How To Cheat An ATM Demo Cheered Computer hacker Barnaby Jack – not to be confused with Australian pollie Barnaby Joyce – has demonstrated a way to force automated teller machines (ATMs) to disgorge their cash by hijacking the computing gear inside.
Major CE Distributor Accused Of Restrictive Practises EXCLUSIVE: A Sydney-based retailer has asked the Australian Competition & Consumer Commission to investigate claims of “restrictive trading practises” by Amber Technology, who are a share-listed company and one of Australia’s largest consumer technology distributors.
Harvey Norman To Add $500M In Revenue After Buying Clive Peeters Harvey Norman Holdings have snapped up Clive Peeters and WA retail group Rick Hart for the basement price of $55M. The acquisition is tipped to add an additional $500M to Harvey Norman revenues.
Clive Peeters Looking For Cash As Sales Slump And Profits Evaporate Shares in appliance and consumer electronics retailer, Clive Peeters, have fallen 34% today after the company reported a $4.5 million dollar loss with little hope of future profits from the company who last year got back over $16 million from their former payroll manager.
Flat Third Quarter Sales For Harvey Norman Harvey Norman announced that total sales for the nine months ended 31 March 2010 rose 2.2 per cent to $4.64 billion. However, the company has also recorded flat total sales, with like-for-like sales rising only 1.2 per cent in Australia.
E-Retailing Conference Returns To Sydney Following last year's Online Retailer Expo and Conference, it was officially announced that the event will be held at the Sydney Convention and Exhibition Centre over four days, from 6–9 July this year.
Learn More About E-Retailing At Upcoming Expo The upcoming Online Retailer Expo and Conference will showcase various e-commerce technology, digital marketing and e-retailing solutions. It will be held at the Sydney Convention and Exhibition Centre from 6-9 July 2010.
Jaycar Opens New Victoria Store Jaycar has opened its 64th store across Australia and New Zealand. The new store is located at the corner of Synnott and Wedge Streets in Werribee, Victoria.
Sales And Profits Up For JB Hi-Fi JB Hi-Fi Limited has reported a record half yearly net profit of $76 million from $1.554 billion in sales for the six months ending 31 December 2009. The company has also reported that its dividend has increased 120 per cent to 33 cents per share.
Panasonic Scores Big With Lumix Digital Cameras Panasonic Australia have reported record “value” growth for their Lumix camera range during the past quarter with new GFK data revealing that they are now the #1 “value” vendor in the compact digital camera category. The Company is now on track to sell its one millionth Lumix camera in the Australian market.
Dick Smith Up As Woolworths Struggle Woolworths Limited has reported a 6 per cent increase in sales to $27.2 billion for the 27 weeks to 3 January 2010. The company has also reported strong sales in its Dick Smith-led Consumer Electronics arm.
Harvey Norman Director Sells Down Shares John Slack Smith a senior director of Harvey Norman has sold down 40,000 shares in the mass retailer netting over $119,000.
Technology Driving Retail Sales 16% Growth Tipped Shares in Harvey Norman and JB Hi Fi rose yesterday after David Jones raised its full-year profit forecast to between 10 and 12%. However consumer electronics retailers could be facing major stock shortages due to global manufacturing cutbacks.
Rudd’s Recession Isn’t Happening Prime Minister Kevin Rudd's so called recession has been put on hold according to the latest data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics who today said that the economy grew by 0.4% in the March quarter 2009.
Future Of Clive Peeters Decision Soon EXCLUSIVE: Greg Smith the CEO of Victorian retailer Clive Peeters has said that he is close to a decision on the future of the business following an extensive review by KPMG. He admits that that he is talking to several interested parties with a view to getting either “an investment of capital” or an “additional shareholder”, failing this it will be “business as usual”.
Harvey Norman Profits Crash 57% Harvey Norman profits have slipped 57% to $99 million and that the outlook does not look good going forward. In comparison JB Hi Fi reported a 40% incrrease in profits and a 26% increase in sales.
Clive Peeters Open To Take Over Offers Clive Peeters CEO Greg Smith who today reported a 90% decline in profits has said that he is open to takeover offers or a major new investor. He has also said that the board is currently considering several incomplete proposals from competitors to buy out the Victorian based consumer electronics Company.
JB Hi-Fi Sells Used Phone As New The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission is alleging that JB Hi-Fi sold a used phone as new to the same customer on two separate occasions in June last year.
Harvey Norman Profit Drops 29.6 Percent Consumer Electronics retailer Harvey Norman who are now under pressure from both Dick Smith, JB Hi Fi and current market conditions has reported a 29 percent fall in first-half profits which fell from $174.14 million for the same period last year to A$123.5 million at December 2008.
Woolworths Profits Up, Dick Smith Sales Solid Woolworths has reported a 10.3 percent increase in net profit to $983.3 million and said that it is very well positioned for the future.
Clive Peeters Bleeds In NSW Clive Peeters is set to report their half year results on the 27th February 2009 however analysts are tipping a net loss of $0.4M which represents a decline of 104%. Sales are believed to be down 16.3%.
Trend Micro Cranks Up Channel Dollars For Resellers Antivirus and internet content security Company Trend Micro has completely restructured their channel operations with the introduction of new support operations new remuneration fees for referrals and additional marketing support for retailers selling their products.
LG Bags Three Gfk Awards LG was awarded the GfK No.1 Award in three categories (Home Theatre Systems, DVD Players, and Microwave Ovens) by leading market researcher GfK Retail and Technology.
Harvey Norman Ask And Get 45 Days Credit Harvey Norman is pressuring vendors to change their trading terms to 45 days. In the past they have operated on 30 or under terms depending on their relationship, discounts and rebate volumes insiders have told SmartHouse.
JB Hi Fi Storms Home 40% Profit Lift Consumer electronics retailer JB Hi Fi has defied the market by reporting a bumper 40% increase in profits and a sales increase of 28%. The Company also believes that the CE industry at large will benefit from further Federal Government stimulus packages.
CE Retailers To Benefit Most From Rate Cut Consumer electronics retail got a double stimulus today with a 1% interest cut and an announcement by the Federal Government that they are set to pour more money into the economy in an effort to prevent Australia's economy from sliding into a recession.
Regional Australia & WA To Boom Claim Citi Group NSW is a retail basket case when it comes to retail spending according to Cit Group Analysts however Victoria is even worse. According to a new report. Victoria was the slowest state at 5.6% growth, NSW recorded growth of 6.4%, while Queensland was the fastest growing state at 9.2%.
Dick Smith Grows 9% Sales at the Woolworths group's Australian and NZ consumer electronics stores – including the Dick Smith chain – grew 9 percent to $839 million in the six months to December 31, the group said yesterday.
Retail Up 2% And That's Official Retail sales over the Xmas New Year period were 2% higher than last year, claims the Retail Traders Association proving that the Federal Government handouts did makes their way into the economy they say.
Sharper Image Looking For OZ Distributor Sharper Image who made a fortune selling gadgets for smart houses and then lost it all when they went belly up last year in the USA is back and they are looking for either a distributor or retailers in Australia to sell their new range of products that were launched at this year’s CES show in Las Vegas.
Harvey Norman Conducts Major CE Review Up To 10 Stores To Go Harvey Norman is currently conducting a major review of their operations with a senior executive admitting that the Company could close up to 5-10 stores in coming weeks. The Company is also reviewing their consumer electronics business with a view to expanding several product categories.
Clive Peeters Share Rocket 11% As Market Slides 4.7% Shares in Clive Peeters have bucked a 4.7% downturn in the ASX by rising 11.1% in late afternoon trading. However by the close they had lost all their gains to close at $0.90.
Consumer Technology A Big Winner For Woolworths Woolworths has cranked up their consumer electronic operations in an effort to capitalise on the growth being recorded by most CE retailers. In their latest report to the ASX Woolworths has recorded consumer electronic sales of over $400 million for the first quarter of FY09
Double Digit Growth Forecast For CE And PC Industry Economic slowdown and financial uncertainty may be sweeping the US and much of the western world but the PC and CE industry remains on course for solid growth over the next five years, according to research groups IDC and GFK.
Fuji Xerox And Iconiq Team Up For Retail Printing Fuji Xerox Printers has entered into a strategic partnership with West Australian company Iconiq, a provider of consumer messaging solutions for corporate retailers, to provide an Iconiq branded Managed Print Service (MPS) program to retailers.
Under this partnership, Iconiq will offer retailers its SignIQ in-store signage and labeling solution in conjunction with Fuji Xerox Printers PagePack MPS technology.
Interest Rate Drop Welcomed By Retailers & Vendors Following the 0.25% drop in the prime lending cash rate by the Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA), both electronics retailers and vendors are sighing a breath of fresh air.
Samsung & GPEG Invent Video Wall With No Gaps According to reports, by using either 40 or 46-inch Samsung digital information display panels, a video wall that removes the unsightly gaps found with other LCD solutions can be constructed.
Samsung Aims For Control Of Retail Display Market Samsung says it has launched 20 new large format display monitors for business and retail needs and claims it will to double its global Large Format Display (LFD) sales to almost US$480 million this year by focusing more on the Business Display Solutions market.
Telstra Looks To US For More Business According to reports, it seems Australia is getting a bit small for our number one telco as Telstra is now looking offshore for more business opportunities through its US subsidiary Telstra Incorporated.
Consolidated Media Gets A 211% Profit Explosion Consolidated Media Holdings has quadrupled its annual net profit in 2008 and surged to achieve triple figure growth most of which came from the sale of Ticketek and Sydney’s Acer Arena.
Massive 70% Profit For JB Hi Fi JB HiFi Limited this morning reported a 43 per cent increase in sales, exceeding last years result by some 61 per cent, profits jumped 70%.
JB Hi Fi Culture A Sticking Point For Woolworths Aquisition Woolworths and JB Hi Fi management have met to discuss the possibility of the mass supermarket retailer buying JB Hi Fi. ChannelNews has been told that Woolworths has appointed an external investment team to evaluate the possibility of acquiring the consumer electronics retailers who this week is set to report their latest profit results.
All-Weather Interactive LCD Display From IDT Image Design Technology (IDT) has announced Korteks high-performance, touch enabled LCD displays, designed to meet the demands of 24/7/365 operations in a range of environments.
Surge Protector For Home Theatre A new surge protector provides sockets for up to eight appliances that can be used simultaneously, as well as dedicated sockets for cable TV, telephone and TV aerials.
Hand Cleaner Has Massive Kill Rate InstantFOAM is claimed to be the first alcohol-based foam hand sanitiser to reach the Australian market, which requires no water and has a hospital-strength formula that kills 99.999 percent of germs instantly without any sticky residue.
Apple To Open Second Sydney Store Apple is about to open a second retail store on Sydney's North Shore, just seven weeks after opening their first Australian store in Sydney's CBD. It will open this Saturday at 9am.
Telstra Launches Interactive 3D TV Telstra has unveiled a 3D TV initiative for the retail sector designed to engage new media savvy consumers at point-of-purchase.
Starbucks Down Under Runs Out Of Beans In the battle between Starbucks and the humble cappuccino, it looks like the cappuccino has won with the expected closure of all its 85 stores nationwide at the close of business today.
