Combine your orders to shop a little greener and save on shipping

If you are a veteran online shopper, you’re probably familiar with free shipping. Spend a certain amount of money, and the retailer will ship your items for free. It may take a few days longer to get your order, but your pocket book will thank you.

There’s another good reason to combine your orders: it makes your shopping a little greener. Say you’re ordering three DVDs from Amazon.com – those would easily fit in one box. Shipping them separately means more packaging, more waste, and more energy spent.












Want to be greener still? Ship them to a KinekPoint Depot! Chances are the courier delivering your package already has to stop by a KinekPoint location and, if the courier tries you at home and misses, you’ll likely have to drive out to their depot to retrieve your package – using more fuel in the retrieval of your shopping.

You can't put a price on love

Retailer's worried about the effects of the economy on their Valentine's Day sales may have a reason to breathe a little easier. Discover® Card's Fourth Annual Valentine's Day Shopping Survey revealed only a drop of 2% in planned shopping budgets over 2008 figures. More surprising is the fact that women may actually plan to spend more money this year.


To read the Discover® press release on the survey, click here.

A tweet a day keeps heartache away

Judy McGuire, in the article “Awful Valentine’s Day – how to avoid it” (for The Frisky and featured on CNN), wises states the following:

If your boyfriend forgets what day it is, you have nobody but yourself to blame. Do you know when the World Series is? Probably not. If you want your man to remember something, remind him.

It’s good advice. As much as women would like to think that men have a built-in radar for Valentine’s Day, there is a thriving market for last minute flowers and candy. The solution? Drop hints early and widely. Don’t just rely on face-to-face conversations, exploit Twitter and Facebook.

A tweet a day can keep you from being disappointed on the big day.

Valentine’s Day is just a month away. Are you ready?

Candy. Flowers. Dinner. For years, men have fallen back on these tried and true Valentine’s Day gifts. It’s no coincidence that “tried” and “tired” share all the same letters. While women appreciate roses and chocolates, they’re often left wondering why they didn’t get something a little more personal.

One of the big keys to getting a great and unique gift is to think ahead and look for clues. Does your girlfriend or wife have wish lists at sites like Amazon? Have you seen her eyeing anything in the mall? What about social networking sites like Twitter and Facebook – has she dropped any hints there?

It’s January 14th and it’s not too early to start thinking ahead.

Not sure what to get them this holiday season? Did you check their wish list?

Wish Lists are becoming a common sight on some of our favourite online stores and people are using them in increasing numbers.

Think no one you know has one? You might be surprised. We randomly typed in the names of our friends and family as a test. The result? More people than we thought were using wish lists at sites like amazon.com and chapters.indigo.ca (great guys, but next time maybe you could tell us – it would take some of the guesswork out of shopping).

Most sites with wish lists allow you to search by name or email address. If you’re searching by an email address, there’s a good chance that any result that comes back will be the right one. If, however, you’re searching by name (especially a common name like John Smith), check the items on the list and ask yourself if they match up with what you’d expect that person to like – if they don’t, you may have the wrong list.

Happy shopping and don’t forget to use KinekPoint – it’ll help you keep whatever gift you find a surprise.

Dropping hints on social networks

Not sure what to get them this Christmas? Have you checked their blog?
Think I’m joking? Not quite. Though it may sound brazen, more and more people are becoming comfortable with openly talking about their wish lists online. At first, I thought it was a bit obnoxious when I saw friends blogging about what they wanted under the tree or including their “must haves” in their Facebook status updates. The more I think about it, though, the more it makes sense.
People are increasingly spread out from friends and family and have less time to sit down and have real conversations – that’s the reason sites like Facebook, FriendFeed, and Twitter are so popular; they provide easy ways for you to stay in touch.

Application developers are even getting into the act. A quick search of “wish list” on Facebook brings up pages of applications. Our advice? Check the profile pages of your friends and keep an eye on their tweets and status updates – just make sure you have a pen handy.

CTTC Releases 2009 Toy Verdicts

It’s that time of year again (and, if you’re like me, it could not have come soon enough). The Canadian Toy Testing Council (CTTC) has released its 2009 reports. A non-profit organization, the CTTC tests, toys, software, and children’s books in order to help parents (and us clueless aunts and uncles) with information to help them make good shopping decisions.

The full report (with a star rating system) can be found here.

For a look at what's a hit with the kids themselves, be sure to check out the toys which won the "Children's Choice Awards". Also, if you want to give the gift of a good book, you should check out their top children's books of 2009.

Ordering online and don't want the kids to see the delivery van pull up to the house? Why not ship to a KinekPoint Depot?

Keeping the Surprise in Christmas

I wish KinekPoint had been around last Christmas. Okay, I work here – saying that probably isn’t too surprising – but it’s true. Last year, I practically jumped through hoops to keep my roommate’s Christmas gift (an Alfred Hitchcock Film Festival Poster) a surprise.

“I ordered a Marilyn Monroe poster for my sister,” I lied, one afternoon. “So if a poster tube arrives, it’s for me.”

I thought that would be the end of it: one small lie that would keep the present a surprise.

Then it got complicated. A few days later, my roommate ordered a poster for his brother. Every time a delivery slip landed on our door, I raced to be the one first to the postal outlet. Half the time, the deliveries turned out not to be for me and, because the packages weren’t sent in my name, my roommate would have to make a separate trip to the depot.

By the time the poster finally arrived, I was sick of the whole thing.

This year, no matter what I order, I’m covered. There are two KinekPoint Depots within a couple of blocks of where I work. If I ship to one, I won’t have to worry about someone opening their gift by mistake.

What about you? Have you ever found the perfect gift only to have the surprise ruined before the big day?

The importance of availability

You’ve checked the holiday shipping deadlines and found the perfect gift. Think you’ve got everything covered? Think again! If you didn’t check the item’s availability before you ordered, you might be in for a surprise.

Just because an item is listed on an online store, doesn’t mean it’s ready to ship out when your order it. Many online retailers ship items based on availability. If it’s in stock, the item will usually ship the same or the next day; if it’s not, you could be waiting weeks – or even months – for the item to ship.

Just look at this example from Chapters.Indigo.ca (it’s pretty typical):







This DVD set came up in search results and I can purchase it immediately, but it won’t ship for 1 – 2 weeks. It’s still early, so that leaves me plenty of time but, if I had waited until early December to order, there’s little chance I’d have it before Christmas.

Take a minute, the next time you’re shopping, to see how long it will take for the item you want to ship. If that extra time pushes you past the cut off deadline for holiday shipping, you may want to reconsider your order or look elsewhere for the item.