Tag: consumer

Weve been busy here getting ready for the holiday shopping season, whichdespite its early start this yeartraditionally starts on Black Friday.
In addition to following deals and offering shopping tips here on the Electronics Blog, our reporters and testers have been updating the buying advice for a host of products at ConsumerReports.org. Theyve also been hard at work in our labs, as the flood of new product Ratings within the last week and a half can attest.

Electronics are again at the top of a lot of gift lists for the coming holiday season, according to the results of a Consumer Reports Holiday Shopping Poll released this week.

Here, are the five hottest electronics gifts, listed in order of respondents intentions to give them. Ive added some reasons why theyre hot at the moment and, for some, details on the kind of people who are buying them

Consumer Cellular a nationwide provider of cellular phones and services, is expanding its cell phone line to include two senior friendly cell phones designed by Doro, an award-winning Swedish company with more than 30 years of product design experience. With enlarged, raised buttons and easy-to-read display text, the Doro PhoneEasy 345 and 410 cell phones offered exclusively by Consumer Cellular make dialing and text messaging simple for all users.
These new senior cell phones are friendly in use and affordable to purchase. The Doro PhoneEasy 345 is a basic, bar-style senior cell phone, while the 410 features a clamshell flip design and is available in black and white.

Consumers continue to buy technology products to improve their lives, although the consumer electronics industry will see revenues decline in 2009, according to new data released by the Consumer Electronics Association.
The U.S. Consumer Electronics Sales and Forecast shows that industry revenues will contract to $165 billion in 2009 but grow slightly in 2010. The consumer electronics industry will see shipment revenues fall 7.7%, to $165 billion this year, the first decline since 2001.
While consumer demand for electronics products remains high, several market forces are contributing to lower revenues, including lower consumer spending, price declines and compositional shifts in product categories.

NEW YORK (Reuters) - U.S. consumer confidence rose in June, mirroring the strong gains the stock market has made since early March, a survey released on Tuesday said.

Investor's Business Daily and TechnoMetrica Market Intelligence said their IBD/TIPP Economic Optimism Index climbed to 50.8 in June from 48.6 in May, marking its highest reading since November 2008.