The Times West Virginian

Opinion

November 30, 2008

King Electronics a big winner

The National Retail Federation is predicting a huge drop in sales for the 2008 holiday season — a drop of 0.2 percent.

OK. That figure sure doesn’t sound like much, until you start putting in all of the zeroes after a dollar sign. That’s 10 of them, to be exact. The organization expects that holiday shopping will drop by $10 billion to about $460 billion. Geeze. What I could do with just a fraction of that money.

The NRF also said that while Black Friday was robust for chain stores, the crowds may have been decreased by 20 percent from last year and (egad!) shoppers may have just been looking for a deal and then headed back home for some leftover turkey instead of staying out and impulse buying their way into debt.

The deals they couldn’t pass up? Everything from flat-screen TVs to electronic dinosaurs.

So, like we do every week, we asked our readers at www.timeswv.com to weigh in and let us know what was on their lists as they headed out to the stores on Black Friday.

At the bottom of wish lists were bicycles, scooters and other athletic equipment, coming in at only 9.38 percent. So there may not be as many Schwinns under Christmas trees this year, but who needs to ride a bike and get some fresh air when you can sit at home in a stuffy house and play Wii Fit?

Getting a little more love this year were dolls, action figures and other traditional toys, coming in at 18.75 percent of the votes. Well, there’s so much movie merchandise to choose from when it comes to traditional toys — you don’t just buy a doll anymore. You buy a “High School Musical 3” or “Hannah Montana” Barbie doll. And you don’t buy toy soldiers. You buy “Iron Man” or “Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull” action figures. A plain old stuffed teddy bear? How about Elmo Live instead?

Nope. More kids want the latest fashions in shoes, jeans and clothing, or at least that’s what 28.12 percent of our voters said. Come on, there’s got to be a tween girl out there who needs a pair of Ugg boots. Then there’s whatever jean fad is in this week — discolored, pre-worn, already holey. When are they going to make a pair of jeans that has pen leak marks, holes in the pockets or grass stains at the knee? You’ll have to forgive my cynicism here. The last time I was fashionable, I was wearing acid-washed jeans that were pegged to show off my pink high-top Chucks.

The winner here, and who can be surprised, was King Electronics. For 43.75 percent of our shoppers/voters, video game consoles or hand-held gaming devices are this year’s big-ticket items.

Two of the big three — Sony’s Playstation 3 and Microsoft’s Xbox 360 — have seen price cuts and extra benefits added to them to try and entice buyers this holiday season who finally don’t have to take out a second mortgage to afford them. Nintendo’s Wii still is in such high demand that it’s rarely on shelves in the middle of August let alone during the holiday season.

But that’s the age we live in now. Gone are the baseball bats, balls and God-forbid anything that has to be used outside. Now, with the advent of Internet gaming on consoles, you don’t even need real friends to play with anymore. Back in the day if you wanted to play Atari or Nintendo with your friends you actually had to be in the same house, maybe even required to ride your bike or walk there for some exercise.

From toddlers to teenagers and even a lot of adults, video games remain the chosen pastime, and this holiday season is no exception.

And to illustrate the point, take look back up there and see what got the least amount of votes.

This week, we’ve got more on our holiday plate. With the wonderful drop in the cost of gasoline, are you planning any major Christmastime trips?

Log on. Vote. E-mail me.

Misty Poe

City Editor

mpoe@timeswv.com

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