Creative Waves of Coolangatta are now stocking the new beachlife Photo frames collection.

These beautifully designed beachlife picture frames from the Beachhouse Decor label make wonderfull gift suggestions and can create a wonderfull nostalgic coastal decor theme.

The unique photo frames are nicely made with scrapbooking style layouts and beachy 3D adornments. They are 23cm overal length and designed to take standard 6×4 sized photos.
 
Ideal scrapbooking style souvenirs to take home colourfull memories of fun on the beach or decorate your beach house with great home decor. Products pictured are: BC357 - 3D Green Surfing Station Wagon, BC355 - Surfy Chick, and BC354 - 3D Beach Chair. Other designs also.
 
But them now at Creative Waves, 52 Griffith Street, Coolangatta, Phone 07 5536 3888 or get your supplies at other selected Beachhouse Decor stockists and online stores.

Dell offer Laptops & Mini Tower PCs, Desktop Computers, Monitors, Printers & Ink, Electronics & Accessories online to consumers and small businesses. Their products can be ordered on their internet store and are delivered direct to your home or business.

Dell’s website, as well as their recent mail catalogues, offer “0% for 24 Months” You would think this means 0% interest or cheap finance right? Rather than pay cash, you may as well conserve your cash flow and take the interest free finance offer right?

On Dell’s website dell.com.au under the heading “Products” you will find a subcategory “Finance” where it explains their offer as follows:-

“Dell Financial Services (DFS) can provide simple and convenient finance solutions for business users. Dell customers can take advantage of easy finance programs with affordable monthly payments.”

Further down the page you will find that this product is then called a lease. When you finally read all of the way down you will find that its not a finance lease as we know them. It is an equipment rental deal.

When I phoned them to ask, they explained that customers pay the full retail price of the goods over 24 months. After 24 months if you still want to keep the goods you need to buy them at their then fair market value, estimated (but not agreed) by Dell at around 20% of the purchase price. (Paying 20% more then to buy the goods would not be a nice surprise or a cheap interest rate).

So please note that their offer is an equipment rental agreement, nothing to do with finance or interest rates?  Misleading to say the least!!

A letter to Members from Mark Baker, GHA’s Exhibition Manager :-

“It has come to GHA’s attention that Reed Gift Fairs is targeting GHA members and non-members alike and aggressively maligning our 2009 July Home & Giving Fair in Sydney.  In the best interest of our members and the industry overall, we must rebut some of the current claims.

First and foremost, GHA already enjoys a critical mass of confirmed exhibitors for the 2009 July Sydney Home & Giving Fair.  The support we have received at this early date is unprecedented for an inaugural Fair.

Secondly, the early buy-in from our members is further confirmation that our research, which supported a repositioning of the second Sydney Home & Giving Fair to early July, was absolutely correct. This of course is confirmed in feedback we have received that the recent September fair was such a sales disappointment for so many.  Our exhibitors fully appreciate that holding the event earlier allows retailers more opportunities to order, receive and sell products prior to the end of the year.

Thirdly, based on numbers freely provided by Reed Gift Fairs for its September 2008 Fair, it should be obvious to everyone that the September time-frame is no longer viable.  GHA cannot help but question the reasoning behind continuing to promote a fair proven to be of decreasing relevance to the industry.

Fourthly, again, based on Reed Gift Fairs’ own numbers, the July Gift Fair in Brisbane continues to shrink for both exhibitors and attendees. While Brisbane may remain a viable show in the future for the immediate surrounding region, GHA firmly believes it will never enjoy the national impact commensurate to the Home and Giving Fairs held in Sydney and Melbourne.

Lastly, everyone on the receiving end of Reed Gift Fairs’ aggressive maligning of GHA Home & Giving Fairs should be asking one question:  If Reed’s gift fairs in Brisbane in July and Sydney in September were progressing so well, would they need to resort to such tactics?  In other words, could their exhibition sales be slower than expected?

GHA does not and will not engage in such tactics. GHA has an overwhelmingly positive outlook moving forward regarding our new July 2009 Home & Giving Fair in Sydney.

Thank you for your support. I look forward to working with each and every one of you to ensure we represent the very best our industry has to offer.

To discuss exhibiting at any of our future Home & Giving Fairs, please contact the Trade Fairs Team at 02 9763 3222.

Sincerely yours,

Mark Baker
Exhibitions Manager

Pre-Christmas shopping is urgent. Don’t wait till next month if your planning a major consumer products purchase. Harvey Norman is not kidding when he advertises that his furniture prices will be going up. The Australian dollar drop in recent months has seen the Australian dollar (AUD$) exchange rate drop from a high of US$0.97 in July 2008 to currently under US$0.62.

That difference is more than a 35% drop and will translate to a real 35% increase in the prices that importers and wholesalers (and consequently retailers) will now have to pay for any new goods manufactured overseas compared to July.

Since Australia effectively has no manufacturing industry (thanks to unionism and Workcover, forcing costs that the market simply can not bear), then whatever you are planning to buy is going to be manufactured overseas and 95% of foreign manufactured goods are quoted and paid for in US$.

The supply chain of course always has a lot of goods in warehouses at pre-crash prices but these are currently being pushed out at discount prices to keep sales targets up and wont last too long. So unless your next large purchase is from that existing stock (and only for as long as retailers/importers remain prepared to sell at pre dollar crash prices), then it is for sure that your large ticket product that currently might have a sale discount, is going to have a hefty price increase shortly.

The bad news is that future projected interest rate cuts are going to keep the dollar low or send it lower. In the large scheme, supply and demand determines the level of our floating $AUD dollar exchange rates. When our interest rates are cut, international investors buy less Australian interest rate securities, so there is less demand and resultant downward pressure on the Australian dollar exchange rate.

Do your shopping early this Christmas!!

Recent falls in fuel prices and interest rates will return many Australian families to a situation with some spare funds in their budget coming up to the Christmas sales period, also with an expectation of more interest rate cuts to come, however the Aussie dollar drop in recent months will increase retail prices of newly imported products by 25 to 35 percent. So consumers looking to purchase large ticket price products should jump in now whilst retailers are still clearing existing stocks at discounted rates to keep their sales volumes up.

Retailers generally are optomistic according to the Australian Retailers Association, expecting total retail sales for the year to June 2009 to be slightly up on last year, although at reduced margins. This follows  the 2008 year when retail profits were generally up.

Pundits are expecting the RBA to cut interest rates by as much as 1% in December. This would equate to around a $200 saving on the average mortgage. This on top of similar recent cuts and around $100 per month in fuel bill savings from the recent hike has greaty reduced the squeeze put on Australian Families in recent months. Topping this off is the interim budget kick start package by the government that will create a huge December payout of over 8 billion to families with dependent children and pensioners and carers.

Lets not forget that Australia also still has very low unemployment statistics, and huge energy resources so the global trend is not expected to hit as hard here.