Online Shopping

The New Year brings with it the much awaited numbers from online holiday spending. And its good news. For the full holiday online shopping season, $29.1 billion was spent online, showing 4 percent increase versus the same period last year, according to comScore. It looks like consumers spent just over $2 billion online over the past week, as $27 billion was spent online as of last week for the shopping season from November 1 through Christmas Eve. The day consumers spent the most online happened to be on Tuesday, December 15, a.k.a, “Green Tuesday,” with consumers spending a total of $913 million in one day. In fact, Green Tuesday was one of nine individual days to surpass $800 million in spending during the 2009 holiday season. Not too shabby, considering the economy has yet to fully recover from a crippling recession.

With respect to individual product categories, online sales of jewelry and watches rose the most, growing 20 percent from 2008. Consumer electronics came in second with 15 percent sales growth from the previous year. Consumer electronics saw strong sales of flat panel TVs, mobile devices and e-readers. Other product categories that showed a strong performance were event tickets, computer hardware and books/magazines.

From reports over the past few months, the numbers indicated that the total online spending would be higher this year than last, when the U.S. spending was blindsided with a crippling recession. The final shopping weekend before Christmas saw a 13 percent growth rate in online spending from the previous year, thanks to the wintry mess that hit the Eastern Seaboard. And the full week posted a 6 percent yearly increase in spending, setting a one-week sales record with more than $4.8 billion in spending. Online sales numbers from Black Friday and Cyber Monday also appeared to be stronger than last year.

ComScore also reported that larger e-retailers like Best Buy and Walmart outperformed the smaller online shops. The web analytics company says that sales from larger retailers were buoyed by promotions, and offers of free shipping later in the holiday season. Social media was also used as a strategy for retailers. 28 percent of shoppers surveyed by comScore reported that social media promotions from retailers influenced their purchases.

Of course, it’s important to note that these sales numbers are being compared to those from last year, when spending was at a low thanks to the bleak conditions of the economy. But online retailers have reason to be optimistic for next year as the economy steadily recovers, and consumers increasingly look online to find for holiday deals.

Instant Price Changes In Banner Ads Reflect Movement To Real-Time Web
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Office Supply

In the frenzy of spring redecorating and cleaning, don't forget your favorite place, the home office.

The home office can be a complete room dedicated to work, or just a corner tucked away in the corner of a room somewhere. The home office invites piles, papers, work, and disorganization. If you dread sitting down at the desk in your home office, mainly because you can't see the top of the desk past the dust and the paper, consider giving it more than a spring cleaning. Give the home office a spring re-awakening, by working on a new spring decor.

Spring Decorating Ideas for Awakening the Senses: Sight

The sight of your home office may send you screaming in the other direction. The solution? Put as much as you can out of sight.
Find or make a place and put everything away. Yes, everything. Are your files out in the open? Are you in desperate need of a filing cabinet?

Sort thorough the paperwork, tossing what's old, seeing what you need, to find out what kind of storage you need. Purchase a short drawer filing cabinet, or go all out and buy yourself a new desk with filing drawers.

Also buy a canvas open-topped filing bin for the files that you use all the time. A colorful box or design will add some life to that old office and the color will spring it to life.

If your desk is against a wall, and the wall is blank, use it in your spring decor plan to make it useful anddecorative . Invest in some wall-mounted filing folders, and a calendar. If a paper calendar is not for you, find a useful dry erase calendar board at an office supply store like Staples.

Office supply stores like Staples have been adding more and more decorative items, like desk accessories to their inventories. Selecting a brightly colored and matching desk accessory set will invite you to use your home office more this spring.

Even better than just a dry erase calendar or board, is one that is also magnetic. The magnetic dry erase boards come with round and bright magnets, which liven up any office space that was hibernating.

Unless your home office or work area is near a window, you may need to shed some light on the situation. Find a wall-mounted light if youprefer a clear desktop. Use a light that is compatible with full-spectrum light bulbs, which provide you will the full spectrum of natural light. That way, you won't be craving the spring sunlight so much you may actually get some work finished.

Spring Decorating Ideas for Awakening the Senses: Touch

If your office is in a living space, find some fabric to adhere to the front of the filing cabinet drawers. The fabric will make the cabinet look more homey, and add to your spring decor. Also mix different textures in the home office: a comfortable office chair, with a wooden desk, and plush carpet underfoot.

A well-placed plant can also add texture and life to the new home office.

Spring Decorating Ideas for Awakening the Senses: Sound

Treat yourself to some speakers for your computer, if only to drown out any household noises so you can actually get some work done.

Spring Decorating Ideas for Awakening the Senses: Smell

While you may not be decorating the space with fresh spring flowers every week, there is on product that can bring pleasant scents to your office, all year long. Find some reed diffusers which are reeds in containers of essential oils. A citrus scent will help you think.


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brother laser printers

brother laser printers

Small Business Office

When you are a small business seeking out additional funding for your various business ventures, there are several places where you can receive the finances you need. Some of these places include getting a loan from a bank or opening a small business credit card. However, there is a very popular method of obtaining finances for a small business, and that is through a small business grant.

However, how do you get a small business grant? The answer to that is simple, by writing a small business grant letter. Yet, there are several tips that will help you obtain a small business grant, and when you use them your chances of being rewarded with this government money are increased.

Before you even begin writing your small business grant proposal letter, you must first find a grant for your particular needs. Searching for a small business grant is very time consuming, thus before you even begin to think about obtaining a small business grant, you must ensure that you have the time and money to do extensive research in finding a small business grant.

If you feel you have the time to perform such a search, than great, however, if you do not have the time or resources to perform this inquiry, than there are other options. You can hire a grant consultant if you need help in securing and negotiating grants for your small business, however, this is an expensive alternative and if you don't have the extra finances this isn't a viable option.

But many small businesses still have a resounding question, "Where can I find small business grants?" The best place to start your small business grant search is by turning to the Catalog of Federal Domestic Assistance, or CFDA. This catalog lists all of the government grants you can choose from, and the best part of all is, it is free. However, you will quickly find that most small business grants are made for minority businesses and other rural businesses. Yet, there are grants that are made for equipment and training. If you search hard enough, there is a small business grant for nearly every type of business, all it takes a little perseverance and a lot of patience.

Whenever you find a small business grant, be prepared for a very lengthy approval process, sometimes this process can take in upwards of a year. Yet there are several tips that you can utilize to help make the approval process go quicker.

• Make sure that all of your applications are completely filled out with accurate information. By turning in incomplete or inaccurate applications the approval process will come to a stand-still adding literally months to your final answer.
• Be as professional as possible. Always have a full business-plan, even if one isn't initially required.
  
  By obtaining as much information about your company and its business practices and plans, you will be able to provide more than enough information to the grant office, thus expediting the process.
• If needed, hire a grant consultant. This is a slightly more expensive route to take, however, it can help save you time, and ultimately money.
• Maintain an open line of communication with the grant office. Check in with them periodically, however, do not be over-zealous with your communications, as this will aggravate the grant office.
  
  Whenever you speak with your grant officer make sure you are polite and professional. You attitude towards the process and willingness to work with the grant office can be the one thing that allows you to gain your finances quicker, or it can be the demise of the entire process.

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hp photo printer

hp photo printer

Printers Office

As there are many types of computers available in the marketplace, so there are many types of printers from which you can choose. There are printers available that would be better suited for the workplace rather than the home and there are also printers that would be better off in a home office rather than the work place. There are three types of printers. They are monochrome (black and white) laser, ink jet and color laser printers. Each of these printers serves a specific purpose and it will be up to you to decide which printer will be the best fit for your situation. The monochrome or black/white laser printers offer an equal balance between price, print quality and speed. Almost every office in the world has some form of this printer. For home office user, you might want to choose this printer if you are going to be printing a lot of text documents. The monochrome laser printer is cheaper to maintain than an ink jet printer. However, if you want color then you would want to look at an ink jet printer. This printer is also faster than the ink jet due to the fact that it is only using black ink. For a printer that costs less than $500 it prints out nine to twelve pages per minute. For a printer in this price range it would mainly be used by home office users and small business owners. For a machine that costs $750 and more the pages per minute is eleven to eighteen. Another item of interest would be the print resolution. Print resolution refers to the number of dots in a square inch that the printer can output. This can be important when printing out graphics. Though if you want to print out graphics you might want to look into getting a printer that prints in color. There are some minor considerations to consider. The first being the memory of the printer. For a printer in the less than $500 price range, the memory is between 2 mg and 8 mg. For printers above the $750 range it would be between 16 and 64 mg. The higher the memory the more pages it will print out quickly. Another consideration would be in the connections. For a home user a USB or parallel port is all that they would need to connect a printer to a PC. For business users or those with home networks they would want an Ethernet port so more than one user can share the printer. Last but certainly not least would be the paper tray capacity. For the printer that costs less than $500 the tray will hold 150-350 sheets. For the higher priced printers the tray will hold 350-650 sheets. The second type of printer is the ink jet printer. Ink jet printers are the slowest but most affordable printers in the market. They are designed for home users, students and anyone else who is not concerned about the quality of the text. Again we will look at a few features that need to be addressed when purchasing an ink jet printer. First is the quality of the print. For a printer in the under $150 range the print is adequate to good. For printers above the $150 range the print quality is good to very good. The second item of interest would be the cost of replacing the ink cartridges. For printers under $150 the cost of replacing the cartridges would be between $20-$50. For printers above $150 the cost would be between $20-$75. The third type of printer is the color laser printer. These are designed for those offices in which a lot of graphic art printing is done. There are very few home users who will need this type of printer. The price range for these printers falls between $2300 and $5500. The inexpensive printers which fall below $2300 have adequate to good print quality. The higher end printers will have very good to excellent print quality. The print speed when you print in color is between one and three pages per minute. Again you will have to ask yourself what office the printer is going into and for what purpose will it serve.


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dyson dc07

dyson dc07