BigHabitat
Level 2 Member
Portal Bonus Roundup: Here’s whats on my cashbackmonitor:
Sears 8x and Staples 6x through SW portal sounds good but pickings are unusually slim
Sears – deals have dried up, and they seem to be getting out of video games. Video game accessories seemed to go on clearance over the last week or so. All of the gaming “hot deals” are now from third party sellers. Not confidence inspiring considering Sears financial troubles.
Staples – The play here at Staples has been to buy ipad airs (the older ipad airs, not the air 2s) and sell them on amazon. $319 + tax at Staples for the 16gb versions (less any epromo discounts… ) and selling for $378 on Amazon. Make a few bucks and get 5x points plus 5% rewards. Unfortunately the online deals have been harder to come but if you need to use some Staples rewards before they expire on 12/31 I would do it now! Also 6x Southwest plus 5x Ink bold is really good if you actually need to buy things for yourself.
Microsoft 6x on Alaska portal – Seems to have some good deals, but all are “Signature Edition” which means the computers/tablets don’t have the usual bloatware. That’s good, but it probably means tougher to resell since it may have a different product description and SKU.
One year Twitterversary
Apparently it is my 1-year anniversary on Twitter. Here’s a shout out to all followers of the blog and on twitter! From 0 followers to 468 – must be some sort of record.
They want me to tweet the news… but I’m not going to do what the twitter “man” wants and instead I will spread the news first outside of twitter to you guys. So if you tweet something to bighabitatcom on twitter about the anniversary I will retweet it and give you the credit for reading the blog and noticing. Sorry, no prizes
Holiday selling thus far
Ok, I’m traveling right now so I’m not in an ordering mode, but I as I pointed out above, the deals have been weak in the last few days. So before leaving, I send a large shipment of goods for sale. Surprisingly, its all sold except for a couple of headphones and boomboxes.
What’s selling? Ipad Airs (Staples), 2013 Nexus 7s (Groupon), Asus Tablets (Sears), BEM Micro speaker (Sears), Linksys WRT1900 routers (Staples), Skylanders Swap Force (Sears), Computers (Staples, Sears)
What’s slow? Nakamichi headphones / BEM Beatbox stuff from sears
What’s stranded? Wii U units Mario sets from Dell and Target. I’m sorry some kids won’t get these before Christmas. I didn’t have time to send these. I hope the Amazon price holds at $299
Lessons learned
Sears 8x and Staples 6x through SW portal sounds good but pickings are unusually slim
Sears – deals have dried up, and they seem to be getting out of video games. Video game accessories seemed to go on clearance over the last week or so. All of the gaming “hot deals” are now from third party sellers. Not confidence inspiring considering Sears financial troubles.
Staples – The play here at Staples has been to buy ipad airs (the older ipad airs, not the air 2s) and sell them on amazon. $319 + tax at Staples for the 16gb versions (less any epromo discounts… ) and selling for $378 on Amazon. Make a few bucks and get 5x points plus 5% rewards. Unfortunately the online deals have been harder to come but if you need to use some Staples rewards before they expire on 12/31 I would do it now! Also 6x Southwest plus 5x Ink bold is really good if you actually need to buy things for yourself.
Microsoft 6x on Alaska portal – Seems to have some good deals, but all are “Signature Edition” which means the computers/tablets don’t have the usual bloatware. That’s good, but it probably means tougher to resell since it may have a different product description and SKU.
One year Twitterversary
Apparently it is my 1-year anniversary on Twitter. Here’s a shout out to all followers of the blog and on twitter! From 0 followers to 468 – must be some sort of record.
They want me to tweet the news… but I’m not going to do what the twitter “man” wants and instead I will spread the news first outside of twitter to you guys. So if you tweet something to bighabitatcom on twitter about the anniversary I will retweet it and give you the credit for reading the blog and noticing. Sorry, no prizes
Holiday selling thus far
Ok, I’m traveling right now so I’m not in an ordering mode, but I as I pointed out above, the deals have been weak in the last few days. So before leaving, I send a large shipment of goods for sale. Surprisingly, its all sold except for a couple of headphones and boomboxes.
What’s selling? Ipad Airs (Staples), 2013 Nexus 7s (Groupon), Asus Tablets (Sears), BEM Micro speaker (Sears), Linksys WRT1900 routers (Staples), Skylanders Swap Force (Sears), Computers (Staples, Sears)
What’s slow? Nakamichi headphones / BEM Beatbox stuff from sears
What’s stranded? Wii U units Mario sets from Dell and Target. I’m sorry some kids won’t get these before Christmas. I didn’t have time to send these. I hope the Amazon price holds at $299
Lessons learned
- Demand is surprisingly robust on old models around Christmas if you get them to Amazon in time to ship before Christmas. The prices on the older models of ipad Airs and Nexus 7s have held up surprisingly well
- Older models sometimes are selling for higher prices than holiday bundles (why would somebody pay $379 for the plain X-box one when the Assassin’s Creed bundle is $349 and comes with a $50 Amazon credit for a net of $299? See here. Granted the sales rank is less, but c’mon it tells you on the product page there is a newer version.
- Although sellers can read the gift comments on the order details page when someone sends your item as a gift, you may not want to. I don’t think Santa would really use the word “poop” in a gift note that he signs!