Rebecca Day

Monster Digital, an independent partner of Monster, will launch a line of external solid-state drives at CES, Chief Operating Officer Michael Ridling told us during a press tour in Manhattan Thursday. The 80GB to 400GB drives, due in stores at the end of January, will come as standalone products and as part of a do-it-yourself kit that allows consumers to upgrade PCs by swapping out aging hard drives for an SSD, Ridling said. Kits will include everything a user needs to upgrade the drive, including a USB cable, software, screwdriver, rail kit for desktop PCs and an instruction manual, Ridling said. Toll-free customer support will also be available, he said. In the emerging SSD replacement market, Monster Digital will rely on the “Monster training engine” to educate dealers about SSD replacement drives, he said. He conceded that the efficacy of retail sales staffs is shrinking and said the company has developed packaging that includes features and benefits to help sell the product without a salesperson present. Monster Digital, a digital storage company launched out of a multi-decade trademark and licensing deal between Monster and SDJ Technologies, entered the market during Black Friday weekend with a line of “high-speed, high-performance” SD cards. Ridling said the SD cards, billed as premium storage solutions, sell for roughly 15 percent above most of the 400 competitor brands on the market. Monster Digital has its sights on market leader SanDisk and plans to compete on price “head to head,” but with faster read/write speeds, Ridling said. Monster Digital launched in InMotion Entertainment outlets in airports. In addition to standard CE distribution outlets, the company plans to sell specialized chains such as Guitar Center stores, where musicians shop for SD-card based music equipment, he said. The company will also launch line of premium CompactFlash cards at CES, Ridling said.

Conn’s decision not to sell “many thousands of televisions at negative margins” on Black Friday paid off on the November ledger, Chairman and newly named CEO Theodore Wright said on the chain’s fiscal Q3 earnings call Thursday.

Azione Unlimited, the new buying group founded by former HTSA executive director Richard Glikes, will announce 11 charter members Jan. 2, Glikes told Consumer Electronics Daily Wednesday. The 11 founding members will include manufacturer and dealer members, Glikes said. Azione is now accepting dealer applications from a database of 700 and is targeting custom retailers with annual sales volume of $1.5 million-$30 million, Glikes said. When asked how the group can adequately address the needs of such a divergent mix of dealers, Glikes said sales volume varies largely by region. “You can’t get a $5 million dealer in Iowa or Nebraska,” he said, but one with a half million in sales volume can benefit from the group, he said. The biggest weakness of custom retailers is “they're terrible marketers,” Glikes said. “They sit in foxholes and wait for the business to come to them.” Azione will give them a “broader silhouette that’s critical to their growing business,” he said. Dues for Azione will be $4,000 a year, compared with $895 a quarter for HES and SEN, and $7,500 a year for HTSA, Glikes said. Azione will have 40 percent fewer vendors than HTSA, he told us, but he wouldn’t say whether the group will exclude or add categories handled by existing buying groups catering to the custom by the market.

Following a road show touring the country to “give demos and build hype,” In2 Technologies is on track to be in stores with its new category of TV sound system by mid-2012, company executives told Consumer Electronics Daily Wednesday. In a conference call with Chief Marketing Officer Mike Fidler in California, founder and President Todd Beauchamp told us he was currently in China speaking to contract manufacturers about the lifestyle product that combines speakers, amplifiers, electronics and a Blu-ray player into a utilitarian stand for a flat-panel TV.

In the battle for consumer holiday dollars, Amazon is taking on brick-and-mortar retailers Saturday with a free shopping app -- available on iPhone and Android devices -- that gives shoppers a discount if they buy from Amazon while in a physical store. The move comes a week after Target used the lure of a store return option on Cyber Monday as a way to differentiate from Amazon and other Web-exclusive retailers that can’t compete with in-store returns.

As Sirius XM bears down on the end-of-the-year deadline for a subscription bump of $1.54 per month, it’s peppering former subscribers with email enticements to re-up service. Sirius XM is offering former subscribers a 6-month pre-paid programming package for $24.95 through Dec. 31, 3 months after announcing a subscription increase from $12.95 to $14.49. The plan to raise prices followed the FCC’s decision not to extend a subscription price cap resulting from XM’s purchase by Sirius, forming Sirius XM. Subscriptions will automatically renew after the 6-month period, it said. The offer is good on any inactive radio associated with a user’s account and comes with free activation (regularly $15), the company said. Sirius XM just concluded a 2-week promotion called the 60-Channel Challenge, which began Nov. 17 and gave former subscribers free access to 60 of the service’s 130-plus channels. The 6-month package is good for a full subscription of more than 130 channels, Sirius XM said. The promotional email we received did not mention the price hike but referred to standard subscription prices of $12.95-$14.49. At the end of Q3, the company reported 21.3 million subscribers, up from 19.7 million a year earlier.

After its first 2 weeks on the market, Amazon’s Kindle Fire is on track to outsell all tablets except the iPad this quarter, according to forecasts from IHS iSuppli. Amazon is expected to ship 3.9 million Kindle Fires in Q4, giving the company a 13.8 percent share of the global tablet market for the quarter, behind Apple with 65.6 percent, and ahead of Samsung with 4.8 percent and Barnes & Noble at 4.7 percent, IHS said. “At a rock bottom price of $199 -- which is less than the $201.70 it now costs to make the device -- the Kindle Fire has created chaos in the Android tablet market,” said Rhoda Alexander, senior manager, tablet and monitor research at IHS.

Despite a $6.6 million net loss in fiscal Q2 ended Oct. 29, Barnes & Noble executives were optimistic in the company’s earnings call Thursday about holiday season sales. CEO William Lynch cited a doubling of Nook revenue year over year and said consolidated Nook business -- including hardware, content and accessories -- was up 85 percent to $220 million. Based on a comp store sales boost of 11 percent over Black Friday weekend, Lynch said, “We are encouraged by our prospects for this upcoming holiday."

Seven percent more consumers shopped online this year looking for Cyber Monday deals than last year, but they spent an average $89 less than on Cyber Monday 2010, NPD said in its “Black Friday and Cyber Monday 2011” report. “Prices were lower and the natural maturation of electronics plays a huge role in this,” said Marshal Cohen, chief NPD industry analyst. He noted that each year “the same or similar electronic items tend to get lower retail prices.” Due to lower prices and attractive discounts, consumers spent Monday “gobbling up deals just like they did in stores during the Black Friday weekend,” but those surveyed spent $187.83 on average compared to last year’s $276.71, NPD said.

S3 Entertainment has joined Home Technology Specialists of America, HTSA announced Tuesday, becoming the buying group’s 60th dealer member. Park City, Utah-based S3 specializes in systems installation and integration. S3 bought Aurant, a hi-fi and home theater dealer, earlier this year. Meanwhile, Azione Unlimited, the specialty buying group started by former HTSA Executive Director Richard Glikes, said Monday it would offer vendor and retailer members free regional meetings to be funded by member dues. Azione will pick up all costs except transportation, he said. The first meeting of the group, which will officially launch Jan. 2, will be in the Northeast “probably in Baltimore,” in spring, Glikes told us. “We will do our best not to conflict with any other group,” said Glikes, who left HTSA last summer after a contract dispute. Glikes said Azione is looking for 30 vendor members with “20 confirmed so far.” Dealer signups begin Dec. 5, he said.