Time to Borrow: Consumer Credit Rebounds from 11-Month Decline

Confidence in the credit markets may be gaining momentum, as the numbers show that American consumers are borrowing again.

According to the Federal Reserve, the 11 month decrease in consumer borrowing has come to a halt this month. While analysts projected total consumer borrowing to drop by $9 billion dollars, actual borrowing on credit cards fell by $8.5 billion and other forms of borrowing, including loans, increased by $6.8 billion.

Students and small businesses are primarily causing this shift in borrowing trends. For these groups now is the time to borrow and take advantage of financial resources available to them.

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FCC questions early termination fees by wireless carriers and Google

On Tuesday, the FCC (Federal Communications Commission) sent inquiries to AT&T, Verizon Wireless, Sprint and T-Mobile, the four main wireless carriers, along with Google regarding Early Termination Fees (ETFs) and questioning their necessity.

The FCC remarks that there is no standard framework throughout the wireless industry for applying ETFs to customers. Because of this, the FCC has sent a set of standard questions asking about their “approach” and “implementation” to ETFs by the wireless carriers.

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Blackberry outage majorly affects North American users

These days, a Blackberry outage is seemingly a common theme as of late, which can not be good for RIM overall. This is the second time in two weeks we’ve seen a massive widespread outage like this to Blackberry users. Just last week there were many reports of Blackberry outages on December 17th according to PDABlast and ReadWriteWeb. It is being reported by BerryReporter that the outage might be caused by the latest Blackberry messenger update, which was released during the downtime.

Blackberry users seem irate over the issue just by looking at the number of users complaining over twitter, a simple twitter search for blackberry gives you more insight as it is a trending topic at the moment.

This can’t be good for RIM and the Blackberry product line with its products like the Blackberry Tour unable to put a dent in iPhone sales and now with the Android market growing rapidly with products like the now popular Droid. According to AdMob’s Regional Smartphone Usage Report, the Apple iPhone, which is growing rapidly at approximately 40% market share is already massively stunting the growth of RIM’s products which have shrunk to 14%.

What do you think? Do you think the Blackberry outages could cause a massive swing in Blackberry users to switch to other phones?

Billion in Savings to Be Found

BillShrink is pleased to have reached our goal of finding Americans more than a billion dollars in savings on everyday bills this year.  We clipped your credit card bill down by $1000, dropped your phone charges by $300 and drove down the price of your gas by $200.

It seems we picked a good year to do it….  In this economically turbulent 2009 we’ve seen credit card rates increase more than 20% and household debt climb to $13.7 trillion.

What’s in store for 2010? More savings. We’re adding new verticals and refining tools like Bill Import to protect you from hidden fees and overage charges, as well as Alerts to let you know when a better deal comes along. Think of BillShrink as your caped crusader saving your wallet!

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Thanksgiving Weekend: Deals, Steals, and … Zhu Zhu Pets?

Between Black Friday and Cyber Monday, American consumers dropped an estimated $41.2 billion on electronics, clothes, toys, and appliances. While the numbers are still rolling in, the existing data offers some interesting conclusions.

As The New York Times reported, more people hit the stores this weekend when compared to last year, but the average spending per person this year was $343.31 per person, down from $372.57 last year. Total spending clocked in at $41.2 billion, which is roughly the same as last year.

Bottom line: people are still hanging on to their hard-earned cash. That’s actually good news for those of us who stayed at home, because it means we can expect to see deals throughout the holiday shopping season as retailers work to keep consumers spending. Major retailers like Target, Walmart, Amazon, Macy’s, and Kohl’s will continue dropping prices throughout the holiday season. In an effort to maintain shopper interest, most are pushing “a deal a day” type specials that encourage shoppers to visit both websites and brick-and-mortar stores.

According to the National Retail Federation and eMarketer, online spending is projected to increase 5.4% this year, while offline shopping is expected to dip by 1%. In absolute numbers, however, offline shopping still dominates. Consumers are projected to spend about $30 billion online and about $438 billion offline.

Lastly, while most Thanksgiving shopping weekends are marked by the constant demand for televisions, laptops, other electronic gadgets, each year may be correctly identified by a crazy fad. Remember Beanie Babies? Tickle-Me-Elmos? This year, meet the Zhu Zhu Pet.

Originally retailing at $8 – $10, these little toy hamsters rapidly sold out on Black Friday and are now available only online to the tune of $40 – $50. The shortage is clearly caused by Christmas demand, so those of us here at BillShrink have some firm advice for would be Zhu Zhu owners: wait. Demand will be down by February and prices will be more normal. (And if you really, really can’t wait, bid strategically on eBay.)

Happy holidays!