SpeedPlexer Blog

Are you the kind of person who has a piece of the Berlin Wall and a Moon rock on your mantel?  (Or maybe your parents do?) Well now, you can add some volcanic ash from Iceland to your collection, or start a new one, with internet speed!

A clever Icelandic internet company has turned volcanic ash into money for charity.  It fell to earth from the famously infamous cloud that created Europe’s biggest aerial shutdown since World War II and now you can own a piece of it. Or pieces of it. Many, many tiny pieces of it.

“It all started when one of our foreign clients, who is a collector, inquired if we could get him some ash from the volcano. I thought right away that this was a brilliant idea,” the website’s chief executive explained.

“My father lives nearby the volcano and I asked him if he could get me some ash. He shovelled a whole lot and brought it to me.”

Yahoo news reported that the online shop, nammi.is, sells various products from the north Atlantic island and is offering 160-gram (five-and-a-half ounce) jar of the ash from Eyjafjpoll volcano for 23.80 euros ($29.90 dollars). 

Sofus Gustavsson, the company’s chief executive, is donating the proceeds to Iceland’s search and rescue services. “I thought there was something wrong about profiting from something that is ruining peoples lives, the farmers near the volcano for example.”

There are two other companies also selling volcanic ash, but both with the aim of turning a profit. So choose your ash wisely.

Ooops…. That’s what Amazon.com staffers might have gotten away with when they discovered the pricing error that put a price tag of $14.99 on high quality hardcover Marvel graphic novels worth $125.  That is to say, if it hadn’t been for those “meddling kids” (to quote the end of every Scooby-Doo episode ever).

The meddling kids in question—Bleeding Cool—a site for comic book news and rumors. They announced what they thought was an amazing sale and word spread with internet speed.  Comics fans began to snatch up the books as quickly as they could, causing some of the graphic novels to climb toward the top of Amazon’s best seller lists.

But they didn’t just say “Ooops, sorry” at that point and run the risk of, as Bleeding Cool put it, a Mass Amazon Cancellation Rending Of Garments And Putting On Of Sackcloth.  Amazon could have simply canceled the orders (which is common practice for online retailers), but instead, it tried to do right by its users and said it would honor some of the orders.

TechCruch reports that within hours, Amazon fixed the pricing glitches (which affected multiple items), and told some customers that rather than canceling their entire orders, they’d still receive a single copy of the books they purchased at the heavily discounted price. The only catch was that they’d only get one copy apiece (many people had purchased multiple copies). Quite a nice gesture considering that Amazon could have simply canceled the orders outright.

Except it didn’t actually have enough books in stock to do what it promised, leading to another wave of frustration from the comics fans. Now Amazon is looking to smooth things over with some $25 dollar gift certificates. It’s still good customer service.

“Though shoppers are still cautious about spending this holiday season, they seem to be increasing the dollars they spend online while decreasing the amount they spend at stores.” This was the report from The New York Times Bits Blog as of yesterday.

The report went on to say, “On Black Friday, the big day for offline shopping, more shoppers went to stores but they spent about the same amount as last year. Final sales numbers for Cyber Monday, the popular online shopping day, will come in over the next couple of days, but they appear to be up from last year.”

The LA Times Tech Blog says “It seems buyers were more efficient this year, spending 10% less time browsing than last year, with the average shopping session lasting 7.5 minutes, down 51 seconds from 2008. Peak browsing time: between 9 a.m. and 10 a.m. PST, just as West Coasters were sliding into work and East Coasters were starting their lunch breaks.”

GSI Commerce, which provides e-commerce technology to hundreds of Internet retailers, including Toys “R” Us and Ralph Lauren, reported that shoppers spent 50 percent more on Cyber Monday than they did last year, and 26 percent more over the long holiday weekend.

Online shopping is still just a fraction of total retail, but it’s expected to increase 5.4 percent while offline spending is expected to decline 1 percent. Sixty-nine percent of adult Internet users plan to make a holiday purchase online this year, compared to 55 percent last year and 49 percent in 2007, according to Shop.org.

The reasons: shopping online is more convenient than driving to a busy mall, it’s easier to compare prices with internet speed and most sites are offering holiday discounts and some form of free shipping.

If you love the deals on Black Friday, but hate the idea of fighting throngs of thousands to get them, you’ll be glad to know that many retailers are offering deals from their online stores too!  PR Web says of Black Friday, “Day After Thanksgiving sales are heating up on the internet as shoppers take to the malls and retail stores in search of their Christmas presents and gifts. Most of these companies are offering many online only offers to web shoppers.” They talk about a site called One Million Gifts.com that specializes in offering online shoppers top quality companies through their website. 

The Internet Patrol also recommends we shop with internet speed from the comfort of our homes.  Their Black Friday list includes Walmart, Amazon, and Best Buy.

“The Black Friday Best Buy sale has faithful shoppers, and for good reason. Shoppers are known to line up for blocks to get into the store when it opens - in fact, they open the stores at 5:00 a.m. on Black Friday, and you have to have a ticket to get in and buy some of the items! But you can also get them online - where the Best Buy Black Friday sale also starts at 5:00 a.m..”

They also tell us that Espirit will be taking 25% off all online orders on Black Friday and that Macys is also having an online Black Friday sale.

So if you think you missed out on the deals because you didn’t wake up at 5:00a.m., think again! Check your favorite stores right now from your computer and see what’s still available to you with the year-round magic of internet speed.