Innovate Your Fashion!

Innovate your fashion in your own "mind" Lab!

February 5, 2010

Shift in Shopping Share

span style=”font-size: 12pt; font-family: “Times New Roman”;”>Current economic recession has changed the shoppers’ behavior during the year (2008). Generally speaking, people prefer to buy inexpensive and simple products like the Wii and the Flip, over competing gadgets richer features
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Going some places we found that Nintendo has sold more than 30 million Wii game consoles since they were introduced two years ago. Best Buy promoted the Wii in its efforts to get holiday shoppers into buying instead of big-screen high-definition TVs. Similarly the games of the Microsoft Xbox 360 are outselling the more expensive Xbox 360 and the Sony PlayStation 3 combined by almost 2 to 1. The Flip camcorder is also simple, and two to three times cheaper than camcorders made by Sony or JVC. Pure Digital Technologies says it has sold more than 1.5 million Flips since it unveiled the product line in 2007.

This visible shift in consumer preference to the cheaper electronic devices could well be a reaction to the recession. It is not just the economics of a shopping-fatigued nation at work here. Consumers found the simple devices, which don’t need instruction manuals to set up and use, more appealing.

This shift in shoppers preferences could be mirrored anywhere. Remember, competition and the effects of price hick force sales down.

The one defense that seemed to work during the year was to offer a new product at the same price as the old one — but with more features. The laptops got better graphics, the hard drives spun faster, the cameras picked up more detail, the memory cards held more.

Current economic recession still going on, only time will tell how shoppers are going to fare in coming year.

January 22, 2010

Types of Search Engines : Clearpath Technology

By far, the most popular search engine is Google. There are several reasons for this. First of all, Google has invested a lot of money in developing algorithm technology that will give users the listings they want. Google has also developed a unique style, including text-only advertising. This makes for pages that load quickly and don’t contain offensive or obtrusive pictures. Because customers like this type of search experience, they’ve begun to overwhelmingly prefer Google as a search engine of choice.

There are a few search engines that are based on Google. These sites use the Google technology in order to provide their searches. Some examples of these are AOL Search and MySpace search. These search engines work in almost the same way as Google at retrieving information, even if they don’t look the same.

In the United States, Google takes up almost half of the search engine market. That means, for every search done on a search engine in the United States, nearly one in two is done with Google. Following Google is Yahoo! Search with about 24% of searches, and MSN with about 10%. AOL rounds out this list with about 6% of searches. Worldwide, Google takes an even bigger share of the market with up to 56% of worldwide searches.

While Google does dominate both the domestic and foreign search market, there are other general search engines out there that aim to search the web keywords entered. There are many sites that are based on Yahoo! technology, which is the second most popular search engine domestically and worldwide. These sites include AltaVista and AllthWeb.

There are also search engines based on MSN technology. While Windows Live (MSN) does have a smaller corner of the market, their technology is used by other search engines like A9. Ask also has several search engines based on their technology, including iWon and Lycos. Then there are whole subcategories of search engines that look at topics and information that is much more specific. After all, if a user is searching for a job, would he or she want to search on Google or on a site that only has job postings? Below are some common search engine types and for what information they search.

Job search engines: Many people use job search engine sites to look for work or career-related information. These sites generally let users choose listings based on qualifying data like location, salary, and relevant keywords like “sales” or “management.” Some notable job search engines are Monster, HotJobs (which is owned by Yahoo!), and CareerBuilder.

Multimedia search engines: While some people may want text-based information, some people may want to find pictures, videos, or sound files instead. High speed internet is growing and more people have access to more bandwidth as prices for this service have dropped. This increasing ability to handle information makes for more possibilities for multimedia. Many search engines also allow users to search for multimedia within their search engine.

Google, for example, has an image and video search option. AltaVista allows users to search for images, videos, and sound files like MP3s. Ask allows users to search for images as well as blog posts. There are some sites specifically for multimedia searching. Notable examples are Blinkx which lets users search for video, FindSounds, which searches sound files, PodScope, which searches for video and sound files, and PicSearch, which lets the user search for pictures.

Comparison shopping search engines: These search engines allow users to find the products they want to buy, then gives them tools to find the best products for them. These sites will generally let users compare prices on specific items from several different online stores. Some even calculate shipping and allow users to give feedback on online merchants to comment on their goods and service. Many will also recommend similar products, product accessories, or have other shopping-based tools that aim to serve the online shopper.

Notable comparison shopping sites include Google Product Search, formerly known as Froogle. Google combined their searching strength with comparison shopping in order to create this search engine. Kelkoo is a Yahoo! company that specializes in online buying worldwide. ShopWiki allows users to browse for products by category and specialize their product searches. Other companies include MySimon and Shopzilla.

There are many more kinds of search engines out there. Search engines can get fairly specialized. As long as there is a kind of data to be retrieved, someone will create a search engine to fill that demand. That way medical personnel, businesspeople, lawyers, accountants, and people in real estate all have specialized search engines devoted to them to help them find the information they need.

January 13, 2010

Online Shopping! the #1 Best Home Business

Online technology! Everything is exposed all over the world. Online shopping technology is a breakthrough that everybody can certainly benefit from, should they choose to do so. But why wouldn’t they? Lets face it, nothing is perfect and when I last checked it probably never will be here at least. But it is a step forward toward something that can be a great benefit to everyone in some way. Customers, vendors, factories, even the economy in some ways can be strongly affected in a positive way. Jobs, saving gas, buying for less and much more.

Online shopping creates jobs. Jobs that create a great sense of security for the future because you come to realize that you can earn extremely huge amounts of cash in short amounts of time. Owning your own home business in the online shopping industry or perhaps another equally or better home business to get involved in verses working for someone else for an hourly wage though it holds little promise for the long term future it can provide some immediate financial relief but not without consequences of always needing more, living week to week, social security is even questionable anymore. Then the 401K is taking a risk but seems to be a long term strategy of

choice and holds the same uncertainties. I checked an old 401K that a company that I’d worked for 5 years ago had put into place for me and found that it was down $300.00 from 6-8 months ago. The problem? Someone else that you don’t even know is being entrusted with all that you have to secure your future with and are investing it with no guarantees. We were all created for greatness! We were created to prosper and to excel! But You are the driver and are in complete control as to where your future takes you or you should be.

Taking charge of your own future! I personally use online shopping as an example of a vehicle to use to gain control of your future simply because #1. Since the beginning of the internet millions of ordinary people like you and me have taken charge of these types of businesses and have used this

fantastic technology and have been known to change their lives Financially beyond belief, beyond a comprehension that even their own imagination did not realize. It’s that easy. #2. In the year 2006 owners of online shopping type home businesses shared something like 18 Billion dollars in sales and in 2007 that increased to 22 Billion dollars. Now ask yourself just how much would you have earned in those 2 years working for someone else and how much of it has been put away securely towards your future. #3. Selling Information products, and sites that sell products in general in every category are doing just what they are designed to do sell, and so online shopping stores do well as a result. Selling information and other products are the internets #1 Selling industry. Online shopping is very, very, convenient for most everyone who chooses to shop. You don’t have to get dressed up and get in the car and fuss with traffic or the waiting in the lines in the different department stores etc.

For customers online shopping merely requires them to get out of bed grab a cup of coffee or their favorite beverage and simply go online and see all that they desire to see and buy products at their convenience and that makes online shopping very popular, with the exception of other factors mentioned above mainly saving fuel, and not having to deal with the traffic and crowds, the bargains are better and more plentiful and also they get to

see more of the latest new products online while relaxing in the comfort of their own home. And for the business owners basically a little advertising strategy and it could mean money in the bank.

You would be surprised just how easy it is to start an online shopping store, truly amazed. Some offer complete set-ups with hosting , a website stocked with thousands upon thousands of products with major brand named well established companies, some even help in getting your store some page rank in the search engines and the best part is you can set them all up with just a few clicks of the mouse and youre in business, an absolutely amazing concept.

November 9, 2009

Hewlett Packard (HP) Knows Technology

Bill & Dave – Garage business to world leaders in technology

As the world largest producer of personal computers (PC’s) Hewlett-Packard or HP as they are known to their millions of customers, got it’s start in 1939.  William Hewlett and David Packard, familiarly known as Bill and Dave, began the original company in the Palo Alto, California garage of Dave Packard with an initial investment of $538.  They were both electronic engineers who graduated in 1935 from Stanford University.  If the coin toss had turned out differently, the business would have become Packard-Hewlett instead of the other way around.  They incorporated in 1947 and went public in 1957.

The business of being big business

Headquartered in Palo Alto, CA with offices worldwide, HP is considered to be the world’s largest technology company and the biggest seller of personal computers (PC’s), outselling their nearest competition, Dell.  Their specialties include the manufacture and development of computers, network hardware, storage, and software for computers.  Printers, scanners, digital cameras, electronic testing equipment, medical electronics equipment, among many other lines are included in the success of HP.

Hewlett Packard out sells their competition by large margins in most any market they are in, keeping the position they’ve earned as largest technology company in the world.

HP and the early years

Loaded with wide ranging ideas and intentions, the company began in somewhat unfocused directions but finally decided to concentrate on the high quality end of electronic testing and measurement equipment.  Between the 40’s and the 90’s the concentration was on manufacturing quality electronic testing equipment such as voltmeters, oscilloscopes, signal generators, thermometers, frequency counters, wave analyzers, and other instruments.  The company prided itself in having the most sensitive equipment of any in the market.

1960-1970

Considered the symbolic founders of the Silicon Valley era, HP made semiconductors aimed toward internal use, including use in calculators and instrumentation devices

1970-1980

ATM machines and gas pumps owe credit to HP for their screen labeled function keys which are seen everywhere on those machine interfaces.  Working on stack based designs for business servers, HP continued on with the 9100A model being considered the first mass produced personal computer in 1968.  This machine had a keyboard that appeared to be a mixture of adding machine and scientific calculator.  There were no letters, just numbers.  While working at HP, Steve Wozniak (who went on to be a co founder of Apple computers) designed the original Apple I.  He then offered it to HP, giving them first right of refusal.  They turned it down.

1980-1990

By 1984 Hewlett Packard had introduced laser and inkjet printers for desktop use.  Next came desktop scanners and all in one devices capable of scanning, faxing, copying, and printing from the desktop PC.  Much of the printing capability came from Canon components which got it from Xerox.

1990 and beyond

The 90’s saw HP expanding their line of computers to reach every consumer and not just businesses.  They bought up smaller computer manufacturers and grew tremendously.  HP currently is the largest seller of personal computers for home use.

October 13, 2009

No Fears About Online Shopping

If you have ever tried shopping online, then you must have experienced the same concerns and worries that other online shoppers face from time to time. I’m talking about identity theft and payment problems, which are two of the most common fears that beginner shoppers usually face. But once you read this article, I am hoping that you will be able to set aside your concerns and gain a little more confidence in online shopping.

Shopping online is not just about convenience anymore. People have been growing more anxious about the possibility of their hard-earned money being lost or stolen through online transactions. This is the true weakness of online businesses. Potential shoppers still harbor fears of being scammed, thus they are not ready to move on from the traditional way of shopping in brick and mortar stores to the modern methods of purchasing items online.

Identity theft is another cause for concern for these shoppers. They might have heard many stories over the years about names, addresses, phone numbers, credit card numbers, and other important personal information being stolen or used in devious ways. Certainly, I can agree that this sort of thing does not help in boosting the confidence of Internet users who might otherwise be interested in online shopping.

Secure Internet connections are one of the best ways to parlay confidence to online shoppers everywhere. Most of the e-commerce websites nowadays use SSL (secure sockets layer) technology. This system is utilized by online stores to encrypt their customers’ credit card information during transactions. If you want to know whether or not a website uses SSL, check its URL. A web address that begins with “https:” is more secure than a site with only “http:” in its URL. However, the system is only as secure and as reliable as the Internet connection it is connected to. You can also use SET (secure electronic transactions) to make the connection more secure.

Most people still don’t know that the conventional payment methods they are used to are beset with more problems that online transactions. Websites are easily more efficient and quicker than the cashier stations in your local stores. Technological advances have made automated stores more secure and efficient in handling transactions, thus errors in transactions are practically reduced to zero. And if ever there is a problem, online shopping technology has made it possible to easily trace the errors and how it can be fixed. Try to compare that with your local store, where man-made transactions take up a lot of time, and errors are solved through a lengthy process of interviews and reports.

People do not need to fear online shopping anymore. The concerns I have mentioned, like identity theft and transaction errors, are quickly being erased and kept to a minimum by technology that is dedicated to keeping your online shopping experience safe, secure, and enjoyable. The owners of these e-commerce websites know that the success of their business depends on how safe their customers feel about their money. As a result, they are doing the best they can to develop and maintain a risk-free shopping environment.

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