That would have been a significant challenge to retailers, given how many types of phones any store sells and how quickly that inventory changes.

CNN: STORY HIGHLIGHTS

Unfortunately, as with other types of year-end clearance sales shoppers may not have a particularly rich inventory from which to choose, especially among model-year 2012 closeouts.

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Other applications will monitor other types of activity such as a spike in traffic to parts of web sites or a change in inventory levels and post notifications.

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