I was watching TV the other day and an Ebay commercial came up (to view the commercial click here).  The setup was the following: a family is singing “The Twelve Days of Christmas”, a girl hijacks the song to air grievances about some questionable gift-giving that she received during the previous holiday season.  That commercial captures the essence of an idea that I been preaching for some time now.

Imagine if you could have a list of things you want/need on your facebook/twitter profile.  A lot of people tell me that already exists, its called the Amazon Wish List.  To that I say, it is presumptuous to assume that all the people in your life have an Amazon account*.  If anything, you have a better chance that everyone in your life has a facebook/twitter profile.  And most likely they have already friend requested you.  So why not embrace the opportunity and put on notice all your friends and family on facebook/twitter about what you really would like/want/need.

The fact of the matter is every year there are several occasions (birthdays, mother’s day, father’s day, Christmas as the Ebay TV commercial cleverly presented) where you find yourself either on the giving end or receiving end of a gift that is not exciting or well received.  Essentially, the potential for the gift is squandered when the wrong item is chosen.  And even though it is the thought that counts.  There is a difference between putting some thought into a gift and remembering to get something for someone.  The commercial tackles subjects that are a part of everyone’s reality in family life.  Sometimes we don’t know what to get for the people we love (our kids, parents, uncles, grandparents, nephews and nieces, cousins the list goes on…).  And you know what, its ok to not know.  After all, that is a lot of people to keep track of and they have interests that change over the years (this is especially true regarding the younger members of the family).

Imagine if you could easily solve this dilemma by checking out the wish list of your loved ones.  You could go on their facebook/twitter profile –which you are already doing to keep up with what’s going in their lives (I’m talking to you parents, uncles and grandparents) — and  take a look at what is on their wish list.  That will guarantee that the smile on their face is a sincere one when they open your gift.  The girl from the Ebay commercial said it best: “I want to be very specific about this because last year I got some gifts I wasn’t exactly feeling… I just hope you all stuck to my list this year… Sorry to be so frank I just don’t need another needle-point throw pillow aunt Carla…”.

*Also not everything you need can be found on Amazon.  I understand that the wish list is great for Amazon because it helps to further promote purchases between different user accounts through the website.  But I’m not worried about how to increase Amazon’s bottom line.  I’m trying to figure out ways to help shoppers get more bang for their buck.  And a gift is just that, a good opportunity to acquire something you been wanting or needing for some time without having to spend money on it yourself.  Another way to think about it is, if someone is going to go out and spend their hard earned money on you it may as well be something that is useful to you in some way instead of it simply becoming another piece of clutter in your closet.

Ok so here’s a good way to make money from the old electronic devices and tech gadgets that you have laying around the house.  Before you go out and buy that I-Pad you been wanting or upgrade to the next I-Phone… Ask yourself.  Am I capitalizing on the value of my old computer? Has your music player become obsolete because you now listen to all your music on your mobile phone?

Well, instead of hoarding all those devices why not get paid for them and then use that money to buy the new toys you want!  Its really easy, all you have to do is go to gazelle.com and they will pay you for your used electronics!!! They accept over 250,000 products: Blu-ray players, calculators, camcorders, camera lenses, cell phones, desktops, digital cameras, e-readers, external drives, GPS devices, gaming consoles, home audio, LCD monitors, laptops,  MP3 players, movies, CD’s, DVD’s, PDA’s, projectors, satellite radios, streaming media, tablets, video games and DVD players to name a few…

Here is how it works.  You send them the tech gadgets you no longer want.  Once received, your used electronics are inspected to make sure their condition matches your evaluation. Then, Gazelle will send your payment. The process takes about a week.

Now you can use that money to buy all the new electronics you been wanting!  For your convenience click here to go to gazelle.com

Are you one of those people that doesn’t understand what the difference is between an LCD TV and a Plasma TV?  Who knew that the simple act of buying an HDTV required you to have a PhD in electrical engineering? The point is that its not easy staying up to date with all the information required to make a well informed decision on an expensive purchase.

There used to be a time when you bought a TV, brought it home, plugged it into the wall and you were done setting up.  Nowadays you got to preset the settings for all the different channel and outputs that you are going to use for your: Blu-ray player, gaming console, computer (for those that use their televisions as a computer monitor).

So what do you do?  Do you rely on the floor sales person at your local electronics retailer? (whose job is to sell you everything they can from the store… That is like asking a used car salesman if he thinks you should buy one of the cars on his lot). Do you Google it? Maybe, if you are good at distinguishing between good reliable information and all the blabber you can find online.  Your best bet is to go to newegg.com, they have the owners of the products give though-rough reviews that are easy to follow.  And best of all no one is trying to do a sales job on you because the people writing the reviews are sharing their experiences as current owners of the product.

You didn’t hear it from me…

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