This all-purpose surface scraper is engineered to quickly and easily scrape everything from anything and never leaves a scratch. I’ve been testing it for the last month and it hasn’t let me down yet. I had some messy caulking on a bathroom window that was driving me crazy. I took the SKrAPr to it and voila! It’s gone!

The SKrAPr is made in Canada from a patented resin that effortlessly removes unwanted food, dirt particles, ice, paint or any mess from glass top stoves, granite and marble countertops, indoor and outdoor barbecue grills, cast iron and aluminum pots and pans, walls, windows—basically any smooth surface—without scratching. It’s effortless to use and virtually unbreakable and comes with a lifetime guarantee.

I really like the packaging. It comes is a tall tube. You get one regular-sized SKrAPr and one mini keychain model. This tube really lends itself to stocking stuffing.

The SKrAPr – $14.99 (one The SKrAPr and one The SKrAPr Jr.)
$19.99 for two of each

www.TheSKrAPr.com

HOW TO WIN: Simply become a fan of Shinypackages on Facebook and you’re automatically entered to win. Sign up now at http://www.facebook.com/Shinypackages

FINE PRINT: Contest is open to Canadian residents only. No purchase necessary. Winners will be chosen at random. One prize will be awarded each week day beginning Dec. 1 and ending Dec. 21. Good luck!

The trick to getting the job done is having the right tools! And what beautiful tools these are from Smashbox! Wish For The Perfect Tools is a limited-edition collection featuring five travel-sized brushes in a shimmering faux-fuchsia on-the-go travel case to protect and keep your new brushes clean.

Includes:

TRAVEL ANGLED BLUSH BRUSH

TRAVEL BLENDING BRUSH (exclusive)

TRAVEL CREASE BRUSH (exclusive)

TRAVEL SHADOW LINER BRUSH (exclusive)

TRAVEL ANGLED PRECISION LINER BRUSH (exclusive)

It’s also a glamorous way to give back. WISH from Smashbox Cosmetics is a charitable collection that allows you to grant wishes while looking gorgeous. For each purchase from the WISH collection, Smashbox globally will donate $1 to the Children’s Miracle Network, a non-profit organization that provides medical care, life-saving research and on-going education to sick and injured children.

$56

At Sephora and select Shoppers Drug Marts

HOW TO WIN: Simply become a fan of Shinypackages on Facebook and you’re automatically entered to win. Sign up now at http://www.facebook.com/Shinypackages

FINE PRINT: Contest is open to Canadian residents only. No purchase necessary. Winners will be chosen at random. One prize will be awarded each week day beginning Dec. 1 and ending Dec. 21. Good luck!

It is impossible to argue against the success of Amazon.com Inc. (NASDAQ: AMZN) as a company, and it is also impossible to say that the stock is not on fire.  After all, 52-week highs AND all-time highs are the greatest measurement a stock can get.  The problem here is that this last run has so many investors excited that the metrics for valuing Amazon are starting to resemble the great tech bubble all over again, at least for a time of “the new normal.”  And Wednesday night’s tout from Jim Cramer on CNBC’s “Mad Money” said Amazon has another 74 points of upside.

The problem is that if you take the math used to get there, consider where this stock has been, consider the outside forces, and add in just a few small risk factors, this figure gets more than difficult to justify in almost any scenario short of a 2010 stock market that can repeat the gains seen in 2009.

What is important to consider here is that Amazon is already up almost 250% over the last year. Cramer noted Amazon’s huge move from 1998 to 1999 when the stock gained over 1,400%.  Using accelerated growth rates and a double to earnings growth above 30% comes to 60-times earnings as a realistic figure.  Cramer said that the expectation is 25% earnings growth, but the Cyber Monday data may allow over 30% growth.  The $3.00 estimate for next year may be too low and Cramer used a figure of $3.60 EPS because of its recent solid strength and its ability to beat estimates.

Cramer calls the Amazon.com move “logical an even probable.”  Amazon’s estimates may be 20% too low according to Cramer.  And Cramer’s figure at 60-times $3.60 generates a price target of $216.00 versus a price of $142.25 at yesterday’s close.  In short, this is a call for yet another 50% upside on top of 50% gains since the day before the October earnings a mere month and a half ago.

Wall Street analysts are often late to the party, and that has been the case if this scenario comes anywhere close to panning out.  The high target seen so far from analysts on Amazon is $163.00, but an average target is under today’s current prices at about $130.00.  So Cramer is trying to become the top tick in Amazon.

There is an issue to consider here that is above and beyond this holiday season excitement.  Amazon.com is effectively now entering into what many feel is nothing short of a price war with Wal-Mart Stores Inc. (NYSE: WMT).  What happens during price wars?  Margin compression.  And Wal-Mart has no qualms about price wars, and the company has serious performance anxiety when it comes to its online sales efforts.  It has even decided to go as far as to allow some other vendors to have a presence in the Wal-Mart arena on the web.  2010 is still an unknown for many Americans and the stock market’s major rally  has definitely priced in more than just a muted recovery.  And what about Best Buy (NYSE: BBY) as a competitor in electronics and gadgets sales?  The company has done well in keeping its inventories low and it can’t afford to let either Wal-Mart or Amazon get too ridiculously far ahead in the online sales arena.  We won’t bother mentioning the book stores, because they have done an awful job of competing against Amazon on the print and now on the digital side of books.

There is another issue to consider that comes up almost every year in at least some states.  Sales Tax.  States are so out of kilter with their financial budgets that they are coming up with more and more ways to extract money from companies.  Amazon.com has done its best efforts, and rather successfully, at avoiding a ‘nexus presence’ in states where merely having a presence can open a company up to all sorts of taxation.  But this is a permanent issue that will always be a risk for the company.

Amazon.com will probably also keep acquiring companies.  It has masterfully done this and we see no reason that the company will cease making strategic purchases where it can.  But one integration miss could cost Amazon if it makes too large of an acquisition.  The company’s market cap today is over $61.5 billion.

If the bull market continues to ramp, well anything is possible in price targets.  The short interest is actually down in Amazon.com now at more than 19.5 million shares, not even 3-days worth of volume.  And traders are using short-dated stock options to get exposure without taking the price risk in the stock as you will see just in the DEC-2009 CALLS that expire in just two weeks:
CALL$    Volume    OpInt
$135    9,271    12,206
$140    11,221    6,490
$150    5,981    9,121

Now that we are in the second half of calendar Q4, we also look to forward year earnings estimates.  Thomson Reuters estimates for this year are $1.88, and you know that investors are now using at least $2.00.  That gives a current year earnings multiple of 71-times earnings at the ramped up figure.  The Thomson Reuters figure we saw for 2010 is actually $2.53 EPS, and that earnings estimate has risen by 20% since just the October earnings report at a time that the stock has run 50% since the October earnings report.

Anyhow, you get where this is going.  The growth investors can justify these high ramp-up figures until the end of time, particularly if there is a belief that the stock market gains of 2009 will be repeated in 2010.  If we just use straight-lime math for the current estimate, Amazon.com is at 57-times 2010 earnings, or 47-times the Cramer $3.00 figure using today’s closing price.

But every other investor out there besides the high growth and momentum investor is going to start having a very hard time stomaching the valuations.  Even using a multiple of 50-times 2010 earnings gets to $150.00 using the higher base-case from Cramer.  One hiccup can cause serious pain.  And if the bears can ever get some traction more than a 3% market pullback or one slowing of the recovery in 2010, then suddenly even those “growth at any price” investors are going to have to get very creative using such high forward multiples compared to the market.

JON C. OGG

Won’t she look adorable on Christmas morning wearing these sparkly shoes? All eyes will be on your little bug in this glittery pair of metallic pink mary janes with silver embroidered starburst and pink elastic ankle strap, from Canada’s favourite shoe company for wee ones, Robeez.

These shoes slip on easily and stay on thanks to an elasticized ankle design. They also have flexible, non-slip suede soles and are approved by the American Podiatric Medical Association. They can even be washed!

The best shoe mimics bare feet, by supporting and not constricting tiny growing feet. Robeez footwear flex and bend with every step. They promote good balance and unrestricted growth, while protecting little feet from the world. They stay on too, with elasticized ankles to ensure a perfectly snug fit. From crawling to cruising, walking to running, for indoors and out, Robeez makes different shoes for newborns to four-year-olds.

Classic MJ Sparkle are $29.95 (The pair we are giving away are size 12 – 18 months.)

Visit Robeez.com

HOW TO WIN: Simply become a fan of Shinypackages on Facebook and you’re automatically entered to win. Sign up now at http://www.facebook.com/Shinypackages

FINE PRINT: Contest is open to Canadian residents only. No purchase necessary. Winners will be chosen at random. One prize will be awarded each week day beginning Dec. 1 and ending Dec. 21. Good luck!

eBay Inc. (NASDAQ: EBAY) may be the unexpected winner of cyber-shopping for the 2009  holiday shopping season.  Today, the company released data showing that its PayPal unit posted strong gains for yesterday on the famed “Cyber-Monday” as well as for Black Friday.  While it is not a new phenomenon that eBay does well each year around Christmas, it seems that the short supplies of retailer inventories for many popular items is sending consumers over to eBay stores rather than to traditional online e-tailers.

PayPal saw double-digit growth for its third consecutive year in online sales, or total payment volume, on Cyber Monday.

The Cyber-Monday results were about 20% in year over year growth preceded by higher total payment volume throughout the Thanksgiving weekend.   The company also noted that total payment volume on Thanksgiving rose by 25% over Thanksgiving Day 2008, while the Black Friday total payment volume rose by about 20%.   Regardless of how you value eBay, that is very impressive considering that eBay was considered a stagnating company at the start of this year.

But here is the even-larger jump for the convergence crowd… mobile payments… eBay said that mobile payments through PayPal also rose a sharp 140% on Black Friday and an even higher 190% on Cyber Monday from the same days in 2008.

eBay also decided to sneak in some promotional data.  Its Bill Me Later is hosting an Outstanding Offer program featuring daily exclusive and limited quantity offers available only to Bill Me Later customers during the holiday season.  Participating online stores include MacMall, Bluefly, Overstock and others.

Sometimes the real winners of the holiday season are not the obvious winners.

JON C. OGG

The perfect gift for a couple, Jolly Holly Days has soaps and scrubs loved by boys and girls alike, as well as a massage bar to share. Pick one up for your couple friends, or your partner if you’re planning a romantic getaway this holiday season. Uplifting soaps get you in the mood to party and a Too Drunk Emotibomb helps you recover after you’ve had one too many. This gift helps maximize the fun and minimize the fallouts.

$49.95 at LUSH.ca or the LUSH store closest to you.

HOW TO WIN: Simply become a fan of Shinypackages on Facebook and you’re automatically entered to win. Sign up now at http://www.facebook.com/Shinypackages

FINE PRINT: Contest is open to Canadian residents only. No purchase necessary. Winners will be chosen at random. One prize will be awarded each week day beginning Dec. 1 and ending Dec. 21. Good luck!

Most businesses have experience in handling unhappy customers, usually through their customer service departments. But when it comes to social media, many are still learning the ropes. It’s one thing to handle a loud, disgruntled customer at the service desk or even over the toll-free complaint line. It’s quite another if the customer doesn’t let you know and is instead running your product down on the Internet to anyone who will listen.

A negative blog is a public relations crisis in waiting.

What’s more, if you are not actively monitoring what’s being said about you in the blogosphere, you probably won’t even know you have a situation until things are out of control.

Which is why you need to make sure your company or a trusted partner are listening to the chatter on the Internet grapevine.

If a negative post is discovered, best to act quickly but not in haste. Read the post, do a quick fact assessment and then approach the disgruntled blogger. In most cases, contact by phone is preferable to e-mail. A phone call is personal, flexible, tone-sensitive and less likely to trigger another negative post.

Give some thought to who will contact the blogger. If your new car turned out to be a lemon, would you rather hear from someone at the customer complaint desk or the owner of the dealership?

When you call, explain that you read the post and would like to find out more about what went wrong. Gently probe for details. Use a tone and approach that conveys sincere interest in getting to the bottom of the problem and assume that the fault is on your end of the relationship.

If the complaint seems legitimate or even highly plausible, tell the blogger you’d like to make them whole in the interim with a replacement product or other appropriate make-good while you investigate the problem further. If it’s a defective product, see if you can make arrangements to have it returned to you so your experts can learn from the problem and prevent possible repeats.

Finally, think about what the person is likely to take away from your conversation and realizes it is likely to show up on the Internet. Which leads to some caveats.

When handling a negative blog, what NOT to do is just as important as what to do. Unless you are clearly dealing with someone less than honest, do NOT:

•    ignore the post and hope it just goes away. Even if it does not go viral, it will live on the Internet indefinitely, waiting for someone to  discover it.

•    be defensive or challenge her version of what occurred. Again, think about how you’d like to be treated if you had a legitimate complaint.

•    expect that what you say is just between you two. EVERYTHING you say or imply is likely to end up posted. Speak accordingly.

We recently guided one of our clients through the experience of handling a highly negative posting. In my next blog, I’ll show how the negative was converted into a win-win for the customer and the client.

Tom Lyons is Public Relations Senior Manager for Directions, Inc.

A really interesting post from Wired’s Epicenter and blogger Peter Kirwin about the problem everyone “wants to have:” a wildly successful marketing campaign that has taken on a life of its own.  Do you trade dollars for eyeballs- and is that just a short-term question?

Suppose they gave a marketing campaign, and everybody came?

Back in September, Hasbro launched Monopoly City Streets, a massive multiplayer online game that transforms Google Maps into a globalized version of the well-known board game. In the run-up to Christmas, the online game was supposed to promote a boxed version of the game that Hasbro sells for $40 list.

Three months on, however, Hasbro’s MMOG – constructed by ad agency Tribal DDB working alongside engineers from Google Maps – achieved something unexpected. It became vastly more popular than anyone expected. Monopoly City Streets now ranks as the world’s 12th-largest example of the genre, according to Matt Ross of Tribal DDB, attracting 15 billion page views a month.

Presenting his agency’s campaign at last week’s Creativity and Technology conference in London, Ross announced: “We’re trying to invent things that are useful to people. We never know if our stuff is going to work.”

“Now Hasbro don’t know what to do with it,” Ross said. “They have a kind of new product on their hands.”

Unexpected popularity has had unintended consequences for Hasbro. If it scraps the game next month, as planned, it risks alienating 1.5 million registered users. If it allows it to continue, it will need to find a way of monetizing all of those eyeballs that may cannibalize buyers of the game they want to sell who are happy enough with the online version it was supposed to promote.

Oh yeah — Ross also noted that his agency’s wildly successful campaign was achieved with “precisely zero media spend.”

Interesting things happen when advertising slips the moorings that have traditionally bound it to Big Media. In particular, Hasbro’s dilemma underlines the fact that the message-carrying capacity of traditional media has always been constrained. As a result, media owners have always carried promotional messages to audiences on a time-limited basis.

The cost of traditional media doesn’t decline appreciably during a campaign. Accordingly, the cost of reaching new consumers increases exponentially as a campaign proceeds. The risk of over-exposure increases, too.

Hence the advertising industry’s traditional ability to take pride in brilliantly crafted, but transient, promotional efforts.

So what happens when scarcity-based constraints disappear? What happens when advertisers and their agencies produce their own campaigns and distribute them on the web?

Attitudes change. As permanence becomes a possibility, pride in transience starts to look questionable. The ad campaign that Hasbro thought it was buying from Tribal DDB may yet turn into an enduring product. In a similar vein, Anders Gustafsson of Crispin Porter Bogusky Europe told last week’s conference: “The stuff we’re doing should last for years, not months.”

Several years after adland produced its first throwaway virals, this suggests that something much larger than frustration with search engines lurks on the horizon for Big Media.

For a century or more, the advertising industry and Big Media have operated on the basis of mutual dependence. Big Media offered unusually broad reach and attracted big budget creatives as a result. In adland, watching your creatives play out across major media was always a mark of high seriousness.

Now this historic pact is coming under pressure. In places, it has started to unravel. The crude appeal of banners and buttons remains important, but long ago ceased to be at the center of the digital action. For marketers who need to engage massive audiences, the web offers a genuine alternative to press and TV, one that allows advertisers to create their own content.

With no small sense of irony, last week’s conference of digital creatives took place at the galleries constructed by Charles Saatchi out of the elegant hulk of the Duke Of York’s barracks in Chelsea.

Yet the Big Media outlets that carried Saatchi’s inspired advertising copy three decades ago merited barely a mention. Among other things, delegates were asked to consider what might start to happen when we, our devices and the built environment become seamlessly networked.

Adam Greenfield, head of design direction at Nokia, describes one possible outcome:  an urban landscape filled with “dynamic advertising that covers every surface and knows everything about us”. He talks of a “shroud of awareness” surrounding shoppers and pedestrians with “dynamic advertising” constructed on the basis of “sensor readings that record place, time and event”.

The future of outdoor advertising has rarely looked so full of potential. The future of Big Media has rarely looked so marginal.

Kevin Slavin, another speaker at last week’s conference, lectures alongside Greenfield at New York University. He is also the co-founder of Area/Code, a New York-based hotshop that develops games on behalf of agencies and advertisers.

According to Slavin, “the idea of being able to see the value of everything all at once” is “grinding down” the price that retailers in particular can charge their customers. “Meaning,” he claims, is shifting from physical products to the “informatic layer” embodied in devices and networks.

This isn’t a particularly controversial notion. What is controversial is the conclusion drawn by Slavin: “If you’re in the consumer packaging and branding business, you’re fucked.”

Perhaps. But ubiquitous computing also represents a further threat to the historic pact between adland and Big Media. In the not-too-distant future, the cereal packets that contain my daughter’s Coco Pops may carry a cheap screen, wirelessly connected to the web, that plays cartoons across the breakfast table. As a result, BSkyB, the BBC and ITV will lose access to eyeballs.

Disintermediation of this kind is already a reality in some shopping malls, where retailers have started sending promotions to handsets carried by approaching shoppers. According to one analyst firm, 35 start-ups and established companies across Europe are developing technology for use in such digital proximity campaigns.

This won’t result in the death of retail advertising in the weekend editions of national newspapers any time soon. But there’s more to come. The next steps involve the gradual splicing together of three separate disciplines: mobile advertising technology, real-time search and the long-established science of retail footfall analysis.

Coincidentally, Twitter this week released its long-awaited geolocation API into the wild. In this context, one statistic is worth noting: according to the digital ad agency Razorfish, 44 per cent of US consumers who follow a specific brand on Twitter say they do so in order to gain access to special offers.

Campaigns that cut out Big Media with a mix of gaming, location awareness and social networking aren’t yet an established fixture in adland. But we might not have to wait too long. The iPhone’s crystalline screen was made for opportunities like these.

The fallout could make Rupert Murdoch’s dispute with Google look like the proverbial storm in a teacup.

Among the digital creatives who gathered together last week, a few are already looking toward the future. “Now that we’ve been invited to the party and have money, influence and power,” said Ian Tait of Poke London, “I worry we are like a bunch of kids with the keys to the sweet shop.”

Judging by the heady optimism on display at CaT last week, Tait’s concerns aren’t yet widely shared by his peers. But they will be – and soon enough. As Google knows all too well, disruptive power brings serious responsibilities in its wake.

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When I first saw these bakeware pieces, they conjured up images of apple pie fresh out of the oven, scalloped potatoes and a hearty meatloaf. Comfort food. And just in time for Christmas. Who can’t help but fall in love with these traditional pieces from celebrity chef and TV show maven Paula Deen?

Here’s a great tip. The newest trend is to bring your potluck contribution in a stylish dish that your hostess will keep as a gift.  That’s if you can part with these lovely pieces. And yes they are safe for the oven, microwave, refrigerator, dishwasher and freezer.

$19.99 to $39.99 at Canadian Tire

HOW TO WIN: Simply become a fan of Shinypackages on Facebook and you’re automatically entered to win. Sign up now at http://www.facebook.com/Shinypackages

FINE PRINT: Contest is open to Canadian residents only. No purchase necessary. Winners will be chosen at random. One prize will be awarded each week day beginning Dec. 1 and ending Dec. 21. Good luck!

We’re all feeling the recession.  We’ve heard recently in the U.S. that it was over and the markets were stable, employers were just not hiring yet.  Then, it seemed things might not be so rosy.  This week brought rumors and reports that Dubai, Dubai, might be going bankrupt*.  In this increasingly intertwined global economy, every little up or down (or report of one) can have incredible ripple effects.

Imagine my surprise, then as I’ve recently returned to the States after an over-seas, TV-less assignment to see a new and expanded Snuggie infomercial.  At first I thought “ha, ha!  Snuggies in leopard print, just when I thought things could not get tackier!”  And then I started thinking about it: Snuggies are releasing a “designer line” of their product.  Unless it’s a marketing ruse to make the product’s profitability greater than it actually is, this meant something truly scary and of a significance I have yet to figure out: Snuggies are making money.  Making money, and enough to expand their product line.

For those of you that don’t know what a Snuggie is, yet are still here, I’ll try to explain.  In the States, and most English speaking nations, we have infomercials for products that seem to be completely superfluous, useless and usually are so ridiculous in their uselessness to the average consumer that they are laughable.  This particular product has been the latest in a long series of “As Seen On TV” products that have been lampooned and scoffed at in their inanity.

Essentially, It’s a blanket with arm holes, made of fleece.  The original advertisement points out how cumbersome and just plain inconvenient blankets and sweaters can be: you have to move your hands from under a blanket to, say knit, or answer the phone.  The actors seem have their spirits broken by this unfathomable act of uncovering their arms to perform menial tasks.  They can’t believe humanity has made it this far with such a burden.  But then!  Blessings!  Someone has invented a product that looks like a blanket with sleeves.  You can use your arms now!  You can lift the remote control from the couch without having to negotiate that insidious blanket.  A huge weight has been lifted and a milestone in the evolution of man has been reached.

As my 22 year old sister pointed out: it’s a robe you put on backwards.  That you pay a lot of shipping and handling for.

Everyone from news shows to parody programs (like The Soup and Saturday Night Live) and late night talk show hosts (Jay Leno, David Letterman) have all taken potshots at the Snuggie.  It’s just too absurd to believe, but too real not to mention.

Well, look who’s having the last laugh.  They know have leopard print.  And zebra print.  And camel (of course).  And THERE’S EVEN ONE FOR YOUR DOG.**

How can there be a recession, with reports of empty stores on New York’s always busy upper Broadway on Black Friday, and the run away success of a completely useless and superfluous product?  According to their website, they’ve sold over 4 million units in three months.  That means more than one percent of the US population has bought one in the last quarter.  Now, a lot of this is through TV marketing trickery (buying sets, up-selling, confusing ordering practices), but still.

Clearly half of this me joking, but it raises a real point: what in the french are consumers thinking?  We hear about belt tightening and foreclosures and bankruptcy, but the completely unnecessary products of the world go on, and do well.

It’s not marketing.  The ads are too targeted, too cheesy, too insignificant to have the impact they claim to have.  So I ask: what do you think drives consumers to these purchases when they are tightening budgets elsewhere?  It’s not escapist and it’s not essential.

Thoughts?

* Dubai is also a cautionary tale of excess, proof of the adage of location, location, location and bubble budget spending (use it or lose it), but it’s a very serious development.

** I’m not making this up.  Please see the second video below- there’s one that combines both, but then you wouldn’t really be getting the full Snuggie experience.

Designer Snuggie Infomercial here (brings you to youtube)

And for your little dog, too infomercial (youtube)

15 FANTASTIC PRIZES

Visit http://shinypackages.wordpress.com each weekday between Nov. 30 and Dec. 18 for your chance to win an assortment of excellent prizes.

Here’s how it works: Simply become a Facebook fan of Shinypackages and you’re automatically entered to win. http://www.facebook.com/Shinypackages DO IT NOW!

Contest is open to Canadian residents only. No purchase necessary. Winners will be chosen at random. One prize will be awarded each weekday beginning Dec. 1 and ending Dec. 21. For example, a winner will be chosen on Tuesday for the prize featured on Monday. Winners cannot choose the prize they want. You get what you get but don’t fret. They are all fantastic! Good luck!

You could bring a bottle of wine.

Or you should show off your true creativity with a hostess gift that will get more than a polite smile. Show your hosts you really care by appearing on the doorstep with their favourite Ben & Jerry’s treat. Consider these suggestions:

For your best friend, Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough®

For your dead-head university pals, Half Baked®

For your sweetie, Chunky Monkey® (hmmm… maybe not?)

For the music lover, Cherry Garcia or If I Had 1,000,000 Flavours®

(If you’re coming to my place during the holidays, please bring Banana Split, New York Super Fudge Chunk and If I Had 1,000,000 Flavours. I might even share.)

If you don’t live in Winnipeg, Yellowknife or Regina and you’re worried it might be a little too warm to transport your gift, here are a few suggestions.

• Add a bag of ice to a reusable shopping bag and tuck your pint inside. After all, every party needs extra ice!

• Give the gift of thermal! Pack a thermal bag with some ice and a pint or two.

Now that’s I’ve been staring at this image on my screen for the last 10 minutes, I must run out and get some Ben & Jerry’s!

$5.50 to $7 at all major grocery, department and drug stores.

I’ve been reading Credit Suisse (CS) analyst Gary Balter’s reports on hardline retailers since the mid-’90s, when I wrote about companies like Home Depot (HD) and Sears (SHLD). Balter is not only a savvy analyst. He’s also a very good writer. This morning at 7:17, Balter emailed this note to clients about Black Friday shopping, which he titled “Bring Back the Good Old Days.”  I’m on his email list, so I read it and enjoyed it so much that I asked him if we could reprint it on Postcards. “Absolutely,” Balter replied. So here’s a veteran Wall Street analyst on how Black Friday 2010 is upending our holiday shopping rituals.–Patricia Sellers

Guest Post by Gary Balter, managing director and senior analyst, Credit Suisse

What is happening to America? For years, we looked forward to getting together with the in-laws on Thanksgiving, watching some football, eating some turkey, and most important, pouring through every Black Friday ad and dividing up which stores we would each wait in line for. Waking up at 3 a.m., we would not only rush to get in line but would be in communication with the team–figuring out if Circuit City had fewer people in line, by 4 a.m. knowing if we would get one of the better door-busters at Best Buy (BBY), what the lines were like at Wal-Mart (WMT), etc.

Things began to change well before the Internet. About six years ago, CompUSA (SYX) decided to begin its Black Friday sales at midnight. That meant getting in line on the way back from turkey dinner, and then getting but a few hours of sleep before beginning the hunt in the a.m.  Of course, since it seemed that every CompUSA purchase required one to fill out a rebate form, that effort used up any time otherwise reserved for sleep.

Returning home from all stores by 8 a.m. at the latest, we would call the family and discuss splitting up the prizes, meeting somewhere between New York and Allentown, Pa., to celebrate together. Total savings on anything we really needed was likely nothing, but the thrill of the hunt kept us going. Friends of our cousins, when meeting us, would know exactly which product we had waited for and how much money we had “saved.”

A few years ago, sites like bfads.net started to compare all of the Black Friday ads. Although it made it easier, it seemed to take the thrill out of comparing the products. However, even with that, we still had the cold weather to look forward to the next morning.

About four years ago, our world changed. We discovered that in some stores, including Circuit City, one could go online on Thanksgiving and buy the Black Friday ads. The following year, others followed, but the better stores still kept their best sales for those who would wait in line.

This year, we are getting Black Friday sales for weeks before Black Friday at Sears, Kmart, Wal-Mart and Best Buy, among others, and have the ability to buy just about every ad on-line, with many stores opening on Thanksgiving. Looking at what looked like prizes worth standing in line for, at Staples (SPLS), for example, we were dismayed to read that we could buy the same products on-line from 6 a.m. to 10 a.m. That is going to hurt sales of winter clothing, as we won’t have to stand in below-zero temperatures for that sliver of a savings.

May we suggest that someone in the government, at least in the colder northern states, pass a law that does not allow one to call savings ‘Black Friday’ until Black Friday? Until then, enjoy the warmth, and Happy Thanksgiving.

Black Friday is under 48 hours away.  We have seen much data and much analysis out there on the topic, but there are two fairly easy conclusions here…. well, make it three.  First is that consumers are going to get deals galore.  The add-in third notion, or the second, is that inventories at stores will be very low and many items may have to be bought online (with free or low-priced shipping to boot).  But the big conclusion here is that it seems a foregone conclusion that the great deals and (quasi-) price matching and free shipping offered by retailers are still likely to create margin pressure for the retailers even if they have strong sales.

This is a sampling review of some of the promotions from major retailers.  No particular order has been given.  Apple, Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL) and Amazon.com Inc. (NASDAQ: AMZN) are worth noting, but the major retailers featured are Wal-Mart Stores Inc. (NYSE: WMT), Best Buy Co. (NYSE: BBY), Costco Wholesale Corporation (NASDAQ: COST), Target Corp. (NYSE: TGT), Kohl’s Corp. (NYSE: KSS), Macy’s, Inc. (NYSE: M), and Nordstrom Inc. (NYSE: JWN).

Yesterday my inbox had a very un-Apple Apple Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL) advertisement.  While most companies and retailers are getting more fine-tuned, Apple was very vague and the exception. It was nothing short of people drinking on the job and trying to come up with a tease.  They talked about the big sale for Apple… Yet there was nothing in it as a holiday shopping event.  Apple isn’t going to lose customers for its trick, but it was a lame attempt to lure you into the online store and its retail stores.  I would almost have rather them called me  a loser for not buying anything from them yet.

Wal-Mart Stores Inc. (NYSE: WMT) is showcasing “5 AM to 11 AM in-store specials” for Friday only that will vary from around the country.  Mine  is offering a 32″ Emerson LCD HDTV for $248, a 42″ Emerson Plasma HDTV for $448, and a Sony Bravia 46″ LCD HDTV for $798 in TVs.  Wal-Mart already started the toy blitz to keep parents from going to Toys R Us.  Online it has Nintendo Wii 2-for $30 game bundles or a Wii value bundle for $269.  The cheap decorative Christmas tree is the Holiday Time Unlit 6.5′ Jackson Spruce Artificial Christmas Tree for $40.00 and $0.97 shipping. Amazon.com Inc. (NASDAQ: AMZN) is of course a competitor to EVERYONE, but the real war now looks to be Amazon vs. Wal-Mart for Joe Public… and that means you as a consumer will win.

Best Buy Co. (NYSE: BBY) must still be flooded with TV’s. It  knows cheap TV’s are a way to  give you a TV and sell you game systems, recorders, accessories, and of course a wall-mount and installation.  Its ‘4 Days Only’ special has a cheap laptop of Gateway NV5332u Laptop Package with Wireless Mouse & Laptop Case for $429.97 and the cheap netbook in the store is the Gateway LT2005u netbook with 10.1″ LED-backlit widescreen for only $229.99. Best Buy’s unadvertised Black Friday Panasonic HDTV price is $797.99 for a TC-P50X1 50″ Class 720p plasma HDTV with free shipping.  Its 32″ Dynex LCD HDTV is $299.99.

Costco Wholesale Corporation (NASDAQ: COST) is showing more specials now compared to last week on our first look.  It has a Proscan 40″ 1080p LCD HDTV $499.99 After $100 off.  Its hot buy netbook is the Acer Aspire One 10.1″ Netbook with an Intel Atom processor for $229.97.  They are advertising a 40″ LCD Samsung TV for $649.99 after $200 off and a hot buy Proscan 26″ LCD HDTV for $279.97.  Can you use the food stamps for these specials?

Target Corp. (NYSE: TGT) is still offering free shipping for online purchases of $50.00 or more on 100,000 items.  It was offering $3 appliance deals for toasters, coffee makers, and slow roasters.  Its 5 AM 2-DAY SALE shows some features as Nikon digital cameras for $88, TomTom GPS Nav for $97 (save over $150) and $246 for a 32″ Westinghouse LCD HDTV.

Kohl’s Corp. (NYSE: KSS) has a 1-Day Pre-Thanksgiving sale for 10% to 25% off of selected kitchen electronics.  More importantly, it is offering $10 KOHL’S Cash for every $50 you spend now through November 29.  That Kohls’ Cash earned online will arrive by email by December 1.40% to 60% off selected diamond & Gemstone jewelry. Its Friday shopping is actually at 4 AM local time this Friday, so you might wonder how happy those sales people ar at 4:15 when you are asking them 20 questions.

Macy’s, Inc. (NYSE: M) is offering Thanksgiving Sale free shipping on $99 purchases sitewide (online).  Macy’s is also said to be offering in-store savings pass for the Thanksgiving Sale of 25% to 50% on many select items, and an extra 20% or 15% off if you use your Macy;s card or a WOW! pass (again, select items).  Nordstrom Inc. (NYSE: JWN) has effectively matched Macy’s with free shipping on orders of $100 or more and has its myriad of sale items.

What is interesting is that free shipping is still available but seems less advertised than it was last week.  There is also less focus on price matching, although this is still the policy of Wal-Mart, and Target has a policy for this that unfortunately seems to be changing or reacting to what has been seen elsewhere.

The deals are still plentiful for consumers this year.  It still seems like there will be margin pressure on many of the top retailers.  But for whatever it is worth on an opinion, price matching and free shipping seem less advertised or less featured online than just a week ago.

Happy Thanksgiving! And Happy Black Friday to you retailers!

JON C. OGG
NOVEMBER 25, 2009

We just had a deluge of economic data in Personal Income & Spending for September, a rather solid figure on weekly jobless claims and in continuing  jobless claims, and a somewhat tepid durable goods orders data.  While there is still nothing robust, the jobs data this morning is the tipping point that allowed equities to run higher.

• Personal Income & Spending for September were pretty much in-line at +0.2% on income and +0.7% on spending.  Dow Jones had estimates at +0.1% on income and +0.6% on spending.
• Initial Jobless Claims came in at 466,000, the first drop under 500,000 in months and months and months.  That is the lowest jobless claims all year and under the 495,000 expected by Bloomberg.  If that can hold up and get closer to 400,000 then it will stop the rise in the unemployment rate.  The army of jobless via the continuing jobless claims also fell by 190,000 to 5,423,000.
• Durable Orders (October) was a disappointment at -0.6% versus the Bloomberg estimate of +0.5%.  For whatever it is worth, this is the most volatile of the big economic numbers.  On an ex-transportation basis, the figure was worse still at -1.3%.  However, ex-Defense the figure is +0.2% and the September headline data was revised to +2.0% from +1.4%.

Frankly, that jobs data is the crux of the matter.  The rest is all gravy as equity futures have risen on the data.

JON C.  OGG

Today I was fortunate enough to meet Jerry Greenfield, co-founder of Ben & Jerry’s ice cream. Jerry is not only a smart guy, but a nice one too. I asked him one simple question for entrepreneurs and here’s what he had to say:

(More detailed insight will be the topic of subsequent blog entries)

eBay Inc. (NASDAQ: EBAY) is having an issue which may have just cost sellers millions and millions of dollars in untold profits today.  After doing random searches today on Christmas present purchases and with eBay being one of the online destinations, it was suddenly clear that something was wrong on eBay.  The system was not working if you did not already have your item numbers known.  Search functions yielded nothing and stores were out.  If this were to happen after midnight on a Tuesday, it might not matter.  But this outage is on a weekend day when so many buyers and sellers aren’t at work and are able to spend the effort to go eBaying.

A technical support chat only yielded “Due to the great number of visitors currently using the system, your request cannot currently be dealt with. Please try again later.”

A call into support just has the message “We are currently experiencing technical difficulties with search and the ability to access stores….”

Whether this lasts or not is unknown, but even the most common searched words yield “0 results found for _____” and “We were unable to run the search you entered. Please try again in a few minutes.”

The reality is that this does happen from time to time on the web.  But when you see how the entire system is down for search and for stores, it is just proof that there are not enough redundancies.  Or worse.

JON C. OGG
November 21, 2009

What a twat, who you may ask well who else…me of course.
Just walked out the front door to put some rubbish in the bin and SLAM! goes the door, oh shit, bugger and more colourful language,
I’m locked out and I’m not wearing any shoes!

Quick, who might have spare key thinks I, the inlaws maybe? and they only live around the corner (I know, don’t say a word).
Luckily, I did have my Mobile in my pocket and so I dial their number, ring, ring, ring and so on, oh no I start to think they’re not in and finally an answer, have to quickly explain what’s happened to the Father-inlaw and through the laughing he states he’s not sure if they have a spare key but he does have some shoes I can borrow!, well that’s alright then I’ve got nowt to worry about.

Have to ring missus at work to see if she left a spare with them but all I get is the bloody voicemail, then I remembered why the front door slammed behind me, I left the back door open to air the place out a bit so when he arrives with the shoes we dart around to the back of the house hoping that it hadn’t also shut itself, oh happy days, the back door was wide open thank the Lord.

So in case you didn’t get it the first time, What a twat.

And on a completely random note, thats the last time I buy a sarnie from Tesco,  bought one this morning and its left a rather nasty taste in my mouth.

Nestlé was profiled in a recent The Economist article (October 31st, 2009 edition). The article highlighted the company’s updated growth strategy, focused on transforming the organization from a provider of low margin packaged foods into the world’s leading health, nutrition, and wellness firm.

At the heart of this strategy are functional foods. These are foods that have been modified and improved by manufacturers to provide claimed health benefits. Examples include yogurts with probiotics to help ease constipation and fend off infections, butter substitutes that claim to reduce cholesterol, and infant cereals enhanced with micronutrients that support child development. Functional foods are growing at a much faster rate than packaged foods in the US and Western Europe.  According to Information Resources Inc. (IRI), functional foods grew in the US at 8% a year between 2003 and 2008 vs. less than 3% for packaged foods.

Nestlé’s strategy has worked thus far. According to The Economist’s article, sales of Nestlé’s functional foods grew over 20% a year between 2004 and 2008 and over 5% in the challenging 2009 environment. Despite these initial wins, it is too early to claim victory. Nestlé’s strategy rests on at least a couple of critical assumptions, namely:

• That Nestlé’s R&D investment will materialize in groundbreaking innovation thus creating new product categories and businesses (technical risk).  This is particularly relevant given Nestlé is investing over 2% of its revenue on R&D, almost twice as much as its nearest competitor (and this does not include investments being made on marketing and sales).
• That consumers will accept the health claims from functional foods and pay for the premiums associated with these products (market risk).  This is also relevant given the backlash the company has faced in the past from public activists (due to aggressive practices in emerging markets) and the potential damage to the core business.

These assumptions are not only highly uncertain; they are also significantly different from the issues typically faced by food companies (e.g. changes in commodity prices, growth in retail consolidation and hard discounters, growth from private labels, rise in food safety concerns).  In a way, these uncertainties are more akin to those faced by life science companies.  Enter the power of analogies and the lessons from Bioscience as examined by my collegue Dr. Paul J. H. Schoemaker in Chips, Clones and Living Beyond 100 (Pearson 2010).

In the Fall of 2005, Paul and other colleagues at Decision Strategies International (www.thinkdsi.com ) teamed up with the Mack Center for Technological Innovation at the Wharton School to develop the Future of Biosciences Report (a predecessor of the aforementioned book). Biosciences represent the convergence of new life science technologies and related information technologies in such fields as: genomics, proteomics, bioinformatics, stem cell therapies, cloning and regenerative medicine. Given that no one can predict if emerging life science technologies will be wildly successful or fall short of expectations, or whether the public will accept or reject the new scientific techniques, the team decided to develop multiple plausible scenarios to understand the future possibilities and to develop strategies that would win across different futures.

The study surfaced many forces shaping the future of the Biosciences landscape. The two main uncertainties selected to start the development of the scenarios were: What happens if biosciences technology succeeds or fails? And what happens if society supports biosciences or rejects them? (Sound familiar?). Below is a thumb-nail description of the scenarios (for a fuller version see www.thinkdsi.com/biosciences ):

A. “Where’s the Beef?” is a scenario where patients and practitioners want and need medical solutions to treat and cure disease, but science falls short of expectations.
B. “New Age of Medicine” is a scenario where medical science achieves unprecedented breakthroughs that cure disease, help people live longer and ushers in a new age of personalized medicine.
C. “Bio Gridlock” is a scenario where genomics, stem cells, and other life sciences cause much commotion but fail to achieve their early promise. Research investment dries up and remains stalemated by ethical “what ifs.”
D. “Biosciences Held Hostage” is a scenario where medicine and healthcare strive to develop and commercialize embryonic stem cells, cloning, gene therapy and other technologies, but the public distrusts these advances for various reasons.

Imagine for a moment that the future of functional foods could be characterized in a similar way.  Under which of these scenarios would Nestlé thrive and win?  The company is clearly betting on a world similar to the “New Age of Medicine” (we could call it the “New Age of Food”) where science delivers and consumers embrace the advances and are happy to pay the premiums.  But what happens if either the science fails and/or consumers don’t accept the claims?  A world similar to “Biosciences Held Hostage” is a very real possibility.  We just need to go back to the “Frankenfoods” (i.e. genetically modified foods) controversy in the food industry or embryonic stem cell and gene therapy in healthcare.  In such a world, Nestlé’s functional food bet would come apart and all the investment in transforming the company from a food provider to a health, nutrition, and wellness entity would result in value destruction.

So what is Nestlé to do?  Given its growth ambitions, strong market position, and plentiful resources, Nestlé is certainly well positioned to reap the benefits of the functional food revolution if it were to take off beyond niche categories.  Some would even argue that the company has the clout to “shape” that potential outcome.  Furthermore, Nestlé is funding many of its new R&D investments through savings in other parts of their operation (based on recent investor presentations). This is fiscally responsible, but it is certainly not enough to assure value creation.

Studies show that products with high market and technical risks (and Nestlé is facing both types in this case) face failure rates over 75%. [1]While not all functional foods’ categories face this extreme level of risk, the truly innovative ones undoubtedly do.  The world is littered with skeletons of industries and companies that adopted a single view of the future and gambled the entire farm (no pun intended…) on a “sure thing”.  Iridium, the satellite-telephone provider comes to mind.  Backed by 6$ billion from Motorola, they launched in November 1998 only to file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy nine months later citing difficulty gaining subscribers.  Iridium’s downfall: the rise of mobile phones and cellular networks.

Therefore, Nestlé would do well to embrace the uncertainty surrounding functional foods and to treat the opportunity as a growth option rather than as a certain outcome.  To do this, we would suggest a three-pronged approach:

• Embrace the uncertainty through the use of scenario analysis.  This provides multiple-frames about how the future might unfold to better prepare the company to deal with disruptive change.  In this process, Nestlé would benefit from leveraging the power of analogies from related industries like Biosciences.
• Balance strong commitments with flexibility in the strategic portfolio.  This provides an optimum risk-reward payoff given the level of uncertainty in the marketplace.  It is usually achieved through a portfolio of strategic initiatives, including: robust initiatives (positive pay-offs across all plausible futures), flexible options, and a few bets (that the company can afford to lose).  It should be noted that by doing this, Nestlé does not need to hedge away from functional foods, but rather make sure that it deploys its strategy in a flexible manner through staging of investments, co-development of basic science and products, and other option-like mechanisms.
• Monitor the environment in real-time.  This provides the ability to track leading indicators that reduce the knowledge-to-assumption ratio embedded in the strategy.  In doing so, the company can decide to double down or move away from functional foods (partially or completely) before the information is fully available and/or acted upon by other stakeholders and/or competitors.

Jeff Bezos, founder and CEO of Amazon.com once said “…you need to make sure, with the things you choose to do, that you are able to say, ‘if we can make this to work, it will be big.’”  Nestlé is certainly aiming high with its new strategy.  It just needs to realize that there are many things beyond its control and that it might benefit from the lessons of other companies and industries before them.

If you want to learn more, please contact me at sichel@thinkdsi.com or visit www.thinkdsi.com

When it comes to holiday shopping, I think stocking stuffers are the most fun to buy. There is none of the hand wringing that comes with buying a big ticket item. When your budget is $5 to $10, they might love it, they might hate it, but in the end, it’s no big deal. You tried.

Picking up a few items from the new Joe Fresh bath line is probably a pretty safe bet. The candy-coloured collection will appeal to girls, tween, teens, young adults and even not so young adults. There’s a yummy scent for everyone. Take your pick from nectarine, marine, lemon, pomegranate, lime and grapefruit. The collection includes body wash, balm, polish, mist and hand soap.

TIP: In these days of the almighty gift card, I always like to add a little something. Pick up an inexpensive holiday stocking, add a few stuffers and tuck the gift card inside. It’s always nice to open something other than an envelope.

Body polish, $5 and scrubbies, $2 at Superstore and Loblaws.

About a week ago, my new friend Rebecca sent me a B.B. Begonia bag to try out. Rebecca, I have news for you. You can’t be my new best friend. That’s because my new best friend is a bag.

I’m a staunch advocate of the BYOB trend. I Bring My Own Bag wherever I go. Almost always. I really try. But sometimes there are no bags in the back seat and I’m forced to schlep into the store, head hanging low, knowing I will need a nasty plastic bag.

That’s all changed with B.B. Begonia. You see, these bags scrunch into tiny little parcels that fit into your purse, pocket or visor of your new Pontiac. They are always handy!

And did I mention they are also extremely functional? Big enough to hold almost more than you can lift. The arm hole is roomy enough to fit over my shoulder. As for style, well, you can’t really beat them. Have a look at the Website for all the good-looking options.

www.bbbegonia.com

You can find out where to get the bags through the Website or by e-mailing Rebecca at customerservice@bbbegonia.com

ONLINE: eco-handbags.ca, tweedandhickory.com, hightechonline.ca, and gardenroom.ca

Bags are $8.99 for the singles and $44.99 for the 5-pack pouch

These bags are brought to us by a Winnipeg company. In Winnipeg, get the bags at:  Artifacts, D.A Niels Kitchenware, Fort Whyte Alive –The Nature Shop, The Happy Cooker, Lacoste Garden Centre, Lola Boutique, Mach Artworks, Manitoba Children’s Museum, McNally Robinson, Organza Market, Sandstone Gift Essentials, Scoop ‘N’ Weigh, Shelmerdine Garden Centre, St Boniface Hospital Gift Shop, The Garden Room, U.N Luggage and The Winnipeg Art Gallery.