New Product Friday: What's Coming on Cyber Monday?
Today we show you a few new products and give you the inside scoop on Cyber Monday.
Welcome back every one! Things are working a little differently today. Instead of a video about our new products we are bringing you one to help you get the most bang for your buck on the day of days, Cyber Monday, 12/1/2014!
Want the full run-down on what's on the flash sales for Cyber Monday? You can see everything here. How big will the discounts be? Well...you won't know specifics until day of, but we're looking at 30-50% off. Plan your day accordingly.
All Nick wants for the holidays is for us to stop saying "classic Nick' - let's see how long that lasts. Even though we don't have a New Product video for you today we still have plenty of new and revised pieces of electronic goodness for you to peruse! Let's check them out.
Remember this little robot from a few months ago? We are now offering the MiP in the White/Black color variant! The MiP Robotic Platform is the first self-balancing robot that you get to control and play games with. The MiP can drive, dance, plays games, battle with other MiPs, respond to simple hand motions and can be remotely controlled by a compatible iOS or Android device. Check out the teardown of the Black/Silver MiP as well as a look at other self-balancers on one of our previous SparkFun Live.
There Are No Electrons: Electronics for Earthlings may be a new product for us, but it has actually been around for over 20 years. This book isn't afraid to present complicated concepts in easy to remember ways while still being entertaining. It's wacky, yet factual, and brings a refreshing perspective into the world of electronics.
The XBee Wireless Kit was one of our most popular retail kits to date. Well, we've done away with the annoying clam shell and put it into one of our SparkFun red boxes. This is the same XBee kit you know and love and still offers two XBee Modules, one XBee Explorer, one Xbee Shield and a set of R3 headers to solder onto the shield.
The SparkFun Mini Inventor's Kit for Redboard, is actually the new version of our RedBoard Starter kit. With this new starter kit you actually get the first 8 experiments from our full-sized SIK. With half the kit and half the price, go check it out!
The Beginner Tool Kit is back and has been given another update! This newest version finally includes our Basic Digital Multimeter, Wire Strippers, and all-new Flush Cutters.
We don't have just one but two tool kits this week! Like the beginner kit, the Intermediate Tool Kit has been given quite a big upgrade. With a new Variable Temperature Soldering Iron and all metal Pocket Screwdriver Set, this kit will provide you with a new set of durable tools.
The SHARP Memory Display Breakout brings you the low power usage of an e-paper display with the fast refresh rates of an LCD. Equipped with a 1.3", 96x96 screen, it can be a great addition to your next project that needs a small screen with a lot of versatility.
The new version of the RS485 Shield is now out. This board works the same way as its previous version but now removes the optional DB9 connector bay, adds a second 2-pin screw terminal, and adds the ability to choose two pins from your Arduino's D0 to D7 as Software Serial Ports to communicate with the shield.
That's all for this week folks! Even though next week is Thanksgiving, we'll be back next Friday with another awesome New Product video with tons of new stuff to show off. See you then!
Are you going to have a clock somewhere on the home page? Last year some people got messed up with the time zone change.
Oh I remember that day... I was so pissed off... I waited and waited for that holy hour to come just to find out I was already late... I ended up getting just a few mini boards :'/
What about all the items that are showing out of stock with no time estimate for restocking? Seems kind of a bummer those items won't be available for the flash sale.
If you are holding them back for the Monday sale you might want to update them and say that so we know they will be available Monday. Otherwise what is the point of putting them on sale with no backorder?
We completely agree. Stay tuned. We have secret stashes of freshly built boards & kits waiting in the wings... :)
We're also working as fast as possible to restock with "normal" production runs before the Thanksgiving break.
Excited for this year's cyber Monday deals, I was able to get so much good stuff last year!
Not seeing anything I really want this go around.
Will back orders for on sale items be accepted?
No. Watch the video at the 3:10 minute mark.
Nope, sorry. But we are building up stock on these so there should be quite a few available.
So about the shipping for cyber Monday: Will you combine shipping for all my orders on Monday? I don't mind placing 5 orders throughout the day, but it seems silly to ship them in 5 different boxes. Sparkfun could save a lot of work packing multiple boxes and I could save on shipping costs. I wouldn't even mind not getting the free shipping if no single order added up to $75. Anyway, it is what it is if you aren't set up to combine orders, but I will be a lot more likely to order if I can combine shipping. Either way, the sale looks great, thanks!
We do get a lot of requests to be able to combine orders when we have sales but unfortunately it causes so much of a delay in processing your orders, especially with the huge amount of people that order on Cyber Monday, that it's not something that we can offer.
We have some really awesome sales planned so keep watch on Monday and we'll be able to help you save on some awesome discounts!
Sorry, we don't currently have a way to combine orders in that manner.
This kills any chance of saving much, if anything at all, for anyone not in the US with having to pay the same shipping cost for what items are ordered each hour as what it would likely cost to ship them all together in many cases.
This is really too bad. Assuming I pay over $75 on flash sale items in each time slot (which, frankly, isn't likely), there's still just a lot of waste.
It doesn't seem too difficult to assemble a single box for all orders placed by a single customer made on a single day. You'd save yourself some money, you'd put less waste out into the world, and you'd make it a bit easier for the folks delivering packages during the peak holiday shipping season.
The problem with that strategy is that nothing could be shipped until 7pm to assure all orders for the sale are placed to properly sort and ship. That puts a lot of strain on the shipping department.
Personally, if it would help the S&H people and save me the shipping costs, I'd be more than willing to wait a week for stuff to ship in this kind of situation. Hell, give the people in S&H the day off, even, and declare no shipments will go out until Tuesday. It would also give THEM a chance to participate in CyberMonday sales! Win-win-win! ;)
(This being Sunday night, yeah, I don't see it happening, but hey...)