What's Hot: Best-Selling Retail Products

So what does it take to be the No. 1 selling product in the intensely competitive retail market? These are the vendors that know. RetailVision teamed up with NPD Group to honor the products that had the highest sales totals in the brick-and-mortar retail market across 19 product categories. The list of best-sellers was culled from NPD's retail sales tracker for all of 2008. Vendors will pick up their trophies at RetailVision Spring 2009, a conference owned by Channelweb.com, parent company Everything Channel, at an awards event April 28. Here's a look at the products that leapt off retail shelves.

Linksys By Cisco, the consumer arm of Cisco Systems, nabbed the top spot for wired networking products sold through brick-and-mortar retailers with its EtherFast 10/100 5-Port Workgroup Switch EZXS55W.This small wonder offers a budget-conscious way for users to build fast and reliable desktop Ethernet networks. The switch can connect up to five devices. This pint-sized bad boy makes hubs a thing of yore, supporting half- and full-duplex speeds. The switch enables the network to run at 10, 20 or 100 Mbps or, if you want to kick it up a notch, a whopping 200 Mbps. Eliminating bottlenecks, overcoming bandwidth restraints and optimizing the network has never been easier.

The second generation of Linksys' WRT54G wireless router, the WRT54G2, did retailers right in 2008, earning it the Best-Seller title for wireless networking gear. Like its predecessor, the WRT54G2 Wireless-G Broadband Router acts as a wireless access point offering 54 Mbps of Wireless-G and 11 Mbps of Wireless-B connectivity. It also offers four ports of full-duplex 10/100 switching for wired Ethernet devices and the router lets the network share a high-speed cable or DSL connection. Up to four PCs can be networked in its most basic configuration, while the addition of hubs and switches unlocks the ability to build bigger, more scalable networks.

Hewlett-Packard's PhotoSmart C4480 was the top-selling multifunction printer through retailers, according to NPD. The inkjet printer packs it all into one attractive, compact package: Users can print, copy and scan from the device, and can also print digital pictures straight from a memory card--no PC needed. HP clocks the printer at up to 30 pages per minute in black, or 23 pages per minute in color, claiming it can print a 4" x 6" photo in as little as 25 seconds. While most users will be sufficiently happy with a three-ink cartridge, the PhotoSmart C4480 also supports a six-ink cartridge, which HP says produces lab-quality photo prints.

Anyone looking to dive into the thrilling wilderness of online video collaboration could do worse than Microsoft's LifeCam VX-3000. The LifeCam VX-3000 has sufficient image quality and features to make it a solid option for first-time Webcam buyers, and it's also mercifully simple to install and configure. Image quality isn't as good as Microsoft's higher-end VX-6000 model, but the VX-3000 occupies a price echelon that's friendly to a wider range of buyers.

Sony's CyberShot DSC-W120 is a versatile, compact digital camera that puts larger SLRs to shame by packing multiple high-end features into a small form factor. With a Carl Zeiss 4x optical zoom lens, anti-blur technology and speedy image processing, the CyberShot DSC-W120 is ideal for fast-motion situations. But perhaps its most intriguing feature is "smile shutter" mode, which automatically snaps a photo at the precise moment the subject smiles, without the user having to press the shutter button. This comes in especially handy for situations with petulant children (or adults) that simply can't be goaded into cracking a smile during family get-togethers.

There really is no worse feeling than trying to snap a photo and realizing that your camera's memory card is full. And given the widespread availability of multi-megapixel digital cameras, it's a feeling to which more and more unhappy shutterbugs are being subjected. Thankfully, products like the SanDisk 2GB Secure Digital Memory Card offer an inexpensive solution to this problem by giving photo buffs plenty of storage space to work with.

For consumers looking for the perfect high-definition television to fit in small spaces, Toshiba America's 19LV505 fits the bill. The 19-inch 720p LCD unit includes a built-in slot-loading DVD player, making it an all-in-one entertainment powerhouse in a small package.

Sony markets its KDL-32L4000 Bravia L Series HDTV as a high-performance system with a value price. The 32-inch LCD television offers 720p resolution and boasts wide-ranging viewing angles, making it the most popular choice for retail shoppers in 2008

The Garmin NUVI 260W has an extra wide 4.3 inch LCD screen, providing crisper and clearer navigation, either on the road or on foot. Entering a destination or selecting a point of interest is easy for any trip because the touchscreen provides more real estate, making typing easier. The 260W comes preloaded with City Navigator NT and speaks the street names.

Sales of digital photo frames have exploded in the last three years as grandparents discovered this digital alternative to whipping out a wad of photos of their grandchildren. Kodak's EasyShare P720 Digital Frame with its 7-inch LCD screen and 480-by-234 pixel resolution was the top retail seller. Features that helped push the EasyShare P720 to the top include its touch-border controls, (can't have fingerprint smudges on the kids' faces, can we?), two slots for secure digital cards and choice of decorative mattes.

Tired of waking up to some annoying DJ or a traffic report that makes you want to pull the covers back over your head? The iHome iH9 alarm clock radio with iPod dock wakes you using a custom playlist on your iPod, or the radio or a buzzer (the latter with a gently rising volume). Certified by Apple as "Made for iPod," the iH9 can play a different programed song list on different days and charges iPods as well. Another plus: The product offers a remote control for the docked iPod menu and for the radio.

Pure Digital has made quite a splash with its Flip line of digital video recorders, so much so that it has caught the attention of Cisco Systems, which is now in the process of acquiring it. The Flip Ultra F260, 2008's top-selling Flash-based camera through retailers, sports 2GB of internal memory, enough to store up to 60 minutes of recorded video. It also features a 1.5 inch screen and is available in a variety of colors.

Call it a lean green machine. APC touts the BES 350 line as an environmentally-friendly product that consumes less power during normal operation than any other battery backup in its class, cutting down on electricity bills. The product line is designed to get users through short and medium length power outages and also protects against pesky power spikes.

Logitech's Deluxe 250 USB Keyboard was a favorite with retail shoppers in 2008. The Microsoft Windows Vista-compatible keyboard boasts full-sized F-row keys, as well as drain holes for all of you messy typists prone to spills.

The Targus Chill Pad for notebooks is designed with a simple function in mind: keeping notebooks cool. The dual-fan system is powered by a USB connection to the notebook and is designed to pull heat away from the CPU. Set up is simple. Place the Chill Pad on a flat surface and place the notebook on top. Connect plug in the USB cable provided by Targus into the laptop and flip the fans on. After that, it's nothing but cool computing.

The Targus CVR200 notebook slip cases can accommodate notebooks up to 15.4 inches wide. In addition to being a slipcase that merely keeps a laptop safe, the neoprene sleeve includes carrying handles and pockets for storage. A larger front pocket is designed to hold a couple files and the smaller back compartment is just right for business cards, pens and other small items.

What did retail customers like about PNY Electronics' 1GB Optima PC3200 notebook stick in 2008? Probably the rave reviews it got for two of the three most important factors in evaluating a memory product -- ease of installation and performance gains over the previous generation it replaces. The third factor, price, isn't a home run for PNY -- the 1GB Optima PC3200 retails for over $60.

PNY's cost-friendly chipset, built around the GeForce 8500 GT graphics processor, topped the list of best-selling video cards through retailers in 2008. Released by Santa Clara, Calif.-based Nvidia early in the first quarter of 2007, the 8500 GT arrived alongside the 8600 GT and 8600 GTS GPUs. Early on, the 8500 GT's performance value was favorably compared to the pricier but disappointing 8600 products above it in the stack. One big feature that surely contributed to the 8500's success through 2008 was Nvidia's inclusion of the second generation of its PureVideo video decoding technology.

This little bundle of digital storage ingenuity gives users the freedom to carry data securely wherever they go, and holds files as well as applications through its support for U3 technology. The SanDisk 4GB Micro Cruzer also maintains wallpaper, preferences, favorites, and profile settings, making it as similar to an actual PC computing experience as is possible in a portable USB storage device. The SanDisk 4GB Micro Cruzer only works with Windows at this point, but its speedy transfer times and sensible price tag more than make up for any limitations that might impose.