Black Friday Deals

Amazon.com Inc. remains a popular bet as products like the Kindle keeps interest in the company above average. AMZN touched a new 52 week high this week. Amazon is an online retailer which operates retail websites in North America and internationally.

Shares of Amazon are up 31.2 percent this year so far. It was a positive week overall for stocks as the primary indices in the U.S. finished in the green last session. The positive action helped to push the Dow into the green overall for the year. Amazon.com Inc shares closed on the positive side of break-even by 4.47 percent to close out the last session at 246.71. Previous close for Amazon.com was 236.15. The day’s high, according to MSN Money Stock quotes, was 246.71. Sales so far register over 40 billion and income growth is noted at just under 28 percent. Not too bad for an online company that started off as just an online bookstore. The Kindle is a mega hit and is helping to keep Amazon.com on the relevancy map. Amazon must keep relevant to compete with Borders and Barnes and Noble. Amazon is winning this game in the current market environment. Amazon.com expects to see online sales rise in noteworthy fashion in the coming months. The holiday season is approaching and sales will be increasing. Consumers are already searching out the Black Friday sales ads. Online retailers are expecting this season’s sales to surpass last years sales.

Amazon is set to release its upcoming Kindle Fire, which is aimed directly at both the tablet and e-reader market. Authors are also getting excited, as Amazon is ramping up its efforts to publish books directly without publisher intervention.

Amazon has announced that it will be publishing 122 titles this fall as part of its efforts to accelerate its publishing program. Spanning several genres, the project will involve both producing e-book formats and likewise printing the books in physical format (hard-bound and paperback). Sources cited by the New York Times say that the retail giant is aggressively wooing authors to join the program. In effect, though, the company is alienating big-name publishers that have been the bread and butter of their book retail business.

Amazon is banking on the success of their tablets and ebook readers. The company believes that this is only the natural evolution of the book publishing business. “The only really necessary people in the publishing process now are the writer and reader,” says Russel Grandinetti, an executive at the company. With the direct publishing effort, the company is taking the publishers, literary agents, and book critics out of the equation.

Authors still have mixed feelings about the new effort, though. Some authors have earned the ire of publishing houses that they are signed with — to the extent of receiving lawsuits — for self-publishing e-books on Amazon. However, Amazon’s direct publishing deals are a boon to many others, whose have often been passed over by editors for lack of a potential market. Some say that the great thing with Amazon’s new publishing program is that even grassroots authors and even small-time publishers can now get their shot at success. Now anyone with a good story can have a bestseller even without the support of the traditional publishing industry.

With the holiday season just around the corner, Black Friday has become one of the busiest shopping days of the year. From heavy discounts to long lines that rival that of an Apple product release, shoppers around the world will be spending as much as they can on their family, friends, and themselves if possible. However, online sales will help cut down on the number of people driving to the stores this season.

Before the internet even existed, Black Friday was such a big shopping day that people would take the day off just to make sure they were able to do most of their holiday shopping in one day. This resulted in stores and mall packed tighter than a can of sardines, heavy traffic, and on rare occasions fist fights. In the 1980's, Cabbage Patch Dolls were very popular among young children. Once they came out during the holiday season, parents rushed to the stores and wiped out almost the entire inventory on every toy store. In some case, cops had to be called due to fights breaking out in and outside some locations!

As time past and the internet became another part of our lives, companies have started not only bringing their in-store sales online but also starting sales early. In some cases consumers are able to enjoy those same sales for a longer period of time. Amazon, Walmart, Best Buy, and other retail stores will do this to either sell new items faster or to get rid of older items in a hurry. Regardless of the products, this results in larger discounts for everyone.

Since Black Friday is considered a big day for retailers, certain companies will use this to their advantage in order to generate high sales numbers in a shorter period of time. Video game publishers have been known to release their biggest titles during the holidays. Sometimes it's due to development cycles, but most will release their games on or even weeks before to offer them at a discount after Christmas. The same is done for smartphones, computers, clothing, toys, and other items.

So, why should consumers buy online on Black Friday? There are better deals available, more items on sale than in the stores, but the main reason is avoiding the crowds. Plus, consumers don't have to worry about fighting each other over certain items.

With a new GoldenEye game on the way for Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3, GameStop has decided to drop the price of the Wii remake all the way to $9.99. While you're at it, you can also pick up another James Bond game, Blood Stone, for the same price.

GameStop has some other unusually strong (for them) deals, including the wireless Rock Band 3 keyboard for $59.99 and DJ Hero wireless turntables for $9.99. With how cheap DJ Hero and its sequel have been recently, that's a nice, cheap way to get the DJ Hero multiplayer experience for a very small fraction of what it would have cost a year ago.

Direct2Drive has some very fun PC games for $4.95, including Just Cause 2, which is an absolute blast (and is a very difficult game to pick a single screenshot for). For that same price, you can also get The Witcher, STALKER, or Magicka.

Like last week with Altitude, Steam is letting people play Dino D-Day for free this weekend. If you end up liking it, you can get the full game for half price, $4.99.

Read on for the rest of this week's deals. Be sure to let us know what we missed in the comments.

Amazon

• Buy a 3DS game, get a select 3DS game free
• R.U.S.E. (360) -- $15.99 (from $29.99)
• Sonic Colors -- $19.52 (from $29.99)

Direct2Drive

• STALKER: Shadow of Chernobyl -- $4.95 (from $19.95)
• The Witcher: Enhanced Edition Director's Cut -- $4.95 (from $19.95)
• Just Cause 2 -- $4.95 (from $19.95)
• Mount & Blade: With Fire and Sword -- $7.50 (from $14.95)
• Magicka -- $4.95 (from $9.95)
• Alpha Protocol -- $4.95 (from $19.95)
• STALKER: Clear Sky -- $4.95 (from $19.95)
• Just Cause -- $3.75 (from $14.95)

GamersGate

• Victoria 2 -- $14.98 (from $29.95)
• Mount & Blade -- $9.98 (from $19.95)
• Mount & Blade: With Fire and Sword -- $7.48 (from $14.95)
• Mount & Blade Warband -- $14.98 (from $28.96)
• Magicka -- $4.99 (from $9.99)
• Magicka: Vietnam -- $2.47 (from $4.95)
• Magicka - four pack -- $14.98 (from $29.97)

GameStop

• GoldenEye 007 (Wii) -- $9.99 (from $39.99)
• James Bond: Blood Stone -- $9.99 (from $39.99)
• DJ Hero wireless turntable -- $9.99
• Tony Hawk Shred -- $9.99
• Tony Hawk Shred bundle -- $19.99 (from $24.99)
• Tony Hawk Ride -- $19.99
• StarCraft II -- $49.99 (from $59.99)
• Rock Band 3 wireless keyboard -- $59.99 (from $79.99)
• Dungeon Siege III (360/PS3) -- $39.99 (from $59.99)
• Dungeon Siege III (PC) -- $29.99 (from $49.99)

Good Old Games

• TopWare games 50% off

Impulse

• Bulletstorm -- $14.99 (from $29.99)
• Blood Bowl -- $4.99 (from $19.99)
• Trapped Dead -- $9.99 (from $19.99)
• Greed - Black Border -- $6.24 (from $24.99)
• Mount & Blade -- $9.99 (from $19.99)
• Mount & Blade Warband -- $14.99 (from $29.99)
• Mound & Blade: With Fire and Sword -- $7.49 (from $14.99)
• King Arthur -- $9.99 (from $19.99)
• King Arthur Collection -- $14.99 (from $29.99)
• Magicka -- $4.99 (from $9.99)
• Magicka Vietnam -- $2.49 (from $4.99)
• Victoria Complete -- $9.99 (from $19.99)
• Victoria II -- $14.99 (from $29.99)
• THQ Ultimate Bundle -- $99.99 (from $294.83)

Steam

• Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines -- $4.99 (from $19.99)
• Capsized -- $3.39 (from $9.99)
• Dino D-Day -- $4.99 (from $9.99)
• DCS A-10C Warthog -- $40.00 (from $59.99)
• Gods and Heroes: Rome Rising -- $14.99 (from $29.99)
• Digital Combat Simulator: Black Shark -- $26.66 (from $39.99)
• The Kings' Crusade -- $9.99 (from $19.99)

The movement to force Internet retailers to collect sales tax is designed to level the playing field between so-called “Main Street” shops and online rivals like Amazon.com Inc.

The movement, however, could have the unintended effect of paving the way for retail behemoth Wal-Mart Stores Inc. to further consolidate its market power into the online world, if price comparisons are any indication.

MarketWatch conducted an informal shopping expedition at the websites of Wal-Mart WMT +0.15% , its chief brick-and-mortar rival Target Corp. TGT -0.22% and Amazon AMZN +1.07% . The findings show that despite having to charge taxes, Wal-Mart still holds a slight edge over Amazon in price, and a much greater advantage over Target.

MarketWatch priced five identical items at the three outlets — a videogame, a best-selling novel, a case of golf balls, an iPod Touch and a 32-inch flat-panel television. With taxes and shipping included, the final total for the Wal-Mart shopping trip was $672.15 compared with $672.77 for Amazon, a difference of 62 cents. Target’s total was $732.86.

Yet Wal-Mart — accused over the years of decimating mom-and-pop stores in numerous small towns — has joined with other retailers to lobby for mandatory sales taxes on online transactions. Company officials say that they’ve joined with other brick-and-mortar companies to help them level the playing field.

“Main Street businesses and retailers are losing out as online-only retailers are gaming the system and creating an unfair playing field,” Wal-Mart spokesman Daniel Morales said in an e-mail. “This is bad public policy. Tax policies should not be any different for online-only retailers than those for retailers that operate brick and mortar operations.”

But the ultimate effect of an online sales tax is that Wal-Mart may be able to relegate Amazon to a pricing category that is closer to Target and other retailers, while putting some distance between itself and everyone else.

Amazon has fought against online taxes in the states where they’re currently levied, including California, New York, North Carolina, Colorado, Illinois, Rhode Island and Connecticut. This week, Amazon said it would seek a referendum in California to have voters determine whether it should charge the 7.25% sales tax in that state, the highest of any in the nation.

 

Amazon ready to fight California

Amazon vows to fight a tax proposal by California's legislature.

“This is a referendum on jobs and investment in California,” Paul Misener, Amazon’s vice president of public policy, said in an e-mailed statement. “We support this referendum against the recent sales tax legislation because, with unemployment at well over 11%, Californians deserve a voice and a choice about jobs, investment and the state’s economic future.”

California’s law, which went into effect July 1, allows the charging of taxes through an online retailer’s affiliates that refer customers to Amazon and are based in the state. As a result, Amazon has cut ties with 10,000 California affiliates while it seeks to resolve the sales tax issue.

The MarketWatch survey doesn’t prove that Wal-Mart will beat Amazon on all pricing; but it does indicate that it can compete with the online retailer. The study chose items that were available at all three online outlets of Amazon, Wal-Mart and Target in the same exact model and/or quantity.

A more detailed study from William Blair retail analyst Mark Miller published earlier this week found that Amazon averaged an 11% price discount compared to its brick-and-mortar rivals. The study looked at a total of 2,400 items, or 100 items for each of the 24 retailers included in the survey. See full story on Amazon report from William Blair.

While items such as shaving cream, toothpaste and laundry detergent are sold at all three, the exact same variations on a brand usually are not available in the same quantities at all three. Target may offer, for example, a particular variation on Colgate toothpaste only in packages of two tubes, while it might be six tubes at Wal-Mart and only one at Amazon.

But Wal-Mart seems to consistently beat competitors in online sales by keeping its shipping costs low. And those low shipping costs come in handy in several cases. One interesting find is that Amazon may fall well short of Wal-Mart in the low pricing department on one of its cornerstone businesses — book sales.

Breaking out the hardcover best-seller, “Smokin’ Seventeen” — one of the items on the MarketWatch shopping list — shows that Amazon charges more than $2 more to get that item to consumers than does Wal-Mart.

So the final cost to consumers is $18.50 from Wal-Mart and $19.20 from Amazon. For the record, Wal-Mart charges one penny less than Amazon for the base price of the book, $15.20 vs. $15.21. And the total cost to buy the book at Target, including shipping and taxes, is $22.17.

Danny Diaz is spokesman for the Alliance for Main Street Fairness, a group that seeks to force online retailers to charge sales taxes. He says regardless of what Wal-Mart is charging, a raft of retailers are at a disadvantage when trying to compete with Amazon.

“Any business should be required to compete on the price of the product. They shouldn’t have to compete on whether they collect the sales tax,” Diaz said. “Ultimately, this is an issue about fairness.”

Amazon was effectively able to slash $50 off the price of its 3G Kindle on Wednesday – with a little help from AT&T.

The e-tailer announced a new version of its ad-supported Kindle, or what it calls its “Kindle with Special Offers.” The new version will operate on both WiFi and AT&T’s 3G networks, but will cost only $139 compared to $189 for the current 3G version of the Kindle.

The difference is the new Kindle comes bundled with advertisements and sponsored screensavers.

Amazon made a similar move with its WiFi-only Kindle earlier this year, offering an ad-supported version of the device for $114 compared to $139 for the ad-free version.  In May, the company launched a 3G version of ad-supported Kindle priced at $164.

The original ad-supported Kindle was supported  by several sponsors, including Visa, Procter & Gamble and Buick. Amazon AMZN said in its statement on Wednesday that AT&T T will sponsor the 3G version – which has enabled a 26% price reduction on the device compared to the current $189 price tag.

This latest move represents Amazon upping its ante in the competitive e-reader market, as it makes the 3G Kindle now on par price-wise with the latest version of the Nook from chief rival Barnes & Noble. The new Nook offers a touch-screen – which is not available on the Kindle – but comes in only a WiFi version at $139. Barnes also sells the LCD-based Nook Color – often referred to as a “Reader’s Tablet” for $249 – and Amazon is widely rumored to be working on a tablet of its own for a market launch later this year.

Amazon shares were up more than 2% by midday Wednesday, signaling that investors are not too concerned with the company eating into its profit margins on this latest move. Tear-down data from HIS iSuppli last year indicated that the company already prices the Kindle at near-break-even levels, so the fact that Amazon got AT&T to effective underwrite its latest price cut may help assuage concerns that the company’s already-thin margins will survive this latest move to keep its lead in this market segment.

Source: .marketwatch.com