Product Trends Magazine

About the company: Travel Guard International is the industry’s leading travel insurance provider - covering more than 6 million travelers worldwide each year. Their travel insurance plans offer coverage for vacation and trip cancellation, travel interruptions and delays, emergency medical and health expenses, lost baggage and more. Plus, every Travel Guard insurance plan includes a 24-hour "911" travel emergency service for urgent medical assistance, last-minute or emergency travel and flight changes, lost luggage tracking, pre-trip travel advice, and more.

The big pitch: With every Travel Guard insurance plan you will also receive 24-hour travel assistance.

When I was six months pregnant, my husband and I were celebrating our fifth wedding anniversary when we decided to take what we thought would be our last trip together as a couple before our baby. Hours before we were supposed to leave, I started having contractions, forcing us to cancel our airline tickets, our hotel reservations, and in the end, it cost us a lot of money. Little did I know that had we held a travel insurance policy, we could have been protected from loss.

Travel Guard offers policies catered to your needs as a traveler. They sell coverage for cruises, international travel, single trips, flights, students, travel medical insurance, and annual policies. The company also offers 24-hour protection and assistance for a number of problems that can occur while traveling.

The two biggest risks that travelers can incur are the costs of canceling or changing travel plans and medical care during your trip. Travel Guard not only covers these issue, but they seem to have the broadest scope of coverage in the industry.

The Wall Street Journal recently said, “In the future, you might consider buying insurance to cover the cost of canceling hotel or rental accommodations because the property is uninhabitable. Travel Guard of Stevens Point, Wis., offers such insurance at a cost between 5% and 7% of the trip’s total value.”

Moreover, the 24-hour hotline, with live people answering, is a real plus. While other companies offer similar plans, they don’t all offer this nifty extra. One problem with the policy, however, is that they have a strike list posted on their web site. The policy does not offer coverage if an airline on their list goes on strike during your vacation time. As much as this is annoying, it is, however, a standard practice in the industry.

It is important, when purchasing this travel insurance, to decide how much coverage you truly need. Consider all possibilities, then decide if the cost of the policy is actually worth it if those issues crop up during your vacation. And when you decide that travel insurance is for you, Travel Guard International should be your first stop.

The Product Trends rating: Four stars. This company offers very reliable customer service and fast claims. If you’re interested in travel insurance, this is certainly the way to go. –- Reviewed by Mindy Matter

To try Travel Guard International for yourself, click the image below:

About the company: HomeClick’s industry knowledge, manufacturing contacts and extensive inventory located in our 270,000-square-foot warehouse in Edison, New Jersey, has helped us become the leading and most-trusted virtual showroom for high-end products. At HomeClick, you will find the largest collection anywhere of premium brand name Bath, Hardware, Kitchen, Lighting, Outdoor & Tableware products at the lowest prices.

The big pitch: Free shipping on all orders over $199, and no sales tax (except for New Jersey residents).

Bakc in the day, when the internet was just starting to boom, a small New Jersey home decor company with two stores decided to set up a tiny Yahoo Stores online shopfront, just to see whether this internet thing would really have any legs. The response, according to the owners of the business, was incredible, and before long they were investing in a full-on internet presence that could handle the overwhelming demand. That website would be called HomeClick.

Now, if you’re like me, shopping for ‘home furnishings’ is right around ‘going to the dentist’ on your list of things to do. Fortunately, HomeClick makes the whole shopping adventure a little more pleasant than most, because the products they sell are much different from the stuff you find lying on a Wal*Mart shelf. This is no ‘Made in China’ homeware - this is the best of the best. From toilets that are nothing short of works of art, to kitchen sinks that make even a jaded old cynic like me step back and say "whoa."

I mean, you haven’t seen a kitchen sink until you’ve seen one made out of gold-tinted titanium!

To be sure, HomeClick is not the place you go to replace a burned out coffeemaker. But if you want to replace that old MrCoffee with a Starbucks Barista Digital Italia Espresso Machine, or perhaps replace your old GE refrigerator with a 48inch side-by-side built-in refrigerator with a temperature management system, icemaker, tap water purifier, SatinGlide freezer basket and electronically controlled storage areas that keep different foods at different temperatures, then HomeClick is the place you’ll find your homeware dreams come true.

As much as HomeClick specializes in top of the line home, kitchen, and bath items, that doesn’t mean you can’t find one heck of a deal there. When this item was written, you could purchase an $800 Veneto one-piece elongated toilet fitting for just $279, or a $2900 Nexus Air Bath for half price - $1464. And if that’s not enough for you, HomeClick also runs a ‘virtual outlet store’, which takes prices of excess inventory down by as much as a whopping 75% off the list price.

Faucets, cookware, cutlery, bathroom fittings, fireplaces, appliances, kitchen accessories, lighting, outdoor furniture, shower sets, whirlpools, grills, tableware - if you could buy it for the home, then you’ll find the best quality items right here.

Of course, not everybody can afford to buy the best all the time, so HomeClick makes it easy to purchase by offering financing options, online gift certificates, and even a HomeClick credit card that earns you discounts when you use it to buy furnishings, with 0% interest for the first 12 months. If you want even bigger discounts, join the HomeClick newsletter, which alerts customers of snap specials and gives them free shipping on all orders.

Now for the down side: HomeClick seems to trust their delivery to a company (or companies) that do not hold customer service in very high regard, and according to our research, this has led to a multitude of complaints over the past year. Additionally, because HomeClick has such a high turnover and their prices are so low, they do on occasion tell you that items you’ve ordered are on back order. On top of that, you should be aware that your credit card will be charged as soon as you place your order, even if it takes a few days to get your order shipped. For most people, that’s fine, but some take umbrage to immediate payment processing, so if you’re that kind of person, beware.

This, however, is a marginal annoyance when you shop around and find out just how low HomeClick’s prices are - Lowe’s, Home Depot, Faucet.com - these places cannot hold a candle to the low prices of HomeClick. Granted, the products they sell are not exactly low end, but the prices they charge for high quality products are simply unbeatable - even if you purchase through your plumbing contractor.

With no sales tax (except for local New Jerseyites), and free shipping for any order over $199 (which is likely to be just about every order), if you’ve recently decided to redecorate your home and finally build that dream kitchen or bathroom, you simply have to stop by HomeClick first.

The Product Trends rating: Customer service matters, and though we had no problem with our test order, the fact that others have had issues with delivery times gives you reason to be cautious. That said, this stuff is high quality and dirt cheap - if price and quality matters to you, our advice is give it a shot. Three and a half stars.

To try HomeClick for yourself, click the image below:

About the company: "Betfair is the world’s leading online betting exchange, a concept it has pioneered. Driven by cutting-edge technology, Betfair enables punters to choose their own odds and bet against each other, even after an event has started. Betfair processes more than 3m transactions a day and at peak times matches more than 12,000 bets a minute."

The big pitch: You choose the odds you’re prepared to accept, or lay odds for other users to bet with you!

If you’ve ever been involved in sports betting, you’ve probably cursed, like we have, the fact that if you don’t like the odds on offer, you’re kind of screwed. If you’re convinced that the New York Yankees will beat the Houston Astros, but the line is heavily in New York’s favor, you can either bet a lot of money to win not much back, or you can win not a lot of money and barely even make a profit.

But Betfair changes all that by hosting the world’s first betting marketplace where you, the user, decide what odds you’re prepared to take on just about any sport there is, and other users either accept those odds and take your bet, or set their own odds that they hope you’ll agree to. Think of it as eBay for sports gambling odds.

The reason this is a good thing is simple - somewhere out there, there’s a sucker who honestly believes the Tampa Bay Devil Rays will beat the Boston Red Sox, and they believe in that theory so much that they’re prepared to offer you good odds in the hope that they’ll win your money. You, on the other hand, know better, so you take that knucklehead’s bet and when the Sox cream the Dev’s, you clean up.

If you’ve ever wanted to be a sports bookie for a day but didn’t have the resources to do so, this is your chance. If you’ve ever wanted to add a little spice to the Denver Broncos game, but didn’t have any buddies around to bet with, this is your chance. And if you’ve ever wanted to bet on the NHL, profesisonal handball, greyhound racing, snooker, rugby league, Australian Rules football, darts, cricket, chess and whether or not the FTSE-100 will go up or down today… this is your chance.

When you make your bets, there’s no tax to worry about and no commission to Betfair itself. In fact, you only ever pay a commission on your NET winnings in a given market - so if you lose, there’s no fee beyond the money already lost. If you win, you can keep on gambling and pay a 1.5% commission to Betfair on your FINAL winnings, which is fair enough. On top of that, Betfair’s research has found that, on average, the odds you get through their website come out to 20% better than what you get from professional bookies.

Now, if you’ve been reading this far, I’m thinking you have one very important question left, and it’s one of those questions that are always worth asking when a casino or gambling website is involved - is the company behind it reputable. Well, let me tell you this: In 2003, Betfair won the Queen’s Award for Enterprise in the UK, which allow them to carry the Queen of England’s emblem on the website until 2008. This award is only given upon recommendation of the Prime Minister of England, and following a full assessment by the UK Department of Trade and Industry, so that’s a pretty big deal. The half million bets lodged daily through the service are the cherry on top. Join today!

The Product Trends rating: In all honesty, we love this concept and believe it’s the future of online gambling over the next decade. As thousands clamor to play online poker (which you can also do at Betfair), the next big thing will be person-to-person bookmaking, and Betfair is the only place we’d trust to do that properly and securely. Five massive stars.

To try Betfair for yourself, click the image below:

About the company: GoToMyPC allows you to remotely access your computer from any other Internet-connected computer in the world with almost any operating system through a secure, private connection. Acess files, programs, email and your network, increase flexibility and productivity, work on your office PC from home, and travel and use your PC remotely.

The big pitch: 45-day free trial, and additional $10 discount upon joining.

You’re on the road, you’re staying at some crummy Motel 6 off the interstate somewhere near Lincoln, Iowa, and all hell is breaking loose. Important documents are needed for tomorrow’s meeting, but the templates needed to load them are on your office computer, and it’s now past midnight so there’s nobody in the office to get the files to you… Basically, you’re screwed. This will cost your business thousands.

But it doesn’t have to be that way. GoToMyPC is a piece of remote access software designed to allow you to ‘log in’ to your computer from anywhere in the online world, from any web browser, or any wireless device - with just a 2 minute installation.

Imagine that same situation as mentioned above breaks out - while you’re in the meeting itself - and you tell your client, "Excuse me for a moment, I’m just going to use my cellphone to access that file on my office PC…" - Well, hello Mr Slick!

Here’s how it works: You simply join GoToMyPC at their website, then you install their software on the computers you want to remotely access. Your home computer, your office computer, your laptop, a fax server - in fact, you can install the program up to 20 times on different machines if you use the GoToMyPC Pro option - even more if you use GoToMyPC Corporate.

Once you’ve done that, whenever you’re away from the computer, just go to GoToMyPC.com, log in, then choose the computer you want to work on. GoToMyPC then connects to that computer and lets you access it from your remote desktop, as if you were directly connected to it - which, in essence, you are.

So, let’s understand what this means. It basically means that, from any computer, anywhere on the internet, you can connect to your home or office PC like you connect to Hotmail now. You can access your email, your files, your company intranet, Excel spreadsheets, and you can do all that from a hotel internet connection in Kowloon, or an airport internet cafe in Bangladesh, or your buddy’s home computer that you use to play Halo on.

This is not entirely new as far as concepts go. In fact, traditionally, the remote access market has been dominated by Symantec’s difficult-to-install PC Anywhere program, but the beauty of GoToMyPC is that you don’t need to have two pieces of software loaded on the two computers you’re using. With GoToMyPC, all you need is a web browser and you can connect to home base as if you were hooked up with a USB cable.

with goToMyPC, you can work from home, administer your office systems from the road, get to your office computer after hours, even stop dragging around discs and CDs and flash drives with business documents on them. It’s all there when you need it.

As far as pricing goes, the 1-PC monthly plan runs at $19.95 per month, or 25% off that price if you pay for a full year up front, or you can add a second PC to that plan for just an extra $10 per month. Additional PCs after that are $15 per month, per computer (or $135 per year), so you could conceivably be hooked up to every computer in your office… if you wanted to be. Heck, you can even print a document on your office printer from the Starbucks across the street!

To make calculation of your final price easy, GoToMyPC has a plan calculator on their website, and they offer a free 45-day trial where you can use the product at no cost, with no commitment, if you prefer to try before you buy.

Personally, we say don’t even bother trying things out - just get straight into it. Laptop Magazine gave GoToMyPC an editor’s choice award, and the program isn’t feature heavy, so it’s really easy to use if you’re a bit of a newbie. And if you’re worried about it working with your company firewall - don’t be! It’ll work just fine on the majority of systems and can be tweaked to work with the others.

The Product Trends rating: Without question, this program is awesome. Five stars; well worth the money, well worth your time.

To try GoToMyPC for yourself, click the image below:

About the company: "As the world’s largest contact lens store, 1-800 CONTACTS is dedicated to providing you with a simple, hassle-free way to replace your contact lenses. At 1-800 CONTACTS, you will receive the exact same contact lenses your doctor prescribed, delivered to your door, at a great price. And with an inventory of over 20 million contacts, we are more likely to have your prescription in stock than anyone else, which means you’ll receive your contacts fast."

The big pitch: Up to $60 off every pair of contact lenses, delivered to your door.

It almost seems pointless to review a company like 1-800-Contacts because they have such a strong reputation, such a good concept, and such a corner on the market. But hey, let’s humor those people who aren’t quite sure whether or not they should be sending their hard-earned dinero to the world’s largest contact lens store.

Here’s how it works. Simply choose the contact lenses you want (make, type, strength, etc), add any accessories (like cleaning solutions) that you need, fax off your prescription to 1-800-contacts and they’ll ship your order to your door the same business day.

Now, of course many of us don’t have access to a fax machine, so if you can’t, or prefer not to, fax your prescription, 1-800-Contact will call your doctor directly to confirm your details, and then they’ll send out your order. That adds a little time to the order processing delay, but there’s no charge to you, and the convenience is pretty darn sweet.

When you’ve placed your order, you’ll get an email telling you that it’s confirmed, then you’ll get another to let you know your order has been shipped. For most people in the US, that means your contact lenses are at your door within five days, and in their original manufacturer packaging.

1-800-Contacts always has rebate discounts going on, from $40 off Acuvue contact lenses, to $40 off Biomedics, Optimedics, O2 Optix, and Focus contacts, to a whopping $60 off Focus DAILIES. And that’s just a small sampling of the discounts on offer every day of our trial run.

What we really like about the 1-800-Contacts website is that they don’t just sell lenses. If you need an eye exam, they’ll set up an appointment for you at an optometrist nearby. Just put your phone number into the system and a 1-800-Contacts rep will call you, get your details, and set you up with an appointment close to your home - at a discounted rate.

Never been to an eye doctor before? The website lists an abundant variety of information about what to expect, what products are popular, and information about the eye itself so you know what to be on the look out for if things are wrong.

The Product Trends rating: We really like how this company does the simple stuff well, the harder stuff well, and the really hard stuff even better. No complaints, prices are tight, product range could be a little more extensive, but all in all we’re very impressed. Four and a half stars.

To try 1-800 Contacts for yourself, click the image below:

About the company: "4inkjets strives to bring you the highest quality printer ink cartridges and cheap inkjet refill kits at the best prices. Our high quality compatible brand printer ink cartridge and laser toner cartridges are built to the highest standards (ISO-9001) and are guaranteed to meet or exceed your Canon, Epson, HP, Lexmark, or other name brand printer ink cartridge standards."

The big pitch: Free shipping is available on all U.S. orders over $50.00.

Their website isn’t much to look at, and the sales copy on it is kind of… um… terrible. But don’t let that prevent you from getting your printing supplies at 4inkjets.com, because ‘low rent’ is what they do best.

There are many cut-price genric printer cartridge suppliers and refillers out there, and even more full-price retail stores that think it’s entirely reasonable to charge people half the cost of the printer itself just for a new ink cartridge. What there seems to be a real lack of in the marketplace, however, are suppliers who simply keep prices absolutely low, while maintaining high standards of customer service and product quality.

4inkjets does exactly that, selling black cartridges from as little $3.99 each, and color cartridges for just $5.99! Compare that to the $50+ you’d pay at retail stores for your Lexmark, Sharp, Xerox, HP, Canon or Brother printing supplies.

Another reason to shop at 4inkjets (if you even needed one) is that you get free US Priority Mail shipping and UPS delivery on inkjet photo paper and printer ink cartridge orders over $50.

4inkjets also supplies Pitney Bowes, Panasonic, Okidata, Konica-Minolta, Dell, Compaq, Apple, Apollo, Kyocera-Mita, IBM, NEC, Samsung, Sharp, Tektronics, Toshiba… even flash memory products! And when you get a cartridge refill kit through 4inkjets, they don’t just give you a single refill - every refill kit comes with two fills!

Additionally, the company claims that they don’t use cheap ‘universal refill kits’, preferring instead to stock a wide variety of refill options for each specific brand and model. In fact, we looked hard to find the catch with 4inkjets - the one thing they don’t do well that could cause us to go elsewhere - and we couldn’t find one.

The Product Trends rating: No question about it - five stars.

To try 4Inkjets for yourself, click the image below:

About the company: "Chrisi.com was created with the intent to inspire the imagination of others. Our purpose is to bring art, creativity and beauty into everyday items and into our everyday lives. We create and sell objects of unusual design and beauty which are created with lots of color, fun and imagination! Our boutique features pieces that make great gifts for birthdays, baby showers and holidays, something for someone special and hopefully and a little something for you."

The big pitch: Great quality funky kids’ clothing for as little as $19 per set.

When you have a child, one thing that begins to get very important to you, very quickly, is quality. There are litterally millions of different kids clothing designs out there, but when you really care about your baby enough to buy the best, the last thing you want as a consequence is some kind of mass-produced Osh Kosh B’Gosh or Baby Gap brand name splashed across your child’s chest.

At the Sundance Film Festival last year, we encountered a group of interesting kidswear designers who were launching their brand in a big way, and the celebrities were falling over themselves to get a piece of the action. Rubbing shoulders with Kevin Bacon, Kyra Sedgwick, and Neve Campbell, the folks from Chrisi.com told us that their babywear was great quality, and it was clear that the designs were unique and fun, so we decided to road test some of their garments to see if this was a company we could recommend.

And now, the verdict is in… Chrisi.com is great stuff.

First of all, the prices are incredible. We’re talking K-Mart pricing, for unique, high quality childrens wear that, after six months on a child, not only still looks great but remains intact. From ponchos to bath sets, T-shirts to accessorized outfits, stuffed toys to bracelets and everything in between, not only did we as parents love this stuff, but it quickly became the fashion of choice among the toddlers.

But not only does Chrisi make great clothing wear for toddlers, they also do the accessories, and that in itself is worth the time taken to have a look. Everything from bicycle bells with green frogs painted on them to bobby pins and hair clips with strawberries attached to the end, this really is a creative website and an entertaining catalogue to go through.

In our road test, we set $100 as our spending limit and got three coordinated kids clothing sets (each with a long-sleeved shirt, pants, and sleeping cap) with animal designs, one very cool little tiki shirt for boys, a stuffed rabbit with a book, and a bath set with thick toweled swaddling blanket, rubber ducky, and terry-toweling handtowels. All that for less than $100? Yes indeedy, and the postage turnaround was very quick.

Chrisi.com does menswear, ladies wear, furniture art, T-shirt designs, accessories, jewelry… Seriously, take a look. You’re bound to find something that someone you love will enjoy.

The Product Trends rating: We pride ourselves at Product Trends at being able to spot quality in a sea of medicority, and when it comes to our experience with Chrisi.com, we were pleasantly surprised at every turn. Mark our words, this is quality stuff. Four stars.

To try Chrisi for yourself, click the image below: