Toy Shortages Send Shoppers to ebay

CYBER MONDAY CAME EARLY AS consumers flocked online over the weekend to pay as much as $100 for TMX Elmo on eBay as the season's hottest toys and electronics sold out early on Black Friday.

Mattel, parent company of Fisher-Price, said it has ordered more of the red fabric that makes up the $40 Elmo, added production lines, and is flying the toys into the country from its foreign plants.

Mattel, which sought to capitalize on the 10th anniversary of the original Tickle Me Elmo, generated buzz by word of mouth--and an industry observer estimates that the company put out only enough inventory so far to satisfy a third of consumer demand, ensuring a sense of urgency among parents to get one.
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eBay Brags of 'Black Friday' Shopping Success

eBay released data on how certain popular items fared on eBay.com on "Black Friday," traditionally one of the busiest retail shopping days in the U.S. eBay said 2,537 TMX Elmo dolls sold for an average price of $70.10 each, and 73 Furreal Butterscotch Pony toys sold for an average price of $350.48 each.

Four Samsung BDP1000 Blu-Ray DVD players sold for an average price of $552.75 each, and eBay sellers sold 1,910 pairs of socks on Black Friday for an average price of $10.80 each. The data was provided by eBay Marketplace Research.

Read More http://auctionbytes.com/cab/abn/y06/m11/i27/s03

Lawyer warns eBay to pull copies of Simpson book

After three separate purported copies of O.J. Simpson's book "If I Did It," were offered on auction by eBay Thursday, an attorney representing the family of Nicole Brown Simpson accused the website of not moving quickly enough to halt the sales.
The book, a hypothetical story of how Simpson would have killed his ex-wife and her friend, Ron Goldman, had been scheduled for release Nov. 30 following a two-part Simpson interview on Fox, but News Corp., owner of Fox Broadcasting and publisher HarperCollins canceled the projects after public outcry condemning the account as revolting and exploitive.
Read more http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2006-11/27/content_5396733.htm

Celebrity-Autographed Guitars Auctioned on eBay to Support National Latino Early Literacy Program

Three guitars autographed by Latino celebrities are being auctioned on eBay to raise money for a national Hispanic literacy initiative. John Leguizamo, Johnny Pacheco, Mana and others autographed the guitars at the 7th Annual Latin GRAMMY(R) Awards at Madison Square Garden earlier this month.

The guitars will be listed on eBay through Saturday, Dec. 2. The proceeds from the sale will support Lee y Seras(R) (Read and You Will Be), a national, research-based initiative that helps parents and communities build early literacy skills among Latino children.

Read more http://www.elitestv.com/pub/2006/Nov/EEN456af66636e6d.html

YouTube and eBay, meet O.J.

NEW YORK (AP) -- The O.J. Simpson project is dead, but the book and the TV interview could turn up in bootleg form in this age of YouTube and eBay, when scandalous information seldom stays secret for long.
News Corp., owner of Fox Broadcasting and publisher HarperCollins, called off Simpson's "confession" Monday after advertisers, booksellers and even Fox personality Bill O'Reilly branded the project sick and exploitive.

A two-part interview had been scheduled to air November 27 and November 29 on Fox, with the book, "If I Did It," to follow on November 30.
Read more http://www.cnn.com/2006/SHOWBIZ/TV/11/21/simpson.youtube.ap/index.html