$5,000 Game Room Contest Begins

If you need a game room renovation or a brand new $5,000 game room, Sears has started a contest that you would be interested in entering according to a press release today. The company has begun the Hit Us With Your Best Shot billiard video contest. Jeannette Lee, the Black Widow, has joined the sporting goods department at Sears to bring one lucky video entry the grand prize along with 5 $100 Sears gift card second place winners. Sounds like a nice deal for the right billiard player.

Contestants need to enter a short video of their best billiard shot to HitUsWithYourBestShot.com before January 17th to be entered. Accuracy, originality and technique will be the criteria for judging the videos. The public will also vote on the videos similar to American Idol. Voters have a chance at a $25 Sears gift card. Get your Flip video camcorder out today and submit your video for this nice contest.

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Top 50 Websites in November 2009

Compete.com has completed their analysis of web traffic for the previous month and found some interesting trends. According to their press release (see chart) bargain hunting websites saw a good increase in traffic along with sites selling technology gadgets for Christmas. In fact holiday shopping was very active as sites providing online options for shoppers came in third with the best search traffic growth.

Search traffic increased for bargain shopping websites such as Pricegrabber.com and RetailMeNot.com saw increases of 36% each. Technology shopping websites like BestBuy.com, Gamestop.com and NewEgg.com also saw big gains. Best Buy traffic jumped almost 75% while the others also saw big jumps. Amazon.com, WalMart.com and eBay.com all saw good gains as consumers began shopping for Christmas late in the month of November.

Deloitte Warns Consumers During Holiday Season

Deloitte wants every online shopper to be vigilant this holiday shopping season and has provided a number of tips in a recent press release. Cyber Criminals are very active during the holiday shopping season so consumers need to be careful when searching for gifts to purchase online.

The advice begins with being careful who you give your credit card information to when online. Monitor your credit card and bank statements to notice fraud early in the process. Keep your login information current and change regularly. And keep your security patches up to date for Windows and Anti-Virus software installed on your home PC.

Other good tips include not using free internet access sites, don’t respond to rogue virus alerts when browsing the web, simply shut down the browser, sign-up for credit monitoring and be cautious when posting information on social networking sites like Facebook as criminals look for clues of vulnerable situations.

Milo.com Reaches Milestone and Adds Features

Helping shoppers research items online for free and providing local locations to make purchases has helped Milo.com reach one million users a month. Launching from beta, the website has attracted shoppers from across the country looking for the best price on holiday gifts and wanting to purchase the items locally. The site attempts to take the best features of eBay and Amazon and make it all local so shoppers can see and feel the items before buying.

New Features

New features have recently been added to give users even more search capability. In-Stock searches can be selected to only show items that are in-stock. No more going to the local store to find out they do not have the item. Price alerts are based on a single item at a single store within the users local region. When the item reaches the price you select, you are notified. And finally the Hottest Product List (could have been named by Paris), allows shoppers to browse what others have been searching for.

Online Sales Jump 47% for Black Friday and Cyber Monday

The combined results of Black Friday and Cyber Monday for 2009 exceed sales from last year by 47% according to Retail Decisions. Black Friday performed better with $3.1 billion in sales which is an increase of 52%. Cyber Monday saw sales of $2.2 billion which is 35% better than last year. The good sales on Black Friday related to the heavy discounting that occurred on the day.

The top performing products online for the two day period included the TomTom GPS, Kodak Digital Cameras, Nintendo Wii, Ice Age 3, and Sony Digital Cameras. Some products popular as frauds included virtual gift cards, XBox 360, Nintendo Wii, and the Call of Duty XBox game.