What's hot what's not
amcity.com
Diana Brown Special To The Journal
Retail experts are predicting that the latest in home entertainment equipment will be the hot sellers this holiday season--from state-of-the-art digital video discs to high-end multi-media sound systems to elaborate home theaters.
``It's usually slow in the summer with electronics, but it has been very busy,'' said Stephen Nikitopoulos, store manager of Cambridge Soundworks in the Burlington Mall. ``That just means it will be a really busy Christmas, especially with new products and DVD. Everybody is buying it and loving it.''
DVD--or digital video discs and players--are being touted by the industry as one of the most significant advances in home entertainment technology. DVD uses smaller coding "pits" and a tighter tracking system, offering seven times the capacity of a standard compact disc. They also are capable of storing more minutes of video than laser discs.
The discs produce a sharper image than VHS tapes and contain eight soundtracks and up to 32 sets of preprogrammed subtitles. With DVD, film directors can also record several different endings to a movie, giving the customer various options. DVD players retail for $500 to $2,800.
"DVD is going to be really hot,'' said Noah Herschman, vice president of marketing for Tweeter, the Canton-based electronics store. ``That is something that is really new and cool and different.''
Tom Hannaher, marketing director for Newton-based Cambridge Soundworks, said their DVD systems are "flying out the door."
Customers all over the United States are catching onto DVD, according to Lisa Fasold, spokeswoman for the Consumer Electronics Manufacturers Association in Arlington, Va., which represents 430 of the largest electronics makers. About 160,000 DVD units have sold this year, she said, and she expects them to continue selling well through the holidays.
The Disney Company's recent announcement that it will release several of its films on DVD with enhanced picture and sound quality is also expected to boost sales, Fasold said.
Although today the discs are sold to consumers, she said, Blockbuster Video and other large video chain stores are expected to offer DVD rentals in the future.
The strong economy heading into the holiday season also bodes well consumer electronics sales, Fasold said.
The Consumer Electronics Manufacturers Association plans to survey up to 1,000 Americans in October to guage what they plan to buy this year. Survey results are due in November.
Fasold said computer accessory sales will be up, particularly CD-ROMs, keyboards, speakers and scanners, but hard drives and monitors are not expected to sell as well. Although Microsoft's Windows 95 operating system was popular two years ago, she expects the new MMX computer operating system to be this year's "got-to-have" item.
Video players, large screen color televisions, cellular phones, cordless phones and pagers also are expected to be popular gift items, she said.
Fasold predicted that portable audio sales will be down because the market penetration is so high. But, she said, home theater speaker sales will increase as more families upgrade to elaborate large screen televisions and multiple-speaker systems.
It is the home theater trend that local retailers believe will be all the rage this holiday season.
"A lot of people are spending a lot of time at home around the television so if you have a good picture, you want good sound,'' said Mitch Nollman, marketing director for the Bose Corp., a speaker manufacturer in Framingham. Prices for Bose home entertainment systems start at $1,500.
To create a home theater system, Nollman said it is necessary to have at least five speakers spread out across the room.
``They need to be small. When you're trying to integrate them into your life, you want them to be small,'' he said.
So Bose makes speakers that measure only 4 1/2 inches in height and weigh about a pound.
For computers, Nollman said, the new trend will be improved sound quality and upgraded speaker systems. Until now, customers wanted better imaging but now that computers routinely play music, games and educational software ``sound is going to be an important part of the computer experience,'' he said. Bose speakers start at $200 and up.
One of the more popular items at Cambridge Soundworks has been the PC Works speaker systems, selling for under $100, Hannaher said.
Multimedia speakers, which will work with computers, televisions, boom boxes, headphones and portable CD players, are ``ultra hot'' too, he said.
Dolby Digital Surround Sound speakers are expected to get a boost this holiday season because average retail prices have dropped from $1,800 last year down to about $800 this year, Hannaher said.
Mini-disc players have been on the market for at least 10 years, but they could turn out to be hot sellers this year because the prices have dropped dramatically over the last year. Sony players cost up to $800 last year and are now selling for about $300, according to Tweeter's Herschman.
The mini discs look like standard compact discs but the difference is consumers can now record on them.
Plasma TV is the latest advancement in television. With a four-inch thick screen that spans up to 40 inches in diameter, Herschman said the images will be more realistic, using a complicated plasma-like substance to conduct the picture rather than the old-fashioned tubes.
"It's pretty cool," he said.
But it is also pretty expensive--ranging from $4,000 to $5,000.
Local retailers are optimistic that this holiday season will be brighter than many others with the economy and disposable income so strong.
``At this point, economists are predicting it will be a good holiday,'' said Fasold of the Consumer Electronics Manufacturers Association.
c 1997, Boston Business Journal |
