Add this to the woes facing the magazine industry: retailers are cutting back on the space they allocate to print products, and many are outright banning titles that show a little skin. Over the last three years, 18,000 North American retailers stopped carrying magazines, an 11.3% decline. [More]
retailing
Activists Warn Stores: No Christmas Gear Until November – Or Else
By 9.25.09
Think you’ve had enough of Christmas Creep? Welcome to the U.K., where the Movement for the Containment of Christmas is fighting back against the ever-growing holiday retail season. While some of the group’s efforts are civil, it has engaged in guerrilla tactics, including gluing the lock of a shop that had begun selling Christmas cards in August.
Supermarkets Tell Shoppers To Leave Checkbooks At Home
By 9.22.09
Back when dinosaurs ruled the Earth and ATMs didn’t exist, if your cave-dwelling ancestor wanted to get cash in a hurry and didn’t want to deal with bank lines, he’d go to the local supermarket. There, the friendly high-school student at the checkout counter would allow him to write a check for the amount of cash he needed, and give him the cash in return. Today, however, the only people who actually still use those services are characters in a GEICO ad, so it should come as no surprise that some supermarkets are finally giving up on the practice.
Why Costco Taunts You With High-End Luxury Items
By 9.18.09
Heather at The Greenest Dollar read How We Decide by Jonah Lehrer earlier this summer, and it made her see Costco in an entirely new way. The point behind all that crazy luxury stuff for sale at Costco isn’t just to sell it, she says; it’s to prime your brain with feel-good dopamine so that you’re far more likely to splurge on the more affordable items deeper in the store.
Three Reasons Why Customer Service Stinks
By 8.7.09
Jay Goltz, a small business owner in Chicago, thinks there are three reasons why customer service is so terrible at so many companies.
