This week I had the opportunity to speak with Chris Ramcharran, a member of the Green Depot blog team, and the e-Commerce Coordinator for Green Depot’s website.  Chris is known around the office as our tech guru – today we’re talking about techie gifts for the holiday season.  Green Depot just set up a web page just for gifts for techies, so make sure to visit our new section to see what’s available for the environmentally-minded gadget lover.

Green Depot: Hi Chris!  Just to provide some background information for our readers, could you tell us a little bit about what you do around the Green Depot offices and elsewhere?
Chris Ramcharran: Well, I do the web stuff here – a lot of programming, a lot of the website’s graphics, and I also have a pretty good strong history in website marketing.  I had a hand in Fairway Market’s original site, the site for St. Patrick’s cathedral, and St. Vincent’s website.  Those are the big names I have attached to me.  Overall, I’m pretty into the whole tech thing in the sense that I keep up with all the new trends in technology.  I enjoy, but I also have to – that’s the nature of my profession.

GD: So, what kind of tech gifts have been really popular in the past?
CR: Well, anything that Apple makes is like gold.  I haven’t been in retail too long, but I have been a big tech fan, and over the last few years anything that Apple made is just really popular.  This year I think the iPad is going to be really popular.  They’re going to be huge.  At TJ Maxx they’re going to be 100$ cheaper than in Apple stores.  There’s a lot of new tablets, and the Android tablets are going to be good but they’re going to be small – only 7” or something.  If they had 15” I guarantee they’d outsell iPads because they’re just so good.

For Green Depot we’re definitely pushing things like solar powered speakers, and other accessories for the iPad like wooden bamboo cases.  So those are definitely things to look out for, and will compliment all the iPad sales coming up this year.

GD: Are there any other tech gadgets at Green Depot that you might recommend?
CR: It’s funny you ask that, because we just did the tech section on our website!  Green Depot actually isn’t really big on tech right now, but hopefully that’ll change soon.  Right now we have a section for techies and out of all 15 products there, the coolest couple products I’ve seen is the power stick – it’s a charger and a USB device.  You plug it into the USB port on your computer to charge it, and then you plug it into your phone to charge that up to help people who are traveling or out on the road.

For charging cool things, our solar chargers are always really efficient.  We have Solio solar chargers, which are great because they’re rugged, and you can just throw them around.  They’re super convenient.

GD: So that would probably be a good gift for backpackers and hikers, yeah?
CR: Yeah, they’d definitely be good.

GD: What are some of the other cool items Green Depot is carrying for the holidays that maybe aren’t tech specific?
CR: The beer-making kit is really cool.  They’re featured on the homepage now.  I know a couple of people who have been brewing beer themselves, and in Brooklyn, it’s like the new thing.  I think the kit is really cool because everybody wants to have their own personal type of ale. I’d definitely even buy one for myself, especially because everything in them is already organized.  They give you a huge glass jar to brew the ale in, and how they have it packaged is really nice.  It’s all in one really nicely-designed package.

GD: Do you have any last words for our readers?
CR: Just make sure to check out the new Green Depot site – it just came out and we spent a lot of time working on it!

For a selection of techie gifts for the holiday season, as well as a full line of environmental building and living products, make sure to visit our website at http://www.greendepot.com.