The Vistaprint story

One of the most popular printing companies in the world is Vistaprint, a online based printing and promotional material company.  The company also provides other marketing services to businesses and consumers.

The company has been around since 1995 and is one of the largest printing companies in North America rising to 6th place in the list of largest public printing companies.

The company was originally founded by Robert Keane who remains as the current CEO. Keane saw a need in the printing world for such a service and pursued his idea of selling printing services to micro and small business. The gap that he saw was that many small businesses couldn’t afford the printing costs that most printing companies offered due to lower volumes. Being a pioneer in the area, Vistaprint gained huge market share in the sector and remain the market leader.

Vistaprint now offer services worldwide and in Australia they are starting to gain more market share. A Vistaprint promo code is offered frequently to Australian consumers to encourage their first purchase.

Will Lenovo purchase BlackBerry?

Blackberry is about to release their long awaited operating system called the BlackBerry 10. The two devices that the company has released as part of this new platform launch is the Z10 and Q10 smartphones. With these two smartphones, the company is hoping to recapture some of the popularity that the company has had in previous years.

At the moment however, one other piece of news is overshadowing this launch which is continued speculation over whether the company will be taken over.

Earlier this year, Bloomberg reported that Lenovo CEO Wong Wai Ming had confirmed that Lenovo was looking at many acquisition opportunities with BlackBerry being one of them.  The acquisition would however, be more expensive for Lenovo at this time however as BlackBerry has had a bit of a share run lately with the imminent release of the BlackBerry 10 platform.

In Australia, Lenovo offer a huge range of high quality business grade PC’s and laptops and with a Lenovo eCoupon, the prices are very affordable.

Online sales slow in December

The nature of online sales means that shoppers must wait for their goods to be delivered. This is the primary reason that analysts believe that online shopping slowed in December versus November. Most people buying Christmas presents would of ordered online early so that it would arrive in time for Christmas.

Although their was a drop in online sales from November to December, it still was a good result compared to bricks and mortar retail sales. The growth in November of online sales was twenty seven percent. This dropped to twenty three percent in December.

In terms of dollars, Australians splashed out almost $13 billion during 2012. This equated to approximately 5.8 percent of overall retail sales meaning there is a long way to go before online sales makes a real dent on retail figures.

The writing is on the wall however, that bricks and mortar stores need to do more to win back shoppers from online retailers. Stores like Clearly Contacts have been able to win over consumers by offering not only sales, but incentives like a Clearly Contacts coupon which encourages people to purchase online.

Billabong not fairing as well as Surfstitch

During the current economic environment, The massive surf wear company, Billabong, is experiencing extremely tough trading conditions and as a result, reported an earnings downgrade which sent it’s share price down dramatically.

Surfstitch on the other hand, is relatively small online only surfing retailer that has grown from strength to strength and is challenging it’s competitor on it’s home turf. In fact, Surfstitch has grown by double over the last 3 months and things don’t look like slowing down for the company.

The move of the Australian consumer to buy online more has been helping Surfstitch grow as strong as it has. Another reason is that Surfstitch offers many more brands and goods than a traditional bricks and mortar store offers. The store offers over 250 brands and next day delivery to many parts of the country.

The store was founded 3 years ago and has grown to the point where they now get 50,000 visits a day. There popularity has also been due to the fact that they frequently have a Surfstitch promo code.

Information delivered directly to your cornea

It seemed not long ago that Google introduced their wearable glasses with a HUD called Google Glass. This device generated a lot of excitement as it was a piece of equipment that was able to feed you real time intelligent information such as weather, locations, people information etc.

Some exciting information has now been released by researchers at Gent University’s Centre of Microsystems Technology. The University has announced that it has created an curved LCD that is able to be embedded into contact lens making it possible for information to be passed directly to the eyes without the need for glasses.

The technology behind the contact lens coming from Gent University allows them to use the entire surface of the lens as the LCD. This means that they can fit more information onto the unit making it more realistic for use.

This is an exciting development. I wonder if we can get a Clearly coupon that will allow us to purchase one of these cheap!

Purchasing a new phone plan

When selecting your next phone plan, there are many factors that you should take into consideration to ensure you are getting value for money and that you are selecting a service that fits your needs.

The first thing to consider when purchasing a phone plan is your budget. The carriers all offer different pricing points with Virgin mobile generally being the cheapest and Telstra being the most expensive. Generally you can get the equivalent plan on Virgin or Vodafone for significantly less than the equivalent plan on Telstra. If you have a low budget but more requirements in terms of calls, text and data then you may need to go with the cheaper carrier. Vodafone also often offers a Telstra promo code to lower the cost as well.

The second consideration when purchasing is the coverage requirements. It is important to check the coverage maps of each of the carriers to see what their coverage like in your street and area.

An online strategy for clothing retail

To be successful in an online clothing store, there are a number of strategies that should be employed to ensure that you are competitive in the market as well as popular. There are many online stores online which have become hugely successful by employing these important strategies.

The first thing that you need to do consider is free delivery and free returns. By allowing consumers the ability to receive and return goods for free, it takes away the risk factor associated with online shopping and clothing. Clothing can be extremely difficult to choose and get right so if it is not financially beneficial to do so over buying from a bricks and mortar store. You need to be able to have sufficient volumes to employ this model and remain profitable.

The second thing to consider is to offer coupons. Giving online consumers coupons for your store is a huge attraction these days. Stores like Boohoo often offer a Boohoo coupon which gives you a discount on your purchase.

The best way to choose glasses

We all know that buying glasses online are one of the riskiest moves you can make since it is quite difficult to find a pair of glasses that suits your face shape perfectly. We all know how easy it is to make a mistake when buying glasses when you don’t choose the right one.

However sometimes we are compelled to buy online because the deals are so good or we have a visiondirect coupon that we want to use.

There are some basic guidelines you should follow when selecting the perfect glasses for your face. The guidelines depend on the shape of your face.

If you have a long face, then the rule of thumb is to buy glasses that are tall as well. This will make your face look less longer than it is. If you select thin frames then you face will look too long.

If you have a short or round face then pick glasses which are thin. This will make your face appear less tall.

How online shopping is shaping retail spending

Compared to other markets around the world, Australia has really been behind in the take-up of online shopping.

Online shopping in other modern economies make up a huge percentage of sales however in Australia it has been a little slower to take on.

One of the major reasons that this has been the case is that Australia, compared to other countries, is a relatively small market. It is therefore difficult for retailers to offer the same sort of discounts to make it worthwhile as other online retailers in other countries. The economies of scale don’t become a factor in Australia.  This has meant that profit margins are thinner here and therefore don’t represent a great market.

Another reason is that the Australian dollar has been historically low meaning the cost of buying goods online has not been worthwhile.

This has all changed however and companies such as Styletread, ASOS and other companies have found it easier to do business in Australia. It is often the case that companies like Styletread offer something like a StyleTread coupon to entice customers to shop online rather than in store.