Gizmo Lovers Blog » retail

Sling Media and Micro Center Team Up To Offer In-Store Slingbox Demos

MegaZone — Wed, 12 Dec 2007 22:43:59 +0000

Sling Community has an interesting article on a new partnership between Sling Media and Micro Center to offer Slingbox demonstrations in the stores, to help educate consumers on the product. The good news is every Micro Center will have a demo and the store’s staff will be trained to explain the Slingbox to customers. The bad news is there are only 21 Micro Center retail locations nationwide, across 15 states. This is a great concept, hopefully Sling will be able to extend it to some of the larger chains with more coverage.

TiVo Selling ‘Extremely Well’ In Canada

MegaZone — Sat, 08 Dec 2007 04:05:49 +0000

The Vancouver Sun has an article today on TiVo sales in Canada, where it was just recently introduced at retail, which is very upbeat. It has already been selling well at Future Shop:

Future Shop only got TiVo in all its stores on Tuesday, but accepted pre-orders from customers, who got a free wireless adapter with the order.
Susan Kirk, communications manager at Future Shop, said pre-orders were heavy, and she anticipates TiVo will be a big seller during the Christmas shopping period.

And at London Drugs:

Colin Cottrell, merchandise manager for electronics and audio-video systems at London Drugs, said customer reaction to the TiVo has been very strong.
“The sell-through has been incredible considering we haven’t done any advertising,” said Cottrell, who added that the first ad for TiVo appeared in a Tuesday flyer, more than a week after the stores had the device.
“A lot of customers have known about the product for several years, and don’t need really need much explanation,” said Cottrell.
“Others have heard about TiVo, and are coming in and asking lots of questions, and a good percentage of them are buying.”
“It’s been selling extremely well,” said Cottrell, who wonders if he should have ordered more TiVos on his initial order.

TiVo has to be loving this news. Even though TiVo has been available in Canada from online resellers, there are still a lot of people who buy at retail. So there is a lot of pent-up demand for TiVo that the stores are answering right now. I just hope TiVo can find a way to deliver an HD capable product for the Canadian market, as they don’t use CableCARD, so that they can continue to grow sales as the market shifts to HD over time.

TiVo Finally Available At Retail In Canada

MegaZone — Tue, 27 Nov 2007 07:51:41 +0000

It has been over two years since TiVo began supporting Canadian users. However, TiVo has never had a retail presence in Canada. Canadian users have had to purchase TiVo from US retailers, or from online vendors such as The PVR Source or PVR Canada. So Canadian support has been somewhat under the radar, I’ve regularly seen Canadian bloggers lamenting TiVo’s lack of support in Canada, and they’re invariably surprised when I tell them that TiVo does work in Canada.

Well, that’s finally changing – TiVo is coming to retail outlets in Canada, just in time for the holidays.

The TiVo Series2 DT DVR will be available in early December at major Canadian retailers including Best Buy, The Brick, London Drug and Future Shop for just $199 CAD MSRP plus standard TiVo subscription fees. TiVo will not be available in Quebec immediately. For more information on TiVo in Canada visit www.TiVo.com/canada.

It is only the TiVo Series2DT – no TiVo Series3 or TiVo HD, as CableCARD is not supported in Canada. Though, as Canada does use ATSC for broadcast HDTV, TiVo could support the S3/HD for OTA HDTV and any clear QAM channels on digital cable. It would be nice if they would – today guide data support for that is incomplete. See the press release for more info.