- Mark Levin Signs Multi-year Deal with ABC, Expands Show to 3 Hours
- Consumerist.com Adopted by Old-School Consumers Union, Stops Selling Ads
- For Auto Industry, 2009 Holds Even Tighter Ad Budgets
- User-Generated Magazine Publisher 8020 Media Shuts Doors
- Out-of-Home, Fueled by Digital, to Weather Recession Well
- Clear Channel Swaps Cincy Stations for Five in Green Bay
- Consumers Swarm to Discounters for Grocery Items, Don’t Switch Back
- Wikimedia Raises $6.2M to Keep Wikipedia Afloat
- Conde Nast’s Jan. Ad Pages Slip More than Most
- Aegis Faces Possible Sale or Spin-off of Non-core Businesses
- Top US Cities for Charitable Givers, by Category
- Online Fitness, Video Game Spending Outperforms Brick-And-Mortar
- RIM Must Fix Glitches, Boost Satisfaction To Hold Off iPhone
- LCD TV Revenue to Fall YoY for First Time Ever
- Top 10 Broadcast Media Websites - November 2008
- Top 10 Entertainment Online Advertisers by Image-Based Impressions - November 2008
- Top 10 Sports Websites - November 2008
- Eight in 10 Online Holiday Shoppers Read Web Reviews
- Top 40 Online Retail Satisfaction Index: Merry Outlook for Some, but Not Others
- Firefox Share Tops 20% in November
Sourcing
Coca-Cola Enterprises Boosts Full-Year Outlook
Coca-Cola Enterprises (CCE), Coca-Cola‘s largest bottler, expects its 2008 earnings to be up to slightly above October’s reduced expectations, and its 2009 results to be affected by continuing volume declines.
It now expects earnings of $1.28-$1.31 a share in 2008, compared with October’s $1.25-1.29. It cites better-than-anticipated North American volume and easing commodities costs.
It had...
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X-Ray ‘Guns’ Detect Lead in Toys
“Guerrilla” toy testers have used technology like X-ray guns to take to stores looking for toys containing unsafe levels of lead and other chemicals, the Wall Street Journal reports.
The Center for Environmental Health (CEH), a consumer advocacy group in Oakland, CA, for instance, zapped frog-charm jewelry sold at Wal-Mart and found that it contained levels of lead higher than allowed by...
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Tesco Tool Eco-Screens In-Store Materials
UK retail giant Tesco has developed software that gives the company and its suppliers an unbiased assessment of the materials and products used in stores, writes Retail Week (via Environmental Leader).
To use the “Environmental Design Tool,” employees enter the weight of the materials that make up a particular product. The software then considers factors such as carbon footprint, recycled...
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Class Project Turns into E-Retail Site
A business plan that arose from a Northern Illinois University class is being used to sell liquidated merchandise on a deal-of-the-day website that sells items 40-80% cheaper than the big retail chains, writes Internet Retailer.
UWantSavings.com is “shamelessly modeled” after Woot.com, which offers one deal per day. Today, for example, visitors to the site can purchase a Lyon by Washburn...
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Toy Recalls Down by Half in 2008
Toy recalls in 2008 are down 46% from last year, dropping from 138 to 74, according to the Consumer Product Safety Commission.
Reports of lead contamination - which last summer was the cause of the Elmo and Dora the Explorer toy recalls - have dropped from 97 in 2007 to just 45 so far this year.
Increased surveillance by the agency, which included ramped up inspections at nine US ports, was...
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Wal-Mart Imposes Stricter Standards on Suppliers
Hoping to squelch criticism about its global business practices, Wal-Mart is imposing stricter ethical and environmental standards on its suppliers, reports The New York Times.
Wal-Mart has more than 60,000 suppliers worldwide and procures about $9 billion worth of goods directly from China.
In the past year, a slew of Chinese-made goods have been recalled, including tires, toothpaste, pet...
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Egg Buyers to Suppliers: Stop Fixing Prices
Egg prices have jumped more than 50% in the past two years, prompting those most affected by the increase to take action against the country’s egg giants - which provide 98% of America’s eggs, reports BusinessWeek.
Restaurants, grocers, and other direct buyers of eggs have brought a lawsuit against United Egg Producers (UEP) - the industry’s trade group - and 13 of the biggest egg producers in...
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Home Depot Purchasing Goes Local
Home Depot has decentralized its purchasing system to put local customer preferences over national uniformity, reports The Wall Street Journal.
Early last year, Frank Blake took control of the company and decentralized the purchasing system after he noticed a row of unsold riding lawn mowers outside of a store in Arizona, where lush lawns are uncommon.
The previous system, put in place in 2001...
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Food Giants Pull Chinese Milk Products from Shelves
After the industrial chemical melamine was found in both powdered and liquid milk products manufactured in China, food companies are scrambling to pull products that use the possibly tainted ingredients, reports the Telegraph.
Cadbury removed all 11 brands of its Chinese-made chocolate from the market. Heinz said it would stop using Chinese milk in its food processing operations in mainland...Continue Reading »
Fashion Week Designs Strive to be Sellable
The 200 designers that showcased their spring collections at New York Fashion Week were acutely aware of the need to attract high-end department store buyers with highly “sellable” clothing, reports MarketWatch.
The sluggish market for designer apparel has hit US retailers, such as Macy’s, Saks, and Nordstrom, and left them hesitant to take on new labels. “They want to make sure 80% of the stuff...
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