VOLUME 1, NUMBER 168
HOT*BUTTON*STORY
(HOLIDAY SURVEY SAYS JEN & GEORGE UNDER THE MISSILE TOE!!)
** EBAY GIFT CARD NEXT HOTTIE FOR THE HOLIDAYS
** SURVEY SAYS GIFT CARDS AND MISSILE TOE EQUAL CLOONEY/ANISTON
** GOVERNMENT WANTS TO HEAR MORE ABOUT RECALL FROM TOYMAKERS
** UPPER DECK TREATS PLAYOFF CITY HOBBY STORES
** DUNGEONS & DRAGONS YEAR FOUR CELEBRATION SATURDAY
** NAXCOM JUMPING INTO AUCTIONS THIS COMING WEEK
** MCFARLANE OFFERING DICE-K FIVE OTHERS
** SIMPSON GAME DROPS ANOTHER DIME ON THE JUICE
** FORMER UPPER DECK V-P SAFE FROM FIRES
** RED SOX ROOKIE HOTTER THAN HOT ON AUTOGRAPH MARKET
** UPPER DECK REDEMPTIONS GETTING BETTER
DETAILS ON THESE AND OTHER STORIES COMING UP IN TODAY'S BRILL REPORT
EDITORIAL COMMENT: HALLOWEEN CARDS A HIT!!
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(EBAY OFFERS GIFT CARD FOR THE HOLIDAYS)
A new item from eBay is now appearing right next to Angelina Jolie, Brad Pitt, Brittney Spears and all the other tabloid tracers as the holiday season is ushered in. The eBay Gift Card is sure to discourage hobby dealers and sure to perk up the hearts of eBay on-line sellers.
"This is the first time eBay has offered a Gift Card off-line, and we're excited to extend the brand to consumers in this way through grocery retailers throughout the country," said Gary Briggs, eBay's Chief Marketing Officers. "Giving and eBay Gift Card means giving your friends and loved ones the opportunity to shop on eBay and find exactly what they want this holiday season."
The idea is going to be a huge hit. Consumers can purchase these cards in various denominations at over 10,000 grocery outlets nationwide including Von's, Safeway, Kroger and Ralphs. The Gift Card market continues to grow by leaps and bounds and last year reached $28 billion in sales. That figure was twice the amount in 2005 according to the National Retail Federation.
"As the popularity of gift cards continue to grow it was only natural to develop a gift card for one of the most popular sites on the Internet," said Don Kingsborough, CEO of Blackhawk Network which developed the card for the auction giant. "We're thrilled to distribute the eBay Gift Card just in time for the holiday season."
(The new eBay Gift Card available at grocery stores)
eBay's pitch is the card is good for sellers and buyers. Buyers because they can pick what they want to buy and for sellers it should increase sales. People with gift cards will automatically go searching on eBay for the items they want to buy.
It works in conjunction with PayPal. The user makes a purchase on eBay, clicks on the PayPal Payment tab and proceeds to checkout. As long as the seller takes PayPal, which most do, they can accept the gift card. PayPal is of course owned by eBay. There is a 13-digit number to use underneath the scratch off on the back of the card.
The bonus for companies which issue many gift cards is an enormous amount of the money placed on the card is never used. This in reality turns into free money the issuer keeps and never pays out.
For hobby dealers who do not use eBay this is another way for consumers, collectors and buyers to avoid the local hobby shop. The increase in giving gift cards in the past two years has been phenomenal and with the ease of purchasing these gift cards at the local check out counter, it only seems natural more people will go away from the traditional retail store and to the eBay on-line purchase.
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(PAYPAL SURVEY SAYS GIFT CARDS, ANISTON AND CLOONEY HOT FOR HOLIDAYS)
As eBay begins issuing Gift Cards it only makes sense for PayPal to come out with a survey saying gift cards are the hottest item for the holidays this year. It also just happens to be true. The survey says 64-percent of gift givers this season will give Gift Cards, while 57-percent of recipients say they would prefer getting a Gift Card instead of a gift.
(Jen or Angelina?)
The survey was done by Nielsen Customized Research and went on to say kissing under the mistletoe has a special wish list as well. Jennifer Aniston is the preferred choice by men to meet under the shrub at 27-percent compared to Angelina Jolie at only 17-percent while on the ladies side, 29-percent of the women surveyed prefer George Clooney to 22-percent for Johnny Depp and 11-percent for Brad Pitt. Seems Mr. Pitt is losing his appeal.
As far as on-line shopping?
"Holiday shoppers are more comfortable shopping on-line this year than ever before," said Susan Phillips, PayPal on-line purchasing executive. "Consumers have chosen to swap the in store rush for the on-line experience, citing convenience, time savings, less stress and better prices as the top reasons to shop on-line."
The survey showed consumers plan on spending an average of just over $400 and 40-percent of their purchases on-line for the holidays. This is a jump of about 11-percent over 2006 when new records were set for on-line shopping.
Actually the Holiday shopping season begins today (November 1) as seen last year when the traditional holiday shopping season kick off date of the day after Thanksgiving was supplanted by the November 1 date. The biggest on-line shopping day of the year is Cyber Monday, the first weekday after the Thanksgiving Day weekend.
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(RC2 GOVERNMENT REQUESTS)
The Federal Government wants to talk to RC2 Corporation about getting the lead out. RC2 is one of the very first toy makes to issue a recall of toys made in China which contained too much lead in the paint used on the toy. The move cost RC2 dearly as last week the company issued it's latest financial report and took some heavy losses.
(Thomas and Friends among first recalls.)
The Energy and Commerce Committee of the Congress is asking RC2 and three other toy makers for input on the lead paint issue as it drafts legislation to protect consumers. The government is demanding the companies clarify their part in testing, vendor contracts, recalled products and the process for the recall of products.
Earlier this week House Speaker Nancy Pelosi called for the resignation of the head of the Consumer Product Safety Commission citing millions of toys recalled, toys laden with lead laced paint. Congress said it hopes to have legislation drafted next week to deal with the issue and is looking to make changes in the way the Safety Commission handles the process.
"To solve the problem of lead in children's products we must first retrace the events that allowed these serious mistakes to occur," said congressman John Dintell (D-MI), in a statement. "Unfortunately we did not receive the complete answers from all the companies the first time around."
Letters were sent to the companies weeks ago and congress evidently feels the answers were not sufficient. The next answers must be in the hands of lawmakers by November 6.
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(UPPER DECK PLAYOFF EVENTS BENEFIT HOBBY STORES)
Hobby stores in several major league cities were rocking and rolling with tickets and other prizes as Upper Deck hosted events for stores where baseball teams were in the playoffs. Stores in Colorado, New England, Arizona and Cleveland took part in the events. UD gave the stores merchandise and game tickets to promote the in-store events and pretty much all went well.
(Party time at Mike's Stadium Sports in Aurora, CO)
"The prizes were incredible and everyone including the cash register had an awesome night," according to Mike Fruitman of Mike's Stadium Sports in Aurora, CO. "The support of Upper Deck and major league baseball resulted in massive sales and a lot of happy collectors."
Other stores had great events as well.
"We ended up having our second best day our 17 year history," said Jerry Wiselka of Jerry's Sportscards in Colorado. "We had over 400 people show up for these events."
It wasn't only good for stores in the west, but also in the East.
(Colorado Rockies fans unite.)
"The excitement this night generates has been worth every penny in the time and effort it takes to pull this off," added Bruce Parker of New England Sports cards in New Hampshire. "Upper Deck is the only manufacturer to do this promotion and it has helped my store sales grow tremendously."
The company provided products at a discounted rate for the store and chipped in with prizes which included Playoff and World Series Tickets.
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(SATURDAY MARKS FOURTH ANNUAL WORLD WIDE GAME DAY)
Dungeons and Dragons will be the focus but gamers all over the world will be celebrating this weekend as Wizards of the Coast launches the Fourth Annual World Wide Game Day. Fans of D&D will gather all around the world from the US to Amsterdam to Iraq and even to a real dungeon in Britain.
(IceWind will be big on Saturday world wide.)
Approximately 1400 stores world wide will roll out the latest version of D&D set in "IceWind Dale." This is the latest adventure for the D&D role playing game. Participating stores will have special promotional items and the game will be played at the London Dungeon and in military bases in Iraq.
"The world wide D&D game day offers players the opportunity to get together with other player groups to expand their third edition playing experience," said Scott Rouse, Senior Brand Manager for D&D at WOTC. "We hope that player groups use this opportunity to share their plans for wrapping up the Third Edition campaigns with a flourish."
Dungeons and Dragons was first released in 1974 and after gaining a wide following took on a negative vibe with parents. Since it is a "role playing" game, many disturbed teens assumed the character to degrees where they crossed the line between reality and fantasy. There were a few suicides and actual mental problems in the aftermath. It did take some time for D&D to recover socially amongst parental groups.
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(NAXCOM AUCTIONS START WEDNESDAY WITH BUYER/SELLER PROTECTION TWIST)
With NAXCOM getting into the full blown auction market next week, similar to eBay in execution, the company is offering a special twist which will ensure safety for sides and cut down on the amount of fraud which goes on in other sites. Buyers and sellers will handle their transaction payments directly through NAXCOM.You guy it, you send your money to NAXCOM and when the item is delivered NAXCOM will pay the seller. The whole thing started when NAXCOM bought the PIT.COM from Topps.
"The acquisition of the Pit.com from Topps really gave us what we needed to get into auctions," said NAXCOM VP of Business Development, Kevin Klein. "Once that happened we began developing our auction system about a year ago."
This gave the company a larger base of people to work with and helped bring the number of users for NAXCOM to over 200,000.
"Since we launched the main NAXCOM site in 2001 our users have continuously requested for us to expand into auctions," said CEO Eric Beckerman. "However we didn't want to expand into auctions until we had enough critical mass where would have a lot of listings and bidders to make our auctions dynamic."
NAXCOM put in a lot of protective rules sellers wanted; rules they complained eBay doesn't have.
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(MCFARLANE TO RELEASE DICE-K, NOMAR, YOUNG AND MAUER IN 6 OF MLB 21)
Mark your calenders for April 2008 and race to the nearest toy aisles to get the first Daisuke Matsuzaka McFarlane figurines. They will be hot because the Japanese market will likely pay a bundle for the favored son who just won a World Series.
(New Dice-K McFarlane due in April.)
Dice-K will be one of the six new releases in April including three players who will get their first action figure; Joe Mauer and Michael Young are the others. The three who have previous figures but will be also offered are Nomar Garciaparra as a Dodger, Alfonso Soriano and Jorge Posada.
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(HOW QUICKLY WE RISE AND FALL, Pedroia's SIGNED BASEBALLS $100 WHOLESALE)
The newly released wholesale price for a Dustin Pedroia single signed World Series Baseball is $100 from Steiner Sports. Pedroia, who as a rookie made a name for himself with the Red Sox and in the World Series with some uncharacteristic home runs is hot and Steiner is taking advantage of his popularity.
(Pedroia hotter than hot with all autographs)
The last time the Red Sox won the World Series a local city councilman in Boston tried to pass legislation to keep players from cashing in on their popularity and gouging the public. Manny Ramirez and Johnny Damon were selling their signatures at a local show after the Series for $125-$175 each.
Both are still expensive but not as hot as they were before and they can be found at more reasonable prices.
Highland Mint is also offering the above players with Pedroia's Lead Off Homer photo matted and framed for $175 wholesale and other Red Sox stars in the same range. You could also get a HM David Beckham for $175.
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(LOIACONO SAFE FROM NEARBY WILDFIRES)
The Brill Report heard from former Upper Deck V-P Tony Loiacono who was in an area of the San Diego County wildfires a week ago. Homes within a mile of Loiacono's ranch were evacuated, but Loiacono told TBR he did not come under evacuation orders.
"Thank the Good Lord everyone was safe, it was touch and go for a few days," said Loiacono. "We were blessed not to have to leave but it came very close."
Loiacono lives in Bonsall, CA where he runs his company "Heads N Tails."
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(O-J SIMPSON DECK DROPS ANOTHER CARD)
A third defendant in the O-J Simpson case is turning states evidence and is expected to testify against the former running back stating guns were present at the alleged sting operation. Simpson tried to get his own memorabilia back in what police are calling an armed robbery. Simpson says he set up a sting at a Las Vegas Hotel room and the thing turned bad.
Michael McClinton is the third Simpson co-hort to turn on the former actor and NFL great. Police reports say McClinton carried a gun and acted like a police officer in the incident. He could get up to 11 years in jail. He is a former security guard.
If convicted of the biggest crime in the case, kidnapping, Simpson could get life in prison with parole. Nearly a decade ago he was acquitted by a Los Angeles jury of hilling his wife and her friend in a highly publicized trial. He was later found liable for their deaths in a civil trial and while he has had to pay financially, he has walked free until this case came about.
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(UPPER DECK REDEMPTIONS GETTING BETTER)
Upper Deck has gotten much better at its redemption program and collectors are starting to notice. Some are even forgiving, as long as the redemption program continues to get better if there has to be Redemption Cards.
Case in point we recently sent in a "smudged" signature of Elroy Face from Sweet Spot Signatures (see inset). We got the card back with an explanation there were no replacements for it. Instead the company sent us an unopened tin of the product and the card we sent in.
In the tin we got a Rogers Hornsby Letterman card no. 1/25 and two jersey cards; Casey Stengel and Mel Ott.
Send us an email regarding your thoughts on the improved UD redemption program. If you think it has improved or not. Send it to info@kckings.com
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