Below are the Kogan Blog entries filed under Industry commentary.
2008 October 27
A lot has been written about how the global economic crisis will affect consumer spending. However, it seems electronics, gadgets, and technology are doing better than other sectors.
Canon recently released their annual Digital Lifestyle index which confirms this. What do you think, has the weak dollar, economic crisis, or anything else affected your purchasing habits for electronics?
Our business model helps Australians buy this sort of technology at affordable prices. Hopefully we're helping you make these decisions and ensuring they don't hurt the hip pocket much at all!
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2008 October 17
Harvey Norman announced this week that they would be releasing weekly sales figures as an indicator of the state of the economy.
I think this is an extremely arrogant and naive approach to helping Australian's deal with the economic situation. Harvey Norman are clearly failing to recognise that consumers looking for the best prices in the current financial climate are moving to online stories in huge numbers.
I know Gerry Harvey's business has been painfully slow in moving online, no doubt through fear of cannibalising their retail sales model, but they surely can't think their stores are an indicator of the state of the economy!
29 Comments
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2008 September 16
Philips recently announced they will be pulling the plug on their TV sales in Australia and New Zealand.
This follows on from Hitachi's exit earlier this year.
This shows just how cut-throat the retail market is for consumer electronics. By adding significant costs through middlemen, companies like Philips, Hitachi, and no doubt others down the track, are finding it very hard to remain competitive.
16 Comments
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2008 August 26
I have been a big Nokia fan since the 6110. Every phone since has been a Nokia. I find them easy to use and functional. For instance, I connect my laptop (using bluetooth) to my N95 and access the internet through the 3G on my phone plan.
I have felt that Nokia have always had superior phones to the competition. Now that Apple have launched the 3G iPhone, Nokia's dominance is in question. I think the iPhone is a good mp3 and media player with built in phone, but, I don't think it's a great phone.
21 Comments
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2008 August 15
Sony's recent announcement that OLED televisions will hit Europe in 2009 received a lot of attention.
Although this technology may be standard in 5 years, I really can't see this making a big impact at the moment.
OLED is obviously great technology. I recently saw an OLED product at an R&D facility that could be rolled up into a postage tube!
But at sizes like 11 inches, it's simply too small to be of any real benefit at the moment. What do you think?
8 Comments
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2008 July 15
I've been doing some reading on media center extensions recently.
There are obviously a lot of options to stream media from your PC to your TV.
If you're using gaming consoles, which do you think is best for streaming video and audio? It seems like the Xbox 360 is the simplest, with it's integration into Vista. I'm keen to hear your opinions on these options.
32 Comments
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2008 June 25
Engadget HD wrote an article about the picture-in-picture functionality on TVs.
They had a very mixed response from their readers, and I wanted to see what you all thought.
Personally, I think PIP is invaluable for sport, when you want to keep an eye on a couple of games at once.
Do you use picture in picture, or do you just see it as a gimmick?
10 Comments
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2008 June 19
One of the most common questions I get asked is: Should I buy a plasma or an LCD?
On the blog alone, Heather, Jean, T-bone, and Rachel have recently talked about the debate.
I think LCD is the far superior technology. What do you think?
14 Comments
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2008 June 13
I came across this article by Adam Turner, an Aussie freelance journalist. Amongst other things, he talks about the importance of selecting the right size TV for your room.
Brenda, Vin, Owen, Oz Man, and others have posted on this blog asking for different sizes. When I was in China last week I arranged to bring more sizes into the Full HD range, including 32" and 47". These will be available for pre-sale soon.
15 Comments
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2008 June 03
I'm still in China and I'll be back in Melbourne later this week. I haven't had a huge amount of access to the net so I'll answer all of your questions as soon as I get back.
I have come across some news which you might find interesting. According to Current, Toshiba, a Japanese company, have moved some of their LCD production to Taiwan.
22 Comments
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2008 May 20
This story at Channel News about home theatre/av integrators in Australia got me thinking today.
It talks about home theatre installers in Australia not taking their business seriously enough, and almost treating it like a hobby. What has your experience of these installers been?
Some of the blog readers have expressed a desire for Kogan Technologies to offer a service to organise installation, like Muriel.
4 Comments
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2008 May 15
It looks like nervous web-entrant Gerry Harvey is starting to catch on to the benefits of the internet.
He's obviously running into a few issues with the new site for Ofis, but it's an interesting shift.
He's not the only bricks and mortar business moving online, JB Hi Fi are doing the same.
5 Comments
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2008 April 29
I came across some news that the GPS market is changing. I’ve been selling a Kogan Five in One GPS unit for quite a while now, and you’ve seemed to like it.
20 Comments
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2008 April 18
The eBay/Paypal issue has been doing the rounds of the media the last week, and now it seems the ACCC is getting involved.
It's no secret that Kogan Technologies uses eBay to generate a lot of our business. It's simply really -- as the world's biggest marketplace, we'd be crazy to ignore it.
3 Comments
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