• Search the Site
• 
  

• Categories

  • Apple (14)
  • Cell Phones (12)
  • Financial (4)
  • General Site News (3)
  • MP3 Players (11)
  • Networking (2)
  • PC's (3)
  • Renewable Energy Stuff (2)
  • Retail (12)
  • Satellite Radio (2)
  • Search (1)
  • Toys (1)
  • Uncategorized (5)
  • Video Games (11)
  • WiMax (3)

• Archives

  • August 2008
  • July 2008
  • May 2008
  • April 2008
  • March 2008
  • February 2008
  • January 2008
  • December 2007
  • November 2007
  • October 2007
  • September 2007
  • August 2007
  • July 2007
  • June 2007
  • May 2007
  • March 2007
  • January 2007
  • November 2006
  • October 2006

• Subscribe

  Entries RSS
  Comments RSS

Xpress Trade

optionsXpress has migrated its Xpresstrade futures customers to the optionsXpress platform. Channel checks suggest that Xpresstrade customers in general are not enamored with the change or their new optionsXpress futures platform. This will have a slight negative impact on open accounts, balances, trading volume, etc. going forward. These changes are in TCC’s November estimates for optionsXpress November DARTS.

November DART Estimate

The Channel Checkers is estimating a 1.4% sequential increase in DARTS for November 2007 compared to October 2007 and a 53.3% year-over-year increase November 2007 over November 2006.

The 1.4% increase is significantly less than the September 2007 to October 2007 26% sequential increase.

November 2006 DARTS………..28,700

October 2007 DARTS…………..43,400

November CC Estimate…………44,000

Sequential Increase: +1.4%

Year-over-year increase: +53.3%

Past estimates of The Channel Checkers’ have varied in accuracy from -0.2% to + 4.7%.

CC Estimate Reported Error

August …………35,710…………35,800………….-0.2%

September……. 37,127………….35,400………….+4.7%

October…………43,400 ……….. 44,600………….+2.7%

November ……..44,000…………..(Metrics Released PMO 12/12/2007)

optionsXpress is expected to release November Metrics pre-market on December 12, 2007.

The November DART estimate for optionsXpress is currently available from The Channel Checkers directly by calling Casey at 415.359.9153 or e-mailing casey@thechannelcheckers.com.

We have recently conducted a survey on Sears and Kmart stores in the U.S. which are owned collectively under the banner of Sears Holdings (SHLD).

We asked about store activity in this survey and 20% of respondents reported that stores were “less busy”. 20% negative response to questions in our survey is reason for concern given that traditionally store employees tend to be more positive or optimistic about retail store activity.

In addition to our temperature check on store activity we asked if the Sears and Kmart locations would be having PRE-CHRISTMAS sales and the answer across the board was yes. We also asked if there was excess inventory of items and the answer to this according to over 70% of respondents was “yes, excess inventory”.

The top selling items at Sears and Kmart locations were flat screen TV’s (25%), video games and video game consoles (20%) and Craftsman tools (10%).  We did not see any strong showing for sales of clothing items or for consumer durables like washers and dryers.  We believe that the heavy dose of electronics being sold at Sears could produce lower profit margins as we believe Sears is selling these items below the leading electronics retailers to help bring in business for these items.

There is a new Channel Checkers property, CCers.tv.  Head over and check it out, we’re using data from The Channel Checkers to create an original content video site.  If you want to see the latest quick updates check out www.ccers.tv.

Clearwire, the leading Wi-max broadband internet data and voice provider appears to be targeting new expansion into New Jersey according to our channel checks with Glasboro and Jersey City specific locales we have heard about where service would be turned on by mid-2008. New Jersey and other high density states make sense for offerings of high speed data and VoIPservices.

We also believe that Clearwire is now active in the Dallas market where there are a substantial number of local Wi-Max and pre-Wi-Max wireless data and voice providers.

Many investors appear concerned about expansion plans and growth for Clearwire since the end of its agreement with Sprint Nextel and the loss of funding and resources from Sprint. We believe that Clearwire appears to be continuing its expansion across the U.S.and believe that Clearwire will have access to the capital it needs to continue to grow its business.

Channel checks indicate that trading volume spiked to a record high for October 2007. Our estimate for October 2007 DARTS is 44,000, a 24% increase over September 2007 and the highest month-over-month increase in trading volume since January 2006.

Past Performance of The Channel Checkers Estimate

           CC Estimate Actual Difference

August 35,710 35,800 -0.2%

September 37,127 35,400 +4.7%

October 43,400 - -

October DARTS are expected to be released pre-market on November 14th (est.)

A copy of the full October 2007 OptionsXpress DART estimate report is available for purchase from The Channel Checkers directly by calling 415.359.9153 or e-mailing casey@thechannelcheckers.com.

In our just completed video game survey for October we find that the Halo 3 effect remains in full force.  80% of stores we called told us that Halo 3 was the best selling video game. Guitar Hero III from Activision was recommended by 6% of respondents which placed the game as the number two game for this month.
On the console front, the race for number one remains fierce. Last month saw for the first time in our survey Xbox consoles be cited as the top seller by a majority of retailers breaking the grip of the Wii.   Our new October results show the Wii has inched back into the lead by a small margin (48% versus 47% for Xbox).  The Wii’s performance is impressive as we also conducted an auxiliary survey of video game retailers and found that over half were sold out of Wii’s and would need 1-4 weeks to get new supplies.  It appears the Wii will be hurt by shortages again this year, which will likely result in our master video game surveys continuing to show Wii and Xbox as a very close 1-2 in console sales.   PS3 in our most recent survey was cited by only 2% of respondents as the best selling console.  This marks the lowest recording for PS3 ever in our surveys.

For upcoming games we found that  Call of Duty 4 is the most often cited “next top game over the next six months” with 20% of respondents followed by Grand Theft Auto 4 with about 12% of respondents.  The Mario Brothers series, which consists of several titles that we group together was third with about 8 of respondents calling those games the best ones coming our in the next six months.

We believe that video game and console market share information will be of great interest as the Christmas shopping season approaches and we will begin our November survey soon to continue to bring you the most relevant field data on this topic on the web.

We recently completed a survey on best selling USB drive brands. USB flash drives seem to be a growing trend for off-PC storage for personal and corporate use. In an article at SeekingAlpha  Avi Ifergan claims that “SanDisk is the dominant player in all markets it has entered. It has approximately 42% market share in North America; In Europe, it doubled its market share in the last 12 months to 28% and indicated that it is experiencing difficulties in meeting European demand; in Asia and Australia market share is 23%.”

Our just completed survey reveals that Sandisk was cited as the top selling brand by 37% of our respondents down somewhat from the published 42% number (which we believe Avi pulled from NPD group research.)   Kingston was a very strong number two as it was cited as the best selling brand by 26% of all respondents.  HP did surprisingly well from our perspective and garnered top selling mentions from 19% of our respondents.  These answers we believe could be favoring the HP brand in total as opposed to being objective about just UBS drives.  We called into many office and consumer elelectronics stores which all do significant business in HP products as a family including computers, printers and peripherals besides USB drives.

Memorex (11%) PNY (7%), Tanscend (4%) and Sony (4%) were also mentioned by some survey respondents as the best selling USB drive brand.

We are working on asking Geek Squad locations within the Best Buy retail chain how long it takes them to come and perform an in-home visit.  We had learned that the average time had dropped to about 3 days down from 6 days previously.  We thought we would check it out.

Our survey did reveal that the average time for an in-home visit was about 3-days across the Geek Squad population we surveyed. Some were as long as 6 days still and a few as short as 1 day.  What is more interesting to us is whether these in-home appointment times were faster or slower than six months ago. The answer according to 42% of our respondents was faster.  Another third said it was the same and the minority reported it was a slower response time.

We were also interested in knowing why response times had changed (if at all) and what the driver in the changes were. The most common answer (25%) was that there are now more Geek Squad locations and more Geeks staffing these locations. The second most common reason was that some respondents believe the number of customer problems is decreasing with the launch of Vista and that newer computers have fewer problems.  While some technical gurus may find the ease of use of Microsoft products as a dubious driver of a decrease in problems we are inclined to accept the information in our survey.

Overall, faster response times are good for customers and the public perception of the Best Buy Geek Squad. We do not know this translates into greater levels of business for Best Buy itself but we hope to survey the stores and see if they believe the Geek Squad helps to drive increased business to Best Buy stores.

The Channel Checkers September DART channel check and analysis estimates that optionsXpress will report a 55% year over year increase in DARTS for the Quarter ended September 30, 2007. For September, DARTS are estimated to have increased to 37,127– a 4% increase over August 2007.

The September DART Forecast report will be available in The Channel Checkers archives November 15th (www.thechannelcheckers.com/archive/).

 

A copy of the full September report is for purchase from The Channel Checkers directly by calling 415.359.9153 or e-mailing casey@thechannelcheckers.com.

We have recently concluded our monthly video game survey looking for the top selling games, best selling consoles and most anticipated new games.

In this version of our survey product we found that Halo 3 remains the most anticipated game according to 27% of our respondents. In August 20% cited Madeen 08 as the top upcoming game release, although several noted that at this time of year the latest Madden iteration is usually a top seller.  Only4% of respondent felt that Grad Theft Auto IV (GTA IV) was the most anticipated game. GTA IV has fallen in our surveys all summer from near parity with Halo 3 to barely registering among respondents.

We found that 39% of our respondents listed the Microsoft Xbox 360 as the top selling game console compared to 37% who saw the Wii as the top console. The Nintendo DS received top billing from 9% of respondents so that as a complex Nintendo continues to lead in total console preferences among our survey respondents.

The top game, in a nod to seasonality noted above was Madden 08 according to 29% of our respondents, the most responses of any game in our survey. The second best selling game was Halo  3, available on pre-order.  The next top game that is shipping today is Bio Shock from Take Two Interactive. We see the buzz for Bio Shock but just 7% of respondents reported that title as the best selling game in the month. Guitar Hero fell in our survey as only 4% of respondents cited it as a top selling game now.

We are now beginning our September /October period survey on the video game space and will be back to update you all soon.

← Previous Page — Next Page →