Nintendo Wii and Ugg Boots lead Black Friday sales

Mike Bantick
Monday, 01 December 2008 10:12

Your IT - Entertainment

What financial crisis?  The Wii dominates the Black Friday sales weekend.

According to a recent report over at cnet , it looks as if the doom and gloom or the current financial crisis has been temporarily blown away by the Black Friday three days of traditional retail sales in the U.S.

The report indicated that retail sales were up 3 percent (this was 8.3 percent in 2007 over 2006), whilst online sales for the period rose by a whopping 11 percent over the 2007 figures.

Electronic goods being the flavour of the season with the Nintendo Wii console topping the list.

The Wii was dubbed the most searched-for product on eBay and sold over 3,000 units in the U.S on the online auction site. 

Obviously, working off the Thanksgiving turkey was also a priority for Americans as they ordered 1,059 companion Wii-Fit’s go with their new consoles.

PriceGrabber.com listed the top online products for the three day period as:

• Nintendo Wii console
• Ugg Australia "classic short" boot
• Sony BDP-S350 1080p Blu-ray disc player
• Samsung LN52A650 52" LCD TV
• Nintendo Wii Fit
• Panasonic TH-42PX80U 42" plasma TV
• Sennheiser HD 555 headphones
• Canon EOS Rebel XSi Black SLR digital camera kit
• Acer Aspire One AOA110-1295 notebook PC
• Canon PowerShot A590 IS black digital camera

Shopping .com listed GPS units as a valued item, selling one every 9 minutes, whilst MP3 players were scooped up at the rate of one every 11 minutes.

Retailers, fearing a flat Black Friday period went all out this year with bundles and bargains; this included free shipping for online purchased products and a bunch of one-day-only offers in an attempt to drive up sales.

So pull on your Ugg boots, grab your GPS unit and join the hunt for a Nintendo Wii.  Though given the fights that can break out , be careful out there.