Alright, Blackfriday is come and gone. It is time to send in the Mail-In Rebate forms(MIR). I am sure many of you bought items on sale especially with  Mail-In Rebates(MIR) hoping to get your money back and prove yourself that you really saved some money by getting up early and waiting in line for hours.

In order to be successful in getting your MIR's, you need apply properly. I always had 100% redemption rate in my Mail-In rebate claims because of proper planning and applying without giving chance for any errors  

Mail In Rebate Facts

According to wikipedia.com report, PMA, a marketing firm, estimated that in 2005 $486.5 million worth of rebates were redeemed. The redemption rates averaged only 21.1% when calculated as a percentage of total sales, and 67.6% when calculated as a percentage of incremental sales. That is not an encouraging news but MIR system has come a long way since 2005. Now you have option to apply your MIR either by mail or online to get your money faster.

Most rebates are handled under contract by rebate clearinghouses that specialize in processing rebates and contest applications. The source of their fees is not readily discernible with conflicting reports from different sides. There is always a concern about rebates being rejected and invalidated by these clearinghouses to show more savings to the company to earn more fees.

Young America, a rebate clearinghouse claims that "Young America receives the same fees whether a submission is valid or invalid," giving them no incentive to unfairly invalidate customer rebates. Whether it is true or not, we cannot verify but if you do your part right and apply correctly, they can never reject or invalidate your claim. Let's work towards that goal.


How MailIin Rebates works?

Lets say the item usually costs $100. Retailers put a tag on it for $75 with $25 Mail-in Rebate. You will pay the full $100 at time of check out and apply MIR to get back $50 via mail. In most cases, you need to apply for the rebate via mail with all the required things like original reciept and purchase proof(UPC). Nowadays you can also apply online to get it faster with any retailers like bestbuy, staples, officemax etc., It takes 4-8 weeks to process and you will eventually get your money back.

Retailers and Manufacturers play with the psychology of the buyers and try to gain by taking advantage of lazy people who forget to send rebates or don't send the required proofs. Also the retailers use this opportunity to get rid of the items which doesn't sell well as freebies and change them to money. 

Tips and Tricks for Quick Rebate Redemption

1. Before leaving the store, check whether you got all the mail-in rebate forms and seperate original reciepts to send with those forms. Some stores would give seperate reciepts but others you need to either send copy or original reciept. Check the requirement.
   
2. Unpack the item and save the package materials. Check and make sure whether the item works as expected. If not you have the option to return the material with the original package. Try it out for few days and if it is all good, then cut out the UPC code required for rebate and trash the package material. The reason, you cannot return the material without UPC code. You need the original package with the UPC to return it. If you cut it out and sent the Mail in rebate and want to return it, you will have tough time doing so.
   
3. Now sort out the reciepts to seperate out the rebate form and rebate reciept for each item which is on rebate. Read the requirements carefuly and try to do one item at a time. Some rebate might require you to send the original UPC Bar code  and some don't. They will all specify a time frame for the rebate to reach their office. If you can submit online which saves postage and time, just do it. It will also help to track the status. If not, you might have to do via mail.
   
4. Collect all the requirements for each item and  put them in a envelope. Don't paste it yet. Do rebates in batches instead of doing all together to avoid any confusion.
   
5. Use address labels on the envelopes for clarity and save time instead of writing. 
   
6. Once you are done with all the items to send, don't forget to make copies or scan (save paper) of all your documents for each rebate which is CRUCIAL! It will come handy when companies disqualify rebates for missing document. You can always reapply with the copy. So, make sure you copy everything including UPC code.
   
7. Next save the scanned copy in proper computer folder with right naming to identify later. If you copied, file them in your cabinet folder for future purpose. Also make an entry in text file or journal about the rebates like product, date rebate sent and how much is expected for future reference.
   
8. Finally, put all the document back in the envelope after cross checking the requirement last time and apply proper postage (first class) and mail it out. That completes the applying process.
   
   
9. Once you sent it out, you need wait patiently for minimum 4 weeks and see whether you hear any feedback from them via email. Nowadays many companies send out email status or directions via email to check your status online. If not you can visit the retailers website and check the status using rebate code. Track them periodically and if they are having problem, call them up and resend any proof needed. 

Hope these points will help you to make the rebate process bit easier. They work almost all the time. Final word, don't give up if they reject or disqualify your rebate. You can always reapply with your rebate copy and don't forget it is your money and you better try to get it back.  

If you have other tips to add, please don't hesitate to share it.  
 
Photo source: wikipedia.com

We started this series of articles with Blackfriday trends moved to list out 5 step strategy to get ready for Blackfriday and continued with a shopping plan. Yesterday we moved on to real meaty stuff talking about hot gizmos and gadgets which are currently attracting consumers in this holiday season. It is Digital Readers tops the list with new demand  from book readers. We will continue the list in this article and see more gadgets people are waiting to get hold of.

Hot Gadgets #2 : BluRay DVD Players

Blu-ray has been growing in popularity since around 2007. Both Blu-ray players and discs have substantially dropped in price since last year. This Black Friday will be the first time that many stores will be offering enticing deals on Blu-ray Players, and the first time we will see a Blu-ray player sold well under $100.

BD Live is a Blu-ray disc feature that brings content from the Internet to your Blu-ray movies. This has previously included games, downloadable features, quizzes, and movie trailers. Notable feature which you might want to check out on Blu Ray players is to connect to the Internet from your home and watch movies using Instant Streaming offered by Netflix and others. You can check buyers guide at bfads.net.

Hot Gadgets #3: High Definition TV's

One of the most sought after items this Black Friday is high-definition televisions. High-Definition televisions are often on the list of big-ticket sales at many Black Friday retailers. A good television should hopefully last you for several years, so this is not a decision to rush into! Big discounts on these expensive sets can tempt you into a quick purchase, but do your homework beforehand and you'll wind up with a great TV for a great price. Check out the buyers guide from CNET  to educate yourself before you hunt down for the right set.

You can also check out the comparison between Plasma and LCD at cnet.com, two different HDTV technlogy and decide which one suits your need. You can check the current Black Friday deals on HDTV at blackfriday.info. Deals ranging from $125 to $1000 according to the models.

Example:

Sansui 19" LCD HDTV Model #: HDLCD1909 - $128.00
Samsung 40" LCD 1080p HDTV Model #: LN40B500 - $597.99 

Hot Gadgets #4: Fully powered, Cheap Laptops and Netbooks

Black Friday deals on laptops are usually among the best values a shopper is likely to find. If you're in the market for a laptop this year, you'll probably see a lot of great offers on netbooks in particular. Not to be confused with a notebook, which is just another name for full-sized laptops, a netbook is basically the compact car of the laptop world. It's smaller, it's lighter, and it can get you where you want to go for a lot less money. The trade off is that netbooks generally pack less power and fewer features than their full-sized counterparts

Most netbooks do not have a CD/DVD drive, some come with non-Windows operating systems like Linux instead of the more common Windows XP or Windows 7. Netbooks often have less RAM, and a slower processor than full-sized notebooks. Most netbooks are intended for web-surfing and basic office work (Microsoft Word, Excel, etc). They usually carry enough hardware to handle these activities, but not much beyond that. You can learn more about netbooks at bfads.net buyers guide. Check out blackfriday.info for laptop deals for this holiday.

Digital Cameras

Digital cameras just took over the photography from still cameras long time, almost 5 years now. It has become so common to see digital cameras in everybody's hands mainly because of easiness, flexibility and more capabilities. 

It can be very confusing if you haven't spent hours researching what each term means. To make your life easier,

For this black friday, there are humpty number of deals out there for digital cameras starting for just $59.99 going to $569 and more. Check out the deals at blackfriday.info

Don't forget to come back and check out the last five Hot Gizmo and Gadget Picks.

Content sources: cnet.com, msnbc.com, inquist.com, bfads.net
Photo sources: promoteyourself.com, letsgodigital.com

Are you excited about the Black Friday shopping deals with all the hype around?

If you are a first timer, you better be.  In the last two articles, we saw the trend of Black friday, how you can put together your buy list under the budget using the 5 step strategy.

You have one last thing to do which is plan for the big shopping day. In this article you will see a simple plan that makes your life easier with safe shopping. Whether you are going to start your shopping season on the Black friday or later, the plan filled with tips will surely come-in handy. 

1. Prepare a plan

With families around, it might be hard to find time to draft a plan on the Thanksgiving day. Either involve your family in preparation or do it before Thanksgiving day. It is important to have a plan on which store you want to go and when you want be at the store.  For example, if you want an unbeatable deal of fully powered, high peformance Sony laptop for just $399, you should be at the store at least 5-6 hours early so you one among first 5-10 people for the chance to get this deal. These hot deals are mostly limited in quantity so you have to be among first 10-20 people.  If you only plan to get not so hot items, you can plan to be at the stores couple of hours early before the door opens.

Also with your finalized buy list, you should have an idea which stores you want to hit. Check their opening times and see whether you can go one store after another if they are not opening at same time. Otherwise you might want to decide which item is important to you and go to that store first. If you can join hands with your family and friends it makes easier and fun.

2.Partner with Friends and Families

Divide and Conquer method works very well for Black friday. Partner with family members or ask them to join with you. You can pair up and take different routes and hit different stores. This way you have chance of getting more things on sale instead of hitting them alone.
 
3. Things you need to take

4. Retailers going High Tech

This Black friday in many ways different from the past as we discussed in the first article of this series. Most importantly, many retailers like Staples, Toysrus are using social networking media like Twitter, Facebook and MySpace to advertise last minute deals to their subscribers. Don't forget carry your iphone or  cellphones equiped with text messages to the track and avoid the latest  minute deals.

5. Fast Check out is key

Another trick for faster shopping is to check out faster. You will lose more time in checking out/billing the items at the cash register than picking up the items. So if you are going to shops as a pair, ask one person to stand in check out line as soon as possible when you are crabbing the things. This way as soon as you are done shopping, you can bill your items and on your way to next store.

6. Mail-In Rebate(MIR) reciepts

Don't forgot get the mail in rebate coupons and reciepts to go with your items. Most of the stores are avoiding MIR this season to reduce cost involved in MIR's but if you happen to buy an item with MIR, do collect all paper work needed to claim it.

7. Know retailers dirty secrets

Look at the fine print that appears next to an advertised "doorbuster deal" at the bottom of the page in this year's circulars. It will either say "While supplies last," "Minimum 2 per store," "No rainchecks" or "All items are available in limited quantities." If it says any of these jorgans, you either plan properly to be at the store early to get them or plan to get in different store if it cost bit more.

8. Avoid rush'in

After last year stampede at a Wal-Mart store in New York that led to an employee's death they are planning to keep it open for 24 hours. The stampede happened because so many of the deals were advertised as limited supply. Plan properly to be at store early and avoid rush'in or try to avoid congestion. 

9. Don't give up

Many times you can go late to the store even after thee actual opening times and get items on sale if you are lucky. How? Some stores put out the doorbusters in batches and your might be lucky to get them. In other case,  many people who crabbed sale items decided not to get them and throw them in other shelfs, you can just browse the store and might endup getting what you wanted. So don't give up if you are going after all the opening time. 

10. Drive Carefully and Safe shopping

Black Friday is also one of days for many accidents. Everyone is trying to rush to get things. So be careful and watch out. You don't want to get into an accident and lose more than what you want to save to start with.

Hope the shopping plan with tips and tricks were helpful. Come back for Hot picks for this blackfriday and more on mail in rebates.

Photo source: ehow.com