 2,000 people last year, found that nearly one-quarter of consumers said they regifted at least one item the previous holiday season. Wall Street Journal
Sorry, Wall Street Journal – 79% favorable is not “gradually gaining acceptance.” Regifting, once relegated to the slums of “white elephant” gift exchanges, has gone legit. Which totally takes the fun out of my all-time, always-a-hit white elephant gift: Butt Paste!!
That’s comedy gold right there. Anyway, what do you think about regifting? Let us know, and have a great weekend!
Once upon a Christmas, I gave someone close a copy of the LIFE magazine from the day she was born. Mind you, the special day was in 1959. I sent away to an antique publications house in New York two months in advance, and paid $40 for it.
On Christmas Day, she opened the package and… just didn’t get it. She was polite about it but I could just tell, you know?
Well, according to a study in a recent Journal of Experimental Psychology…
The adage “It’s the thought that counts” was largely debunked. Gift givers are better off choosing gifts that receivers actually desire rather than spending a lot of time and energy shopping for what they perceive to be a thoughtful gift. The study found thoughtfulness doesn’t increase a recipient’s appreciation if the gift is a desirable one. In fact, thoughtfulness only seemed to count when a friend gives a gift that is disliked. Wall Street Journal
So, we really only want what we want. They say the only sure way to satisfy someone is to force them to make a list, and then buy something on it. And this is my defense in the previous example. I went the “thoughtful” route because she was TERRIBLE about making a wish list, always has been. After that, I switched to gift cards.
Oh well… if you are thinking that this is just one more sign of what stupid selfish babies we all are, I have to say that I don’t disagree. Read the article, and tell us what you think!
* the “errand” joke isn’t mine. I would credit it if I could remember who said it!
Ladies, be warned. Marketers have cracked the Girl Code. Millions of dollars have been spent to discover the secret of reaching women. You ready? Here it is: Color it pink and play on your insecurities.
We’ll let that sink in for a moment, like a moisturizing cream that erases fine lines and age spots.
One of the big-name ink pen companies has a For Her line. If you’re an Ellen fan, you know how that went over.
Said one reviewer: “For once, I don’t have to grip a giant, man-sized pen just to sign receipts at Saks. And the ink just hits the paper so smoothly, not at all like the rough, gritty man ink in normal pens.”
Meanwhile, Honda has a version of the Fit subcompact called “She’s.” Its lady-centric approach? It’s pink, its AC won’t dry your skin and its anti-UV glass will help prevent wrinkles.
The review is in: “Stupid name, awful color, everyone needs protection from the sun’s rays, and if they want to market to women, they need to think leg to pedal ratio, especially clutch, so you don’t have to scoot the seat all the way up to the steering wheel.”
I guess the point is that pink is nice, but that can’t be the only selling point.
Final example: I used to do marketing for a handgun company.
They had a line of handguns For Her, in pink and lavender. But they weren’t JUST cute; they were smaller, lighter and with slightly less firepower so that – get this – women could actually USE them. We didn’t ignore Pink, we just turned it around: “Why is it pink? So your husband won’t want to borrow it!” Now THAT’S marketing to women!
Here are a couple of articles on the topic, from Today Show online: Here and Here. Check ’em out, have a great weekend and always remember to ask if it comes in pink!
(photos: news.yahoo.com and charterfirearms.com)
Of course, Black Friday draws near – the big bargain day for combat shoppers. But the rest of November is no slouch, as retailers try to grab your attention in the days leading up to the madness.
Here, from DealNews.com, is a list of some of your best November buys:
Those are just some highlights of good buys. What’s NOT an especially great buy in November – or, not really any better than other times? Tablets. Turns out Amazon and others are basically giving them away already, selling them at cost, and making their money on the digital media you buy.
Lots more useful info at the original article, so check it out!
Here is a roundup of articles from around the web highlighting consumer scams, helpful recovery tips, ways businesses are trying help…and ways they aren’t!
For a lot of folks, life won’t be returning to normal for a while. Hopefully tips like these will help.
(photo: NASA)
Thanksgiving 2012 is a mere 30 days away. Do you know what this means? Right, Black Friday is only 31 days away!
People have made a sport out of this pre-dawn ritual. Bursting through the doors at 5am, racing to the toy aisle, etc. It’s chaotic and fun, but mostly chaotic. And in the chaos, mistakes are made, and returns become necessary. And returns can be a drag!
If you fail to read a store’s return policy before shopping there, you could get stuck with an item that doesn’t work out. But if you fail to read return policies before gift shopping, it’s a friend or relative who could get stuck with an unwanted item. MoneyTalksNews.com
So how do you learn about a store’s return policy? What are some warning signs? Which stores have the best and worst return policies? That’s the subject of this article. But briefly, the author likes Costco, LL Bean, Nordstrom and Zappos. Not so much love for Babies R Us, Macy’s Kohl’s or Toys R Us.
Lots of detail in the article, so check it out!
As they say, business it business. But it sure seems like Walmart has an axe to grind with Amazon! Last month, Wally announced they were no longer carrying Amazon’s Kindle. Now, they are going to compete with Amazon’s experimental same-day delivery.
Called Wal-Mart To Go, the service costs $10 regardless of the size of the order. The products will be shipped from the company’s stores, not from a warehouse or distribution center. Wal-Mart began testing the same-day service last week in Philadelphia and northern Virginia. It added Minneapolis on Tuesday and will add San Jose and San Francisco later this month. The trial will last through the holidays. Wall Street Journal
Amazon has been doing the same-day thing in 10 cities for a few years now. Amazon has about $35 billion in online sales each year, about 7 times Walmart’s take. BUT, Wally’s $5 billion is about 1% of their total sales. So, that kind of capital allows them to experiment to find ways to compete with the established leader Amazon.
Analysts say that Walmart is going to need that cash flow to make it work…
“It can be three to four times the cost for the retailer to pick items and pack them from a store versus having a really efficient, automated process back in a distribution center.” Wall Street Journal
So, what do you think? Does this sound like a good move for Wally? Or should they stick to what they know best and leave the online fulfillment game to the recognized leaders? Read the article, and have a great weekend!
In my house, as a kid and as an adult, we always did it up for Halloween. And, looking back, I don’t remember ever dialing it down very much during hard times. Apparently, that is still the case in the US!
Here are some stats:
So, how does Halloween avoid our belt-tightening?
Halloween has been one of the few annual events that we’re willing to shell out plenty of bucks for, almost certainly because of the escapism we feel by dressing up like Lady Gaga and Michael Jackson. We also have few qualms about dressing up our pets like Lady Gaga and Michael Jackson. Time Magazine
And to illustrate that last point, the article says that we will spend $370 million on pet costumes this year, up about 25% from 2011!
So, how about your family? Is Halloween a big deal? Have you cut back on the spending the past couple of years, or not?
Who wants an iPad for $19 and change? The answer is likely “Me me me me!!!” Well, that’s what “Penny Auction” websites like Beezid, Quibid and Bidfun advertise on TV during the late night Three’s Company reruns. But a new article at Yahoo News is offering that classic advice: if it seems too good to be true… But first, they explain how penny auction bidding works.
To sign up, you have to buy bid packs. The more you buy at a time, the lower per-bid price you pay. For example, you can buy a pack of 30 bids for $27 (that’s 90 cents per bid) all the way up to 1000 bids for $550 (55 cents per bid). Then you find an item you want to bid on, and start bidding. Each time you bid, it raises the price of the item by one cent and often resets a timer for another 10 seconds or so of open bidding. Bidding can be done manually, or you can set up auto-bidding, which will program the site to bid for you, usually at the last second. Yahoo News
What’s the catch? The author lists several. First, to make a bid that raises the price by a penny, you are actually paying between 55 and 90 cents. Second, you get into a bidding war, make a bunch of bids, and end up not winning the item but still losing a bunch of money. Third, are you really saving? She provides an example where someone actually won an iPad for 83 cents, but used $300 in bids. That’s $301 total when, on that same day, you could buy the iPad on Amazon for $320. Finally, just like those infomercials where they show you a dollar’s worth of crap, tell you it’s a $30 value and offer it to you for 10 bucks, it seems that some of these Penny Auctions are inflating the value to stir bidding excitement.
A final quote:
These sites bill themselves as “entertainment shopping.” That’s like calling the craps table “entertainment banking.” Yahoo News
But, as we say, that’s just one opinion. Have you used one of these bidding sites? What do you think? There’s more at the original article, so check it out. And have a great weekend!
(photo: quibidsreport.com)