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By CRM Staff
Etobicoke, Ontario -- February 8, 2018 -- A recent announcement from Simplicity Car Care revealed that their network has expanded to a new location in Etobicoke, Ontario. The shop is a family run business, with owner Nick Polizos and his father taking care of things in the shop while Polizos’s wife and sister keeping the office running smoothly. It previously operated as West End Auto Body, located at 87 Shorncliffe Rd. Etobicoke, Ontario.
“We are very proud and excited to have Nick Polizos and the entire West End Collision team join as a franchise partner with Simplicity Car Care. We knew early in discussions that Nick would prove to be a valuable asset to our team. His technical expertise, compounded by his experience in accounting proves that Nick carries the leadership and business acumen that Simplicity Car Care desires as a franchise partner. We look forward to working together to serve the Etobicoke community a simplified repair experience,” said Paul Prochilo, chief executive officer, Simplicity Car Care.
When asked about his decision to join forces with Simplicity Car Care, Polizos said, “After meeting Domenic [president of Simplicity] and Paul,I realized we both had the same outlook on the repair industry as it is. I was very impressed with the Simplicity project. After a few meetings and seeing the way everything operates, I was highly impressed and it was a great opportunity for me to join with them.”
Polizos has been in the repair industry since 1989, when he partnered with his father, who had been running the shop since the '70s. For the future he is looking forward to seeing the plans his team can develop under Simplicity’s guidance.


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The site, renowned for selling everything from second-hand clothes to cheap electronics, has teamed up with auction house Sotheby's.
An online streaming platform is being built to let users view and acquire art, antiques and collectibles.
It comes as more collectors turn to the web and mobile devices to compete for highly prized items and possibly even works by artists such as Monet or Picasso.
In 2013, online bidders competed for 17% of the total lots offered by the auction house.
The total number of lots purchased online jumped 36% compared with the previous year.
The global art market is worth an estimated £38bn.
Sotheby's believes online art sales could reach £7.6bn by 2020.
Chief operating officer Bruno Vinciguerra said: "The growth of the art market, new-generation technology and our shared strengths make this the right time for this exciting new online opportunity.
"We are joining with eBay to make our sales more accessible to the broadest possible audience around the world."
From autumn, most of Sotheby's New York auctions will be broadcast live on a new section of eBay's website.
Eventually, online-only sales will be added, alone with streamed auctions from branches around the world.

domain: news


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It is no longer a question of price. In full recovery, manufacturers and funds are buying. The acquisition value of large companies in the world as well as SMEs in the euro area has reached new heights, driven by the very high appetite for health and high technology.
After the shock of the pandemic, the median price for a company in the medical sector, clinics, laboratories or “biotechs” amounts to 16.6 times the Ebitda (concept close to operating income) all geographies combined . The price is rising 20.8 times in the United States, unheard of since the financial crisis, according to Refinitiv.
At the start of the year, the American medical equipment manufacturer Steris thus acquired its competitor Cantel Medical for 4.6 billion dollars, or no less than 26 times its Ebitda.
The same goes for tech, where valuations have exploded to 15.6 times, a level that is also historic on a global scale. This movement is fueled by the trend towards the digitization of the economy. Europe hits a record (15.1 times) – when prices in the United States settle down but at a very high level (17.1 times against 18.9 times in 2020).
Consequence, all sectors of goods, from medical to consumer goods, the median price of acquisitions peaks since the 2008 crisis worldwide, at 12.2 times Ebitda, according to Refinitiv.
Half of operations dedicated to health and tech
This surge applies to large companies, but also to medium-sized ones in the euro zone: SME valuations reached unprecedented levels at 12.8 times (against 10.7 times for other sectors of the economy) in the tech and health sectors, according to the Argos index. However, these operations accounted for half of M & A of SMEs in the zone in the second quarter.
For example, the Cerba laboratories, which have just come under the control of the Swedish EQT for 4.5 billion euros, announced on July 22 to pay 1.2 billion for the Italian number one in lifebrain diagnostics for 12 times its anticipated Ebitda of this year … and 24 times its pre-Covid 2019 operating income.
Result for all sectors, the median sale value of European SMEs flew to a new record of 11.6 times EBITDA. And the share of transactions that are signed more than 15 times has reached an unprecedented level (24%) since 2018.
Investment funds, which are crumbling under liquidity and competing fiercely, are largely responsible for this surge, in Europe and elsewhere. They paid even more (12.9 times) in the second quarter than in the first, when manufacturers were less aggressive (10.7 times).
Everywhere, the flow of private equity transactions is giddy. In France at the end of July, more than 24 billion dollars of transactions were carried out, a level not reached during the period since the end of the 1990s, and eight times higher than last year, according to Refinitiv.
A dynamic that is part of such a historic record for private equity in Europe (170 billion dollars in deals) and worldwide (609 billion).
Should we fear a bubble phenomenon? “The danger is less in the value of the transactions than in the inflation of the acquisition debt. And in some cases it may be legitimate to wonder, ”Judge Louis Godron, partner of Argos.


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FHI Brands announced its partnership with Fashion Week Los Angeles - Art Hearts Fashion as the Official Hair Sponsor from October 5th – 8th at the Taglyan Complex in Hollywood.
FHI hair teams are working behind the scenes with each designer on hair concepts that will be created with FHI Heat hair tools and Prive hair products. Looks will be posted to FHI Heat’s YouTube channel so everyone can learn how to achieve the runway hair styles and some ready-to-wear looks.
“We are a Los Angeles based hair care company collaborating with a fashion industry that is exploding and setting trends," Shauky Gulamani, President and CEO FHI Brands, says. "Our goal is to create an additional platform that allows professional hairdressers to gain access to what Hollywood is doing, so they can explore their creativity in their hair salons.”
For more information visit http://fhibrands.com or call Toll-Free 1-877-344-4328.
For reprint and licensing requests for this article, Click here.


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UNITED STATES May 26 2016 2:22 PM
NEW YORK (Scrap Register): Exports of aluminum from the US and Canada, excluding cross-border trade, totaled 762 million lb through the first three months of 2016, up 9.3% from the year-ago period, while aluminum imports totaled 1.685 billion lb, up 11.6%, as per the latest figures from the Aluminum Association.
US and Canadian aluminum demand, measured by domestic producer shipments plus imports, totaled 6.55 billion lb through March, up 0.7% year on year.
Over the same period, apparent consumption -- defined as demand less exports -- in domestic markets totaled 5.788 billion lb, down 0.4%.
Demand for semi-fabricated mill products totaled 4.552 billion lb through March, down 1.1% from a year ago.


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If it seems like your cereal boxes are shrinking slightly, you’re not imagining things. Consumers really are paying the same price—or paying more—for smaller-sized pantry staples. It’s a phenomenon known as “shrinkflation,” and CNN Business reports that it’s been a thing for decades.
CNN explains it thusly: when manufacturing costs—things like transportation and labor, for example—rise, manufacturers look for ways to cover their butts. That usually means one of two things: raising prices or whittling down the sizes of consumer goods. CNN’s Nathaniel Meyersohn writes:
“Consumers are sensitive to price hikes, but they pay less attention to how much a product weighs. While product quantities are printed on labels, few people actually take the time to do the math to figure out exactly what they’re paying per ounce. That means it’s easier for a brand to sneak in a slightly smaller box on the shelf or take a few sheets out of a toilet paper roll than it is to raise prices without consumers reacting and perhaps switching brands or not buying the product.”
CNN cited a few recent examples identified by Edgar Dworsky, a consumer advocate who tracks product downsizing on his website ConsumerWorld.org. One example is a family size box of Cocoa Puffs, which had reportedly dropped from 19.3 ounces to 18.1 ounces. Cinnamon Toast Crunch, meanwhile, had fallen from 19.3 ounces to 18.8 ounces. The smaller boxes were the same price as the larger boxes, despite losing roughly one bowl of cereal apiece.
CNN also cites Oregon creamery Tillamook, which recently announced that it was reducing its family size container of ice cream from 56 ounces to 48 ounces while keeping the price the same. “In order to be profitable and support our farmer owners, we had two choices: increase the unit price per carton or reduce the carton size from 56 ounces to 48 ounces and keep the price the same,” the company said. “It was a difficult decision to make but we decided to choose the latter so that the affordable cost per carton of ice cream did not change for our fans.”
That level of transparency actually seems ideal to me. I’ll gladly support a brand that’s open about rising costs; however, the sneaky cereal shrinking rubs me the wrong way. Time to start paying closer attention to my Special K, I suppose.


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Estonia's annual inflation rate came in at 3.4 percent in December 2018, unchanged from the previous month and remaining the lowest figure in six months. Food inflation edged up to 1.8 percent from 1.7 percent in November. Also, cost increased faster for: housing (9.2 pct vs 8.6 pct); household goods (1.9 pct vs 1.3 pct); recreation and culture (7.1 pct vs 4.4 pct); and miscellaneous goods & services ( 2.9 pc vs 2.8 pct). At the same time, inflation slowed markedly for: transport (0.5 pct vs 2.5 pct), and clothing (1.2 pct vs 2.7 pct). On a monthly basis, consumer prices fell 0.3 percent, after a 0.5 percent drop in the prior month. Inflation Rate in Estonia averaged 3.38 percent from 1999 until 2018, reaching an all time high of 11.44 percent in June of 2008 and a record low of -2.17 percent in October of 2009.
Inflation Rate in Estonia is expected to be 2.50 percent by the end of this quarter, according to Trading Economics global macro models and analysts expectations. Looking forward, we estimate Inflation Rate in Estonia to stand at 2.20 in 12 months time. In the long-term, the Estonia Inflation Rate is projected to trend around 2.90 percent in 2020, according to our econometric models.


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Kang Daniel Hailed As Best Male Solo Singer In “2022 Korea Brand Awards”
Congratulations, Kang Daniel!
Multi-talented K-pop male soloist Kang Daniel has recently added another amazing recognition in his wide list of awards.
Earlier today, Kang Daniel was hailed the Best Male Solo Singer in the 2022 Korea First Brand Awards. Remarkably, he won the title for the second consecutive year now.
The 2022 Korea First Brand Awards is an awards ceremony for the representative brands of Korea, which is celebrating its 20th anniversary this year, hosted by the Korea Consumer Forum. Every year, the best brands in each field are selected through a nationwide consumer survey, expert evaluation, and deliberation.
As a result of the distribution of preference by age, gender, and region in the consumer survey, it was found that Kang Daniel recorded the highest number in the 20s, women, and Seoul categories.
Since debuting as a soloist in 2019, Kang Daniel has achieved sales of 1,412,081 album copies. This is a record that ranks second in the solo singer category over the past 10 years. It is even more impressive because he achieved this figure after only two years of his solo debut.
Kang Daniel’s single “PARANOIA” and album YELLOW released last year have upgraded his brand with more sophisticated music and performance. Global influential media such as MTV, Billboard, and the Rolling Stones of the United States also paid attention to his evolved musicality.
Upcoming debut as actor
The well-loved soloist does not stop taking on new challenges this year as well. Aside from captivating fans through his skills in dancing, singing, and rapping, he is also set to delight viewers through his debut drama Rookie Cops. He plays the role of Wi Seung Hyun, a police college student with a bright brain and a burning sense of justice.
Through KONNECT Entertainment, Kang Daniel said, “It is a good way to start the new year with a meaningful award. Thank you for injecting good energy ahead of a new challenge in 2022. Danity (fan club name), who inspires me, I can feel it all thanks to you. There is happiness,” he said.
Photo Credits: KONNECT Entertainment
How does this story make you feel?


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Germany benefits from decade-long euro reign
BERLIN - Agence France-Presse
Mercedes cars line up outside a dealership in Berlin. Machinery, chemicals, and automotive exports back the German economy. AP photoGermany has undoubtedly benefited from 10 years of the euro, analysts agree, but the single currency is not the only reason for the success of Germany’s export-driven economy, Europe’s biggest.
Chancellor Angela Merkel has made no bones about the advantages for Germany of the euro, which went into circulation as banknotes and coins on January 1, 2002, and whose future she has been grimly racing to shore up.
“As an exporting nation, Germany has particularly benefited from the euro,” she told lawmakers in her most recent speech to the lower house of parliament, the Bundestag.
“This is true not only for big companies but also for small and medium-sized companies,” she said.
Machinery, chemical products, heavy-goods vehicles and cars -- Germany sells these manufactured products with strong added value throughout the world.
But in its key market, the 17-nation eurozone, the euro means it no longer needs to hedge against losses from exchange rate fluctuations.
“With a single currency zone, all the uncertainties about exchange rates (within today’s eurozone) disappear,” Henrik Uterwedde, deputy director of the Franco-German Institute in Ludwigsburg, pointed out.
For Germany’s car industry which boasts heavy hitters such as Daimler, BMW and Volkswagen, this has certainly been good news.
Since the euro was introduced, German carmakers have saved between 300-500 million euros ($400-660 million) annually on transaction costs, according to Juergen Pieper, analyst at German bank Metzler.
Ferdinand Fichtner, economist at the Berlin-based DIW economic institute, highlighted the importance of the eurozone as a marketplace for German goods.
“About 40 percent of its exports are destined for the eurozone and 20 percent for the rest of the European Union,” he said.
Some of the non-eurozone EU countries also have currencies pegged to the single currency such as the Danish krone or Latvia’s lat, he said.
Domestically much rides on Germany’s exports too.
Nearly three million jobs in Germany depend on exports to the eurozone while 4.4 million depend on exports to the EU as a whole, according to a study by the Prognos research institute published recently in the German business daily Handelsblatt.
Trade within today’s eurozone has been boosted by the euro, McKinsey management consultants said attributing two-thirds of German growth in the last 10 years to the euro’s introduction.
Germany has also felt the benefits indirectly.
Southern eurozone countries, traditionally more prone to inflation, have enjoyed better credit conditions due to a single interest rate fixed by the European Central Bank, encouraging them to buy German goods.
While the deutschmark was regarded as a safe haven currency, as is the case for the Swiss franc currently, the euro is less susceptible to strong appreciation on the currency market.
“As a result, exported products benefit from competitive advantages,” Frank Mattern, director of McKinsey Germany, said.
Nevertheless, the German economy does not entirely owe its success to the euro, a point underscored recently by Anton Boerner, head of the German Exporters Federation.
Asking the rhetorical question: “Is there life for Germany after the euro?”, he immediately answered: “Yes there is.”
The Ifo economic institute has struck a similar note while another institute, the DIW, notes that the euro is just one factor in Germany’s success story.
It points to the competitive advantages of Germany, which does not have an overall minimum wage, having sought to keep the lid on big salary increases.
For years, trade unions accepted only modest wage rises to save jobs, especially when faced with relocation.
Reforms by Social Democrat former chancellor Gerhard Schroeder in 2003 to tackle unemployment helped kickstart the country’s economy after a long rough patch.
By gradually pushing back the retirement age and reducing unemployment benefit and social welfare charges, Germany reduced its costs and overtook its neighbours who have not swallowed the same bitter pill.


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Home tutor provider Qriyo raises undisclosed amount from Dubai-based NB Ventures
Qriyo, a Jaipur-based startup which provides personalized learning and home tutors, has announced that it has raised an undisclosed sum in its Series A funding round. The funding round was led by NB Ventures, a Dubai-based venture capital firm.
The funding amount raised in this round will be used by the company to expand its operations in Chandigarh by June 2017. It will also utilize money to expand the courses offered in personalised competitive exams preparation & pet training categories.
The company is further targeting to on-board around 16,000 more gurus (tutors) by end of this year. With improved technology, Qriyo is also expecting to automate part of its support and cut Teacher Match Time to half in next 6 months.
Speaking of funding, Neelesh Bhatnagar of NB Ventures said,
Qriyo is a lifestyle business, I can see huge demand for their services. Qriyo team is working towards creating an automated ecosystem for delivering quality learning services at home. It has been 1 year since I am associated with the team as a mentor. I look forward to helping them expand to the Middle East at the right time. Qriyo’s growth journey has been fascinating so far.
Qriyo is an app-based platform which provides home tutors for over 300+ courses. The startup provides an end to end delivery, tracking and progress report for all the courses taught by Home Tutors or Qriyo Guru. The courses ranges from Academics to Yoga, Dance & Music to Fitness.
The startup was founded in 2015 by Mudit Jain and Rishabh Jain. Qriyo positioned itself as end to end Home Tutor Provider platform. It combines the power of technology with real human services to deliver best possible learning, says the company.
The venture currently has 8000+ tutors in Jaipur, Jodhpur, Udaipur and Ahmedabad. They have 2500+ customers with 50,000+ hours of teaching delivered via their platform.
Earlier, in January last year, the company had received seed funding of $160,000 from UAE based Idein Ventures, led by Ashwin Srivastava. The company earns majority of its revenue via tutor commission.
Rishabh Jain, co-founder and COO of the startup, said,
We are already profitable in 2 cities and we will achieve companywide operational break even overall without impacting the growth. 30% MoM growth will continue in terms of sales & guru on boarding for next 6 to 9 months.
With new funding coming in, Qriyo now aims to use the fund to strengthen its tech and operations. The company says that they are also planning for an expansion in UAE and are currently at negotiation stage.


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Copyright 2002-2012. All Rights Reserved. www.jobspatrika.com
www.jobspatrika.com » News » Hire people on merit of their Moral Knowledge , Best is always the basic least
Does good corporate karma translate into superior stock performance? For every winner like Google there are those like GE that get little investor love. What do you think? Leave your comments below.
A growing body of evidence asserts that corporations can do well by doing good, showing that conducting business responsibly and ethically is not only a risk-mitigation play, but can actually lead to innovative, new opportunities to grow market share and revenue.
A recent study IBM (nyse: IBM - news - people ) conducted with more than 250 business leaders from around the world verified this trend, pointing to several key findings and disconnects:
--Sixty-eight percent of businesses surveyed are already focusing on corporate social responsibility activities to create new revenue streams, and 54% believe it's giving them a competitive advantage;
--Customers are the chief stakeholders driving corporate social responsibility, yet 76% of businesses surveyed admit they don't understand their customers' CSR concerns and only 17% of businesses are even asking them;


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Radar Movers: Apple and Microsoft Sink Lower, Starbucks Jumps 3%
Shares of Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) plunged more than 12 percent on Thursday and continue to edge lower in late afternoon hours. The company recently released financial results that did not satisfy the market. Furthermore, gross margin came in at 38.6 percent, compared to 44.7 percent in the same quarter a year earlier. Apple finished the quarter with a total cash position of $137.1 billion.


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German insider CarForce247 has unveiled renderings of Tesla’s new budget electric car, slated to hit the market in 2023.
The new electric car of the American brand is expected to enter the market under the name Model Q. The compact novelty will be produced in a hatchback body and will become the most affordable model of the brand with a price tag of $ 25,000.
Studying the renderings, you can see that the model will receive exactly the form factor that many media presented earlier: with reduced rear doors, high stern and a truly “hatchback” silhouette in the style of the Volkswagen Golf. There is a possibility that the cabin will not have a steering wheel and pedals, and you will have to entrust the steering of the car to the autopilot.
Insiders report that the first prototype of the new electric model has already been created, and the Shanghai Tesla Research Center is responsible for the development. The head of this center announced his readiness to create and release his own electric car under an American brand at the beginning of 2021.


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Soda taxes are a failed experiment and should be scrapped, according to a new report from the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI).
Instead of tackling obesity, soda taxes are more likely to hit the budgets of low-income families and have only a slight effect on the amount of soda consumed, says CEI Fellow Michelle Minton.
Philadelphia, Penn. is in the middle of a furious debate over whether to slap a 1.5 cent per ounce tax on soda, with Mayor Jim Kenney claiming the proceeds will go to pre-K education. Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Sen. Bernie Sanders sparred over the issue, with Sanders accusing his opponent of supporting a tax that would fall disproportionately on the poor. (RELATED: Union Bosses Trade Blows Over Philly Soda Tax)
One of the main arguments favoring a soda tax is that putting up the price will reduce the amount people buy and in turn helps reduce levels of obesity. The problem with this approach, says Minton, is that consumers respond differently to price changes.
Even if people do initially cut back on soda, it may only be a small amount and consumers often return to their old shopping habits shortly after the tax is introduced. Minton points to the example of Finland, where a tax on candy sales had an impact in the short term, but sales returned to the same levels they had been before the tax after one year.
People might also keep buying soda at a higher price but cut back on other goods they buy, leaving them worse off. Consumers can also substitute the higher price soda they used to buy for other products that might be just as bad for them. (RELATED: Report: Sugar Taxes Have NO Impact On Obesity, Just Hurt The Poor)
But even if advocates are willing to impose a bigger cost on the poor to ensure people buy fewer sugary drinks, the empirical data doesn’t even support this point. A survey of 8,000 households from Mexico, which introduced a 10 percent tax soda tax, shows low-income families were the least likely to cut their soda consumption.
“The result is that those with the least amount of money are paying a greater proportion of the soda tax, which raised $1.3 billion for the Mexican government in 2014,” says Minton. There’s also little evidence to suggest raising the price of soda will reduce obesity.
Researchers found the Mexico soda tax boosted cost of calories by four percent but only cut calorie consumption by one percent per week. Looking at Body Mass Index before and after the tax was introduced, they found “no discernable difference.”
“Soda taxes are a stealth tax against middle class and especially lower income people,” said Minton. “Faced with a new tax on soda, some consumers may shift their calorie indulgences to other foods or drinks, some may cut back on other grocery purchases, and others will just pay the tax to get their favorite soda.”
“The real-world effects of ‘sin taxes’ imposed on certain food and beverages have been universally lackluster,” Minton explained. “Experience shows soda taxes disadvantage the people least able to absorb the cost, with no measurable improvement in public health. Philadelphia lawmakers should reject this failed experiment.”
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Every state is keen to create or maintain an environment in which businesses can prosper and jobs can be created. Economic activity is the lifeblood of a community and makes possible so many aspects of our lives, from schools to public safety, the arts, recreation, and so on down the line.
Businesses can be supported and economic activity fostered in any number of ways, of course, much of it “organic,” i.e., grown or nurtured through and by means of local resources and synergies.
At the same time, new ideas, new investors and new opportunities can and should come from without. States need to attract employers currently active or that are about to launch elsewhere, by offering them conditions and resources that respond to their growth needs in ways that are not currently being met.
But it’s not just states (or provinces) that are getting in the game. Increasingly, cities and towns of various sizes are chasing companies, entrepreneurs, even start-ups, in their efforts to diversify their economies and create jobs.
Larger cities like Dallas and Houston are major players in the business attraction game. Ditto, Columbus, Ohio. Most large cities or metros have chambers that actively promote the region and pitch the advantages of relocating or starting a business there. The Cleveland area – no stranger to gibes and jokes – is working particularly hard to demonstrate that from an industrial, R & D and business standpoint, it’s got it all.
It’s also worth noting Kitchener, Ontario – the largest city in the Waterloo area, with a population of about 200,000 – is getting into the act in a rather aggressive and creative way. According to news reports, the city is offering real money – say, $40K – to encourage start-ups to locate to its downtown core. It seems to be working.
Cash-strapped municipalities and regions will say they don’t have the money and can’t afford to pay companies to relocate, even if they wanted to do so. And there’s no guaranty that efforts such as these will pay long-term dividends. But the message is clear.
Cities, regions, states, provinces and countries everywhere are competing to attract the businesses and entrepreneurs that will fuel their economies. And many are succeeding.
So whether or not we hit every shot we take, it’s clear we have to get in the game, and we have to find some way to pay to play.
One thing I know – you miss 100% of the shots you never take.


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Steve Jobs’ departure from the the CEO seat at Apple has overshadowed much of everything else that is going on in the world today. It is a big deal that the prodigal son returned to Apple to set his old family home in order. Now, he is handing the reigns of the most relevant and commanding technology company in the world to former Apple COO Tim Cook.
I was thinking earlier today what was the first thing, i.e., the first sentence, of the major reports on Jobs’ resignation. I wanted to preserve these things as a sort of initializing string of the reports on Jobs’ decision as a way to think through what I ought to be concerned about but honestly don’t find myself caring about as much as I thought I might. Below are some of the sentences that I found today. More thoughts to come later.
The New York Times
By David Streitfeld
Steven P. Jobs, whose insistent vision that he knew what consumers wanted made Apple one of the world’s most valuable and influential companies, is stepping down as chief executive, the company announced late Wednesday.
The Washington Post
By Michael S. Rosenwald
Apple chief executive Steve Jobs, who almost single-handedly changed the way people around the world consume music, the Internet and even TV, announced late Wednesday that he has resigned as leader of the company he co-founded in his parents’ garage.
Los Angeles Times
By Walter Hamilton, Dawn Chmielewski and David Sarno
Steve Jobs, the visionary co-founder of Apple Inc. and driving force behind a string of products that revolutionized the consumer-electronics industry, stepped down as chief executive but was named chairman of the board, the company said late Wednesday.
By John D. Sutter
It’s a moment many tech fans hoped never would come: Steve Jobs’ resignation from the helm of Apple, which he co-founded from his family garage in 1976.
By Jason Snell
After 14 years as Apple’s CEO, Steve Jobs resigned his post on Wednesday and was replaced by Tim Cook, who previously was the company’s Chief Operating Officer. Jobs, in turn, was elected as chairman of Apple’s board of directors.


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Dawson has announced a UK spare parts partnership with market specialist First Choice.
The moves come just a few weeks after Ambach, a fellow Ali Group company, confirmed the appointment of First Choice as its official OEM spares provider for the UK.
Dawson says that a reliable source of spare parts is at the “very heart” of an efficient service operation and it will lean on First Choice to supply dealers and customers with the components they require.
First Choice works with many of the leading manufacturers and co-founder, John Whitehouse, insists it has the infrastructure to cope with market demands.
“First Choice has the IT systems, human resources and logistics capability specifically tailored for the UK spares supply market,” he said. “We maintain what we believe is the most diverse stock of commonly needed parts in the UK and next day delivery throughout the country is our standard service for stock items ordered before 4pm.”
Parts are stored at First Choice’s 27,500 square foot warehouse in the centre of England, a facility that is equipped with state-of-the-art storage and picking facilities.
First Choice pledges to make it easy for customers to identify the items they need by offering a series of fully illustrated catalogues and CD containing photographs of over 25,000 parts for cooking, dishwashing, refrigeration and coffee making equipment.


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Electronic card retail purchases declined in the March quarter and there was an increase in the number of people in the region registered for the unemployment benefit compared with March last year.
The early Easter this year and an early start to the Massey University mid-semester break is also likely to have contributed to the decline in retail sales in the region in the March quarter.
"We saw similar results on retail sales in 2009 when the Massey semester break also started in March." Palmerston North City Mayor Jono Naylor said. "The decline in retail sales during that time emphasises the importance of tertiary students to the city's economy."
Manawatū region domestic card retail purchases through the Paymark network declined by 1.4% in the March quarter. This reflects the impact of the drought in the quarter and high agricultural production levels in the same quarter last year. However, New Zealand retail sales increased by 1.6% in the March 2013 quarter.
This contrasted with the strong economic growth recorded in the region last year when retail purchases in the region rose by 2.7% in the March 2012 quarter, while national retail purchases declined by 0.2%.
There is a similar pattern with the number of people in the region registered for the unemployment benefit. There was a 20% decline in the year to March 2012 in the number of people in the region who were registered for the unemployment benefit but this has now been partly reversed by an 11% increase in the year to March 2013.
The number of people registered for the unemployment benefit rose by 20% in Manawatū District while there was a 9% increase in Palmerston North between March 2012 and March 2013.


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Once again, the iPad has reminded us that it is the supreme ruler and absolute dictator of all tablets.
But seriously, just how absurd is the iPad’s dominance? The title says it all. According to estimates of sales by both companies, the Apple iPad is expected to sell more in two weeks, than the Motorola Xoom will sell all year. (BTW, a year has 52 weeks if you were wondering.)
Yesterday, Motorola announced that it was expecting to sell 1.3 to 1.5 million Xoom tablets this year. According to statistics disclosed in Apple’s third quarter conference, the company sells pretty much that number of iPads every two weeks.
The question now arises as to why the Xoom performs so badly in sales compared to what was expected. At first, the Xoom was thought to be a great alternative to the iPad, operating on Android instead of iOS. However, it turns out that the Xoom didn’t have what it needed to sell. For one, being the first Android tablet, there were very few apps available. Also, the Xoom didn’t ship with 4G LTE or Android 3.X Honeycomb, meaning that it is running behind.
Android tablets still have a chance though, as there will soon be a large amount of new tablets coming in, with lots of possibilities for improvement.
If you liked this article, you may also like:
|iPad Reigning Over Chinese Market||T-Mobile Hating on Apple and Motorola||Apple is Suing Motorola Over the Design of its Xoom Tablet…||iPad Predicted to Beat Android Tablets Until 2015|
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Jimmy Xiao is the newest addition the the itracki team. He is a freelance writer as well as a huge apple fan. His hobbies include messing around on his itouch and sleeping long hours each day.


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Debenhams promotes diversity in new campaign featuring Paralympian athlete and 69-year-old
Debenhams looks to increase its diversity of models in its latest look book campaign, with faces including Paralympian amputee Stefanie Reid; a 69-year-old model; and the face of the recent Plus Size Fashion Week.
Ed Watson, director of PR at Debenhams, said: “Our customers are not the same shape or size so our latest look book celebrates this diversity. We would be delighted if others followed our lead. Hopefully these shots will be a step, albeit a small one, towards more people feeling more comfortable about their bodies.”
Other faces included in the campaign include alternative model, Kelly, born without her left forearm and discovered when she won TV show ‘Missing Next Top Model’; and Philomena, a size 18 model who wants to be Britain’s first black plus size supermodel.
In 2010, Debenhams ran a campaign banning the Photoshopping of models.


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Thanks to its new A14 Bionic chip, the iPhone 12 is much faster than any Android phone based on the iPhone 12 benchmarks we've run, but in real-world use it’s a multitasking powerhouse and wipes the floor with older iPhones.
In a video by EverythingApplePro, the Apple-centric YouTuber compared the iPhone 12 Pro against the iPhone 11 Pro and iPhone Xs, carrying out a variety of tasks. The 12 Pro blew the older models away — and it's not just because of the A14.
- iPhone 12 vs Google Pixel 5: Camera face-off
- The best phones right now
- Plus: iPhone 12 MagSafe can wipe credit cards and damage cases
EverythingApplePro showed how the iPhone 12 Pro could bounce between a whole load of apps open at the same time. And even after carrying out a video rendering tasks, the YouTuber was able to open up a load of apps in mere seconds.
That’s thanks to the extra 2GB of RAM the iPhone 12 Pro has over its predecessor, allowing for a lot of apps to be stored ‘in-memory." That means the apps are loaded from the iPhone 12’s RAM rather than its pool of storage.
This allows for much faster multitasking, something iPhones have struggled with in the past, unlike some Android phones with large amounts of RAM.
Apple never revealed how much RAM its iPhones have, but it's believed the iPhone 12 Pro has 6GB. Comparatively, the Samsung Galaxy Note 20 Ultra has 12GB. But EverythingApplePro noted that the IPhone 12 Pro shows how a well-optimized chip means there's no need to have vast amounts of RAM in a smartphone. Given Apple designs its chips in-house, it has greater control over how the silicon plays with iOS and the rest of the IPhone.
In short, the iPhone 12 Pro is not only a powerhouse on the benchmark sheets, but also a multitasking machine in the streets. That alone arguably makes it a compelling upgrade over the iPhone 11 Pro, before you even consider the new design and upgraded cameras.


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Is the trading platform GXCM a scam?
In this article, Trijo News examines the trading platform GXCM. The FCA has issued a warning regarding the company.
It's way more than any other app.
Yesterday, Twitter user Paintedfrog, using data from Trends.cash, revealed that more than 98 percent of all bitcoin SV transactions made over the past month have been made by a weather app called Weathersv.
Weathersv is a paid subscription service that replicates weather data from another site every hour and puts it in blocks on bitcoin SV’s blockchain.
Other apps that made transactions with bitcoin SV include the social network Memo and the payment service Money Button, both of which are based on bitcoin SV. But none of them comes close to having as many transactions as Weathersv, according to data from the website Trends.cash.
Bitcoin cash was the first so-called “hard fork” which was made from bitcoin. Bitcoin SV is, in turn, a “hard fork” of bitcoin cash. It was started by, among others, Australian Craig Wright, who is known for his claim that he is bitcoin founder Satoshi Nakamoto.
Earlier this week, Craig Wright drew attention when he refused to show his bitcoin holdings in a trial.
Hos Trijo får du Sveriges lägsta avgifter och går från registrering till bitcoin i plånboken på under 60 sekunder.
The suspected pyramid scheme Jubilee Ace has disappeared from the face of the earth. It has now been replaced by something called Globalytics Tech...
Trijo News has mapped the Swedes' indirect ownership of bitcoin via the state pension system.


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Hot news coming from Seesmic. We should expect to see a new version coming to replace Seesmic for Windows in the next few weeks.
Based entirely on Silverlight, the new app will have full plugin capability which can extend the use of Seesmic to whatever developers can dream up. Current examples include bing maps integration which has also been demonstrated on the phone app demonstrated at Mix10.
The Silverlight based app will also extend directly to the Windows Phone 7 app, which will be available at the time of phone launch, currently scheduled for Thanksgiving time.
The use of plugins, and the opening of code at platform.seesmic.com is a very smart move from Seesmic. Not only will the new app work seamlessly across mobile and desktop platforms, the inclusion of plug-ins could lead to rapid development and huge personalization of the Social Media experience. With great uptake of the developer program already, we could well be seeing a plugin store very soon.
Seesmic CEO Loic’s reaction “Yeah, it could be.”


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5 September 2022
Business Confidence Survey
The Southland Business Chamber has conducted it’s fifth Southland Business Confidence survey, for the three months ending August 2022.
Your business experience and insights are essential to capture and include in the region’s assessment of our current business climate. The data and results we collect will provide vital information about the current economic climate in Southland, and helps us advocate on your behalf.
- Business confidence had significantly dropped with just 10% of respondents expecting that the general business situation in New Zealand will improve in the next 6 months, down from 62.5% last quarter. 40% of respondents consider the general business situation in NZ will deteriorate, up from 25% last quarter.
This compares with 12 months ago when 18% expected that the general business situation in New Zealand to improve in the next 6 months, and 64% considered the general business situation in NZ will deteriorate.
- The outlook on the respondents’ own businesses has come up with 40% of respondents expecting an improvement in their business, down from 62.5% last quarter. 30% believe business will stay the same during the next six months and 30% believe business will deteriorate.
- Businesses are continuing to struggle to find skilled/specialist staff, with 80% finding it harder to find staff than three months ago.
- Capacity is the most common limited factor for businesses to expand their activities at 40% of respondents. This is followed by finance at 30% and demand at 20%. Note: Compared with 12 months ago Covid-19 border restrictions was first at 36%, finance 27% followed by demand at 18%.
- Average costs continue to be a concern for businesses with 50% of respondents saying it has gone up over the past three months and 60% believing it will continue to go up over the next quarter. Sales in New Zealand is an area of concern with 50% of respondents saying they went down over the last quarter. Total hours worked is also an area for concern with 30% of respondents saying this has gone up and 60% believing it will continue to go up over the next quarter.
- The biggest effect on profit is staff costs, with 40% down from 55% in the August 2021 survey. This followed by 30% of respondents who state that Covid-19 levels had the biggest effect on their profit.
- Inflation continues to be a major area of concern at 50%. The major concern as having the biggest effect on profit for the next six months is staff costs at 60% of respondents choosing this followed by supply chain with 30%, and interest rates sits at 20%.
Click on the links below to download Southland Business Confidence Survey’s


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Just another drop in the sea.
Rockmelt, a social web browser that tried to reimagine itself (and failed), is no more. Trying to justify their incompetent approach in marketing and lack of innovation, the company semi-blamed Google and Microsoft while keeping quiet when it came to Firefox.
As it says, “distributing a desktop browser is hard and expensive (especially if you don’t have an operating system or the world’s most trafficked website to promote it)”.
Sleipnir, an interestingly different web browser for the Mac OS X, has been recently bumped to the version 4.1, which brings an interesting take on your frequently visited sites.
What is it all about? Sleipnir team implemented a new search function called “Portal Field”, which allows users to find pages they want to open by typing just 4 characters. While it sounds like a minor tweak, PF will also prioritize your bookmarks and highlight them in a displayed list (along with suggestions). Furthermore, when suggestions are already open, Sleipnir will take your to that tab to avoid increasing unnecessary tabs.
A little bit of everything.
We are not sure how many hundreds or thousands of different web browsers there are that use the WebKit rendering engine, but here is something slightly different: Torch.
So what’s so cool about it? Well, it builds on the foundation of the Chromium web browser and includes a couple of new features, such as:
After the tremendous amount of requests, it looks like Bada, the operating system from Samsung, fans got what they wanted as Opera Software has recently announced the availability of the Opera Mini for the Sammys platform.
Just like you would expect, Opera Mini 6.5.11 made no sacrifices as it includes same and well know features, such as: a Speed Dial, data savings report, visual tabs and more.
You can download it from the SamsungApps web page.
A small group of website and mobile app developers recently started off an “Occupy Flash” campaign in the hope of putting an end to Adobe’s popular browser plug-in.
The group, which launched a website earlier this week, said its goal was to “Get the world to uninstall the Flash Player plug-in from their desktop browsers.”
Flash Player is dead. Its time has passed. It’s buggy. It crashes a lot. It requires constant security updates. It’s a fossil, left over from the era of closed standards and unilateral corporate control of Web technology. - The Occupy Flash site
Joe Barton, a Texas Republican, voiced his discontent about the browser at a public hearing this week, while Ed Markey, a Massachusetts Democrat, urged Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos for more clarity regarding the data collected from Silk users. The reason for the outrage had to do with how everything a user did in Silk, Amazon would know about. This isn’t the first time that Silk has caused privacy concerns to arise either.
Markey went into a bit more detail in a letter addressed to Amazon, stating that Silk is the only browser available for Silk and that Amazon could essentially keep track of each and every click its customers make. This includes knowing where people shop, what products they buy, when they buy them, and how much they pay.


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Social networking website Facebook could be closed if legal action in the US by a rival site's founders succeeds.
Three founders of ConnectU say Facebook creator Mark Zuckerberg stole their idea for the site while at Harvard.
Facebook has become a global phenomenon with about 31 million users, compared with ConnectU's 70,000.
A Federal case accuses Mr Zuckerberg of fraud and misappropriation of trade secrets, and asks for ConnectU to be given ownership of Facebook.
Last year, Facebook turned down a $1bn offer from Yahoo.
Facebook has asked a judge at a Boston district court to dismiss the case.
The ConnectU founders claim that while at college Mr Zuckerberg agreed to finish writing computer code for them, but that he stalled and eventually created Facebook using their ideas.
View: BBC News


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Businesses call for further facilitation of VAT Registration
Press release - Taxation
27 January 2023
At the occasion of a dedicated joint Roundtable on the Single VAT Registration in the EU, Ecommerce Europe and EuroCommerce showed full support for the plans tabled by the European Commission in December’s VAT in the Digital Age proposal to further facilitate VAT registration in the EU.
The legislative proposal includes an extension of the ‘VAT One Stop Shop’ (OSS) portals, allowing businesses selling to consumers and holding stock in another Member State to register only once for VAT purposes in the entire EU and to fulfill their VAT obligations via a single online portal.
Ecommerce Europe and EuroCommerce are calling the EU Member States to reach consensus as soon as possible to enable sellers to make better use of the Single Market.
Luca Cassetti, Secretary General of Ecommerce Europe, commented: “The new VAT OSS and Import OSS are a success story and a milestone in the EU efforts to simplify VAT legislation. However, businesses with multiple warehouses in EU countries still need to VAT-register in each country of storage. This is costly and burdensome, especially for SMEs. Introducing a Single VAT ID Registration Number by extending the existing VAT OSS would greatly reduce administrative procedures and help businesses thrive in the EU Single Market.”
Christel Delberghe, Director General of EuroCommerce, commented: “In the 30th year after the creation of the EU Single Market, VAT compliance when trading cross border still ranks amongst the highest barriers for companies. Despite the welcomed improvements through the VAT OSS, VAT registration in different Member States is often still time-consuming and costly with SMEs spending around 8,000 euros on compliance costs per year and in each country. The Commission proposal on a Single VAT Registration initiative is a welcomed opportunity to facilitate trade within the EU by making VAT compliance simpler, fairer and more efficient.”
Ahead of the Roundtable, Ecommerce Europe and EuroCommerce have jointly launched a Campaign with a website and materials, an informative video and communication tools to raise awareness on the benefits of a Single VAT Registration in the EU.


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High gas prices have been enough to spike consumer interest in electric cars, but are they enough to maintain it? Trend reports show that for
car-buyers, the correlation between interest in
high gas pricesis consistent, as gas prices in the nation reach an average of $4.19 as of the beginning of May 2022.
What a survey revealed about people’s expectations about electric vehicles
According to a survey of 2,176 consumers reported by
CarGurus.com, at the end of February, 32% of people surveyed expected to own an electric car in the next five years while 51% expected to own an electric car sometime in their lifetime.
By April, those numbers increased to 40% expecting to own an electric car in the next five years and 60% expecting to own an electric car in their lifetime. Around this same time, gas prices had surpassed the $4/gallon marker with no sign of dipping any time soon.
Can this interest in EVs last or is it just a fad?
While an uptick in electric vehicle interest seems to be on the rise, some experts argue that this trend is only temporary. Supply chain shortages caused by the COVID-19 pandemic have also made cars more expensive and harder to come by across the board.
CarGurus director of industry analytics Kevin Roberts suggests that interest in electric cars is as temporary and fickle as is to be expected of the American consumer mindset.
“If gas prices go up they start looking toward alternatives, they may even purchase those alternatives, but if gas prices go down or moderate they're likely to revert to their norm rather quickly, like six months or so,” Roberts said.
Consumers also tend to be more reticent to change than even their responses might indicate. In last year’s survey, 56% of those surveyed reported that they’d consider going electric if gas prices reached $5.00/gallon. With that being the current reality in many parts of the country, there is still a lot of hesitancy surrounding EV adoption.
Infrastructure changes are key to the adoption of electric cars
Many Americans might consider an electric car in place of rising gas prices and cars being hard to come by, but owning one is another story.
Upfront, EVs are more expensive when compared on a dollar-for-dollar basis with their gas-powered counterparts, and many parts of the country are still lacking broader infrastructure such as convenient public charging stations that would support EV ownership.
Those considering an electric car cite increased driving range increased charging speed and having more charging stations in their area as potential factors that would cause them to make the switch.
While attitudes are changing and electric cars are becoming more mainstream, automakers and car-buyers alike shouldn’t expect the shift to happen overnight.
May is historically one of the bigger sales months of the year for new cars, but inventory constraints are unlikely to disappear any time soon, meaning the typical manufacturer discounts seen around Memorial Day weekend are also unlikely to happen.
In March of 2022, just 4.5% of all vehicles sold were EVs, but it's still a growing industry. Globally,
electric car salesare poised to surpass the 20 million mark by June, with predictions to reach 26 million by the end of the year.
How to save money on an electric car
Jerry is a car insurance broker super app. In the time that it takes you to fill out the introductory form, you’ll be connected to instant insurance savings from 55+ major providers and their policies in less than a minute. Jerry contacts your insurance company to get the details of your current coverage, so you get all the best prices and coverage with none of the legwork.
Nervous about the hassle of changing plans? Jerry will even help you cancel your old policy. Jerry customers save an average of over $800 per year!


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PHAIR, not to be confused with the Philadelphia Arts Market proposed for Broad and Washington, plans for an April 5 start for its market of a rotating variety of artists, crafters, designers, photographers, vintage dealers, farm stands and food trucks.
Founder Jennifer Schick does not know who all of the vendors will be this year, as she just opened PHAIR’s applications last week. Poi Dog Philly (food truck), This Pretty Life (vintage), Manayunk Calligraphy (Art/ Photography, Craft/ Handmade) are three artisans who have confirmed multiple dates so far.
Last year, 175 vendors rotated throughout the season at the former location of 2030 Arch St, some of which included Massage for Healing and Balance, Mucho Bueno, My Little Paradise, Miss Boombox, Morganic Produce, and Moe Stuffin Muffins.
Schick said that PHAIR is more than a flea market because they screen their applicants for the quality of the goods they want to sell. “We’re much more focused on artisans through arts and crafts ,” she said. “We’re much more on the heavier end of handmade items.”
The market is free to attend, and items for sale are mostly between $5 and $150, some selling for more.
PHAIR is scheduled for Saturdays from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., April 5 through Nov. 22, with the exception of April 12, when PHAIR will be scheduled for Sunday, Arpil 13.
Want to be a vendor? Apply at the Philly Phair website.


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Digimon Masters Online (DMO) is the latest MMO featuring the ever-popular Digimon franchise. This long awaited game will feature a deeper RPG experience, enhanced graphics and adrenaline pumping real time combat. Both new and long-time Digimon fans can now immerse themselves in this new epic adventure as the game will now be available across the world in English for the first time.
WeMade will release more details including the beta plans and the official launch date in the coming weeks! Stay tuned!
About WeMade Entertainment USA
WeMade Entertainment is a leading online games developer and publisher. WeMade has created several online games, the most successful being The Legend of Mir 2 and The Legend of Mir3, which currently has more than 350,000 active concurrent users and over 200 million registered users in the world. For more information, please visit https://www.wemadeusa.com/.


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General Imaging Booth Report posted.|
(Friday, March 9, 2007 - 13:43 EST)
General Imaging made its debut at PMA 2007, its products being badged as "General Electric" under a licensing agreement with that company.
We've now posted a General Imaging booth report covering all eight of the company's new cameras (plus a new photo printer, to boot). To see all of these new products for yourself (and our initial thoughts on the lineup), hop on over to our PMA 07 International Convention and Trade Show galleries to see the General Imaging booth report for the whole story...


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Corona Measure – Union Coop call for ‘Monthly Shopping’
Source; Emarat Al Youm (Translated)
Contemplating the current situation, Union Coop called for consumers to change their purchase pattern to reduce the number of visits to retail sales outlets so that shopping is carried out monthly instead of weekly.
Union Coop confirmed to ‘Emarat Al Youm’ that the stock available in its warehouses currently exceeds AED 540 Million in value, while supplying between AED 10 to 15 Million per day, which means we have sufficient quantities available. Union Coop also revealed the allocation of AED 5 Million per month to precautionary measures and sterilization.
Man Power and Workforce
The CEO of Union Coop, H.E. Khalid Humaid Bin Diban Al Falasi said that Union Coop currently is facing challenges due to the reduction of the workforce to less than 50% as a result of the precautionary measures to counter the spread of COVID-19. However, the sales transactions in the outlets have shown 100% increase compared to the transactions before March.
Al Falasi also added that the preventive measures implemented by Union Coop include reducing the number of work teams to provide a safe distance to maintain the safety of workers and shoppers, noting that the workforce has been split into teams working alternatively during days of the week. Each team further divided into three groups that do not meet directly, to ensure reduced employee presence.
Al Falasi pointed out that measures taken to protect employees, the transport buses, which are capable of accommodating 80 employees are currently carrying only 19 employees, with daily medical examination, which increases the work pressure due to increased sales transactions checkout counters or home delivery platforms.
Al Falasi indicated that Union Coop as a precautionary measure limited the entry of supplier company employees to the outlets to refill the shelves with goods, which increased the work for Union Coop employees who have to carry out this task themselves, in addition to sterilizing the shelves and the product packages before placing them on the shelves. The changes have increased the unloading time from delivery trucks from 15 minutes to 4 hours.
He revealed that Union Coop allocated AED 5 Million per month for precautionary measures and sterilization, which includes sterilizing sales outlets, staff accommodation, offices and warehouses, in addition to providing free sanitizing dispensers for shoppers at the entry points and free plastic gloves.
Change the purchase pattern
Al-Falasi called on consumers to change the purchase patterns during the current period, to reduce the number of visits to a sales outlet, to shop monthly instead of weekly, in addition to changing the patterns of shopping for fresh goods from “daily” to “weekly”, stressing that this is appropriate for the current circumstances and the national sterilization campaign, which calls for not assembling in the sales outlets and purchasing essentials sufficient for long periods.
Delivery and supply
“The average rate of requests for home delivery through the Union Coop online store was 120 requests per day, which during the recent period increased to 600 and 800 requests per day,” said Khalid Humaid Bin Diban Al Falasi, CEO of the Union Coop.


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Google Play requires privacy and security information for Android apps
In particular, app developers must disclose whether their app:
- employs security practices such as encryption;
- Follow Google’s guidelines for families.
- requires certain data for the app to work or when users cannot share certain data;
- has had its “security area” checked by an independent third party; and
- Allows app users to delete their data when they uninstall the app.
In addition, developers must specify what types of data the app collects and stores (e.g. exact location, contacts and contact information, photos and videos, audio files and storage files) and how the data is used (e.g. for app functionality or personalization ). In addition to disclosing this information, apps must also provide their own privacy policies.
Google will provide more information on these new requirements this summer. App developers who misrepresent their privacy practices in violation of these requirements must make corrections and non-compliant apps must be enforced by Google.
This move follows Apple’s new policy that went into effect on December 8, 2020. Developers must submit new apps and app updates to the Apple App Store to provide information about the app’s privacy practices, known as “privacy nutrition labels.”


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Israel’s Retail Innovation Club Unveils New Technologies to Get Brick & Mortar Stores Back on Track Following COVID Lockdown
Israel has leveraged technology to overcome the current health crisis, with different innovative solutions that track the spread of the coronavirus. This tech allowed the country to build models and intervene rapidly when necessary before communities and health facilities were overwhelmed.
Now that schools, offices and shops are going back to “the new normal”, the country’s retailers also turned to tech and innovation to revitalize their businesses.
Physical stores are an essential part of most of our daily lives, and in spite of the huge growth of eCommerce, it still accounts for under 15% of retail sales globally. However, the latest crisis requires the improvement and evolution of the current methods retailers manage their stores – especially with travel restrictions, distancing rules, and new behavioral habits.
Retail has been given a special opportunity to rethink and re-tool. On the one hand, customers will behave differently in stores. Technologies such as Trigo’s, which provide self-checkout for retailers through AI and computer vision-powered technology, will be increasingly relevant for stores rethinking the flow of people to minimize crowds around tills.
On the other hand, business dynamics are also shifting. Updating and managing branches across retail chains is becoming increasingly challenging with staff reduction and no district managers available for frequent travel between store branches. Retail-tech startup Mystore-E is helping to lead retail brands in effectively managing their store branches remotely. Their platform delivers custom insights to every store digitally, centralizing all communications, updates, and tasks into one personalized news feed. This is made possible thanks to an algorithm that mimics the work of retail managers, such as district and visual merchandise managers.
Recommended AI News: Can AI Serve The World In A Time Of Crisis Like The COVID-19 Pandemic
The platform autonomously detects, forecasts, and alerts on events that impact revenues on an individual store level. In return, the HQ can apply the right changes to manage an unlimited number of stores and employees remotely, centralizing all communications, tasks and insights into one personalized news feed, guiding its managers to excellence.
Mystore-E’s new technology gives retail chains the ability to automate the way in which they manage and personalize their day-to-day tasks with each store – including updating store displays, planograms, inventory balance and more. The current health crisis has triggered a quicker adoption of these technologies, but it will help retailers improve and reinvent store operations far beyond the COVID-19 crisis. As with other crises in the past, COVID-19 has become a catalyst for innovation and change. Retailers now have a unique opportunity to modernize their communication with each of their stores efficiently, and to leverage technology to reinvent the in-store experience for every customer and employee.


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Since his election, President-elect Donald Trump has made it clear he intends to revamp the U.S.-China relationship. His statements and choices suggest a much tougher, pro-America approach.
Trump says previous deals with China have been unfair to America.
“Look, we’re being hurt very badly by China with devaluation, with taxing us heavy at the borders when we don’t tax them,” he said during one recent interview.
Many U.S. products, like DVD players, video games and motorcycles, are taxed at a rate of at least 30 percent. So, that makes American made products more expensive for Chinese consumers.
In return, Trump has threatened to slap 45 percent tariffs on Chinese products entering the United States.
This article continues at [CBN News] A New Sheriff in Town: Change Is on the Horizon for US-China Relations


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Connecticut politicians continue debating if grocery stores should be allowed to sell wine
In the first week of February, more than 100 people turned out at the Legislative Office Building in Hartford for a hearing before the General Law Committee about a bill called "HB-5918." It's a measure that would let grocery stores sell wine.
Connecticut is one of only eight states that do not allow grocery stores to sell wine. Advocates of the proposal declared that most customers want the convenience of not having to go to a separate store to get a bottle of wine. But representatives of the state’s 1,250 package stores argued that letting grocery stores sell wine would put small package store owners out of business.
In written testimony, Connecticut Food Association President Wayne Pesce disagreed. "This claim is patently false," Pesce wrote. "If the law is amended, a fair portion of supermarket wine sales will be incremental, as wine in grocery store sales in other states has shown."
HB-5918 wouldn’t allow grocery stores total free rein on selling wine and hard cider. Grocers would only be allowed to sell wine manufactured by small wineries, unless the store is located within 1,000 feet of a package store. In that case, the grocer would not be allowed to sell wine and hard cider.
But David Baram, an attorney for the Connecticut Package Store Association, said it would be easy for grocers to get around that 1,000-foot rule. "What happens if a grocery store operates an adjacent free-standing package store like Stew Leonard's, or Costco?" Baram asked in written testimony. "Is it clear that the distance requirement will prohibit wine sales inside the grocery store if located within the one thousand foot distance limitation?"
Jonathan L. Wharton, associate professor of political science and urban affairs at Southern Connecticut State University, wrote a column about this proposal in Hearst Newspapers titled "More Opportunities for Wine and Whine." Speaking on Connecticut Public Radio's "All Things Considered," Wharton said this issue "is about convenience and availability, but also about the marketplace." Regarding the large public turnout, Wharton credited the efforts of the Connecticut Package Store Association. "It's interesting to see how the package store owners can really leverage a lot of power. And they do, there's no doubt about it," Wharton said. "They're very good at it."
The Day of New London reports that a vote on HB-5918 is expected by March 21. Click on the audio above to hear more of Wharton's remarks on "All Things Considered" regarding the debate over allowing grocery stores to sell wine in Connecticut.


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Much of the conversation of the proposed Kroger-Albertsons merger has focused on the risks to consumers. However, the merger also poses serious implications for the grocers’ upstream suppliers, particularly smaller regional firms.
In October 2022, grocery chain Kroger announced its intention to acquire competitor Albertsons for $24.6 billion. Kroger’s proposed purchase of Albertsons would be the largest grocery acquisition in history, as these chains operate nearly 5,000 stores and 66 distribution centers across the nation and employ over 700,000 associates. The deal is still pending approval from the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), but it faces vocal opposition from industry groups, including the National Grocers Association and the United Food and Commercial Workers International Union, as well as numerous state and consumer groups.
While much of the criticism of the proposed merger focuses on consumer prices and the risk that they may increase post-merger, significantly less attention has been paid to the suppliers of these stores, including growers, shippers, manufacturers, distributors, and wholesalers. There are several potential upstream economic impacts worth considering as the FTC reviews this and other large mergers in the food industry. As would be the case with any retail merger, the suppliers for these chains can be expected to face some degree of uncertainty, transition costs, and coordination challenges. In a previous study, my co-authors and I found statistical and anecdotal evidence that the 2014 Safeway-Albertsons merger resulted in uncertainty, lost revenues, and lower prices received for California specialty crop growers. There are concerns about the economic post-merger viability of smaller suppliers, given the size and scale of the proposed merger and the buying power it would grant Kroger-Albertsons to demand cheaper prices from them. In European grocery markets, which are typically more concentrated than those in the United States, several studies have found that large buyers negatively impact sellers, particularly smaller ones.
Indeed, Kroger and Albertsons have touted their ability to leverage their combined scale to reduce their costs as an avenue for delivering lower food prices and better value for consumers. Suppliers will have an incentive to reduce their prices if doing so will land them on the shelves of Kroger-Albertsons’ roughly 5,000 stores. Though wholesale prices are proprietary information and protected by trade secrets, it is well understood that national retailers such as Walmart and Costco garner favorable prices from suppliers, largely due to their market share and visibility among U.S. households.
The extent to which Kroger-Albertsons can drive down wholesale prices will be largely a function of the asymmetry in size when dealing with manufacturers. Currently, both retail chains buy from several large vendors and manufacturers, predominantly consumer packaged goods (CPG) companies. Vendors such as Kellogg or PepsiCo with national or international markets will be comparable in size to Kroger-Albertsons, if not larger, and will likely not be affected substantially by the increased buying power derived from the merger. But smaller suppliers, such as regional manufacturers, produce distributors, and specialty food companies, will find themselves relatively much smaller than Kroger post-merger. The economic importance of the firms potentially affected is substantial. The Specialty Food Association, which represents artisan food companies that tend to be smaller and independent, includes over 3,500 corporate members, representing hundreds of thousands of jobs and more than $194 billion in revenues as of 2023. Theory and evidence indicates that these smaller firms will be forced to offer their products at lower prices if they wish to remain on Kroger-Albertsons’ shelves. Lower prices received for vendors, particularly during a time of rising supply chain costs, could significantly reduce profitability and viability. According to CSIMarket, food processing companies have an average operating margin of 5.2%, meaning that their capacity to reduce prices is already constrained.
As such, to the extent that Kroger achieves lower wholesale prices, this could result in a secondary impact throughout markets that is commonly known as the “waterbed effect.” If suppliers reduce their prices to get on the shelves of Kroger-Albertsons’ stores, they are then motivated to recover their profit margins via transactions with other buyers. Thus, the merger may result in higher wholesale prices for smaller retailers and wholesalers who don’t command the monopsony power to demand lower prices from the suppliers, again affecting smaller companies to a greater extent than larger companies.
Smaller suppliers face disadvantages beyond price that may jeopardize their operations. Previous grocery merger events suggest that Kroger and Albertsons will gradually align their respective product offerings over time, streamlining the purchasing process across retail banners for both national brands and private labels. Smaller vendors and manufacturers without the capacity to service both Kroger and Albertsons stores post-merger face the prospect of losing their respective accounts, resulting in uncertainty and the loss of substantial revenues. The more constrained a supplier is in terms of total output, the higher is the likelihood of being unable to supply the newly merged chains. For example, a small produce grower cannot expand land area and ramp up production to meet the demand of a significantly expanded buyer on a short time horizon. This was cited as a problem for specialty crop growers in the wake of the Safeway-Albertsons merger.
One way in which smaller retailers may respond to problems of scale and monopsony power is to consolidate themselves. Consolidation has been a key transformative process for the entire food supply chain, from seeds to groceries, for the past several decades in the U.S. In U.S. grocery, the four-firm concentration ratio increased from 35% to 65.1% between 1990 and 2019. While the merits and drawbacks of consolidation can be discussed and debated, it seems likely that the Kroger-Albertsons merger will encourage the consolidation process among grocery suppliers. We should expect to see an uptick in consolidation among manufacturers, distributors, and wholesalers following the Kroger-Albertsons merger, which in turn will incentivize consolidation among agricultural producers, brokers, transportation providers, and other upstream segments of the food supply chain.
The specific nature of the proposed Kroger-Albertsons merger offers one unique opportunity for smaller suppliers. Kroger has already announced a divestiture of 413 supermarkets throughout the U.S. to C&S Wholesalers, the largest grocery wholesaler in the U.S. by revenues. Depending on the FTC’s evaluation of the merger in 2024, the size of the divestiture may increase. C&S currently has a very limited physical footprint in grocery retail, and this divestiture has many throughout the industry wondering whether C&S will operate these stores directly or sell them to other retailers once they have left the Kroger banners. Most large national grocery chains purchase directly from brand manufacturers, but wholesalers such as C&S sell primarily to smaller chains and independents. Should C&S choose to sell some or all of the acquired supermarkets, their strongest economic incentive is thus to sell to smaller grocers, who will then be C&S customers. Despite the numerous merger-related concerns that are especially acute for smaller suppliers, the merger may ultimately expand the market for smaller suppliers via the introduction of independent supermarkets in select geographic markets.
The literature on the impact of mergers in the food retail market is scarce, but there is enough evidence to raise concerns about the potential harms the Kroger-Albertsons merger poses to upstream suppliers. The FTC would do well to study the likely impact the Kroger-Albertsons will have on upstream suppliers in addition to the labor and price inflation concerns that are currently receiving the most attention.
Author Disclosure: The author works on USDA-funded grants pertaining to food retailing. He conducts economic-impact research in collaboration with the California Grocers Association Educational Foundation, and he partners with the Food Marketing Institute to write and speak on food price inflation and supply chain issues.
Articles represent the opinions of their writers, not necessarily those of the University of Chicago, the Booth School of Business, or its faculty.


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Spain’s economic troubles, brought on by the impact of the global economic downturn of 2008-2009 and the eurozone sovereign debt crisis, have severely limited growth in income and expenditure on luxury goods over the 2009-2014 period.
As austerity continues to grip the nation, albeit at a slightly lower level than in recent years, the luxury market is set to see low levels of consumer demand, although opportunities are apparent in the more accessible or affordable luxury goods segment.
The Spanish luxury goods market recorded positive growth in 2014 for the first time since the downturn posting a real value gain of 0.7% on 2013 to reach €5.4 billion making them the world’s 11th biggest market ahead of Canada and Switzerland.
This slight improvement to the markets performance has been supported to some degree by the modest recovery in the Spanish economy, as well as the growing number of millionaires in the country and spend from wealthy tourists
“ The Spanish luxury goods market recorded positive growth in 2014 ”
Spain, the fourth largest economy in the euro zone, grew steadily for ten consecutive years prior to the recession in 2009. During this period of prolonged growth, the Spanish economy generated more than half of all new jobs in the euro zone.
However, the economy deteriorated rapidly when the country’s housing bubble collapsed and a large fiscal debt was accumulated.
Spain’s economy will however grow modestly in 2014 after several years of contraction. Real GDP is expected to grow by 1.0% in 2014.Strong growth in exports, investment and a better performance in the tourist sector provide support.
Businesses and households, however, are still struggling to reduce their debt. The prospects for consumer spending are improving. Nearly a quarter of the work force is unemployed and two-thirds of the jobless have been out of work for more than a year.
“ Spain’s economy will grow modestly in 2014 after several years of contraction ”
Private final consumption (in real terms) fell by 2.1% in 2013 and growth of 0.5% is expected in 2014. However, the prospects for consumer spending are improving. Business investment is picking up while fiscal incentives for the automobile industry introduced in late 2013 will provide additional support.
Consumer spending should also receive a boost as employment prospects improve and pent-up demand gains strength.
Spain’s labour pool is shrinking. Population has fallen for the last three years, largely due to an exodus of Latin Americans and Africans who had come for work during a long building boom. In 2013, the number of foreigners living in Spain dropped by more than 500,000. Without this emigration, the jobless rate would have been higher.
Villa Florenta, Marbella, Spain
Spain’s aging population is increasingly shaping the performance of the luxury goods industry with the importance of baby boomers as a target for luxury players continuing to grow. A growing number of companies are focusing on launching luxury ranges and products to target this segment.
In Spain, people aged 65+ make up the largest age group in the population with an annual gross income of US$150,000+, and yet their share in the top income bracket is expected to rise even further in the period through to 2030.
This long-term trend will shape consumption in many sectors, and businesses that understand this will be able to develop suitable products and devise appropriate investment strategies in order to capture the full market potential that this growing and influential consumer group has to offer.
Luxury goods business and investment strategies aimed at Spain’s top-earning elderly people can be devised for the long term, as the share of the 65+ cohort among the top income bracket will continue to rise.
Euromonitor International forecast that by 2030, this demographic will make up 17% of all Spanish earning an annual gross income of US$150,000 and above.
“ Spain’s aging population will shape the future performance of the luxury goods industry ”
Much in line with what it has been happening over the review period the Spanish luxury goods market is still dominated by international players. Chanel, Dior, Hermes and Louis Vuitton are amongst the most coveted luxury brands in the country. Meanwhile the importance of domestic luxury players is low with only a limited number of brands, such as Loewe, widely known by the average Spanish consumer.
Meanwhile the importance of international brands continues to grow in the Spanish market, seduced by the growing number of wealthy tourists arriving in Spain’s biggest, cities, especially Barcelona and Madrid but also at luxury holiday destinations such as Marbella and Ibiza.
We have seen a growing number of international brands opening or refurbishing outlets in the country such as Louis Vuitton, Armani, Roberto Cavalli, Coach and Stella McCartney over the review period.
However, in an attempt to promote and consolidate Spanish luxury goods and it heritage two trade associations have been setup, namely Círculo Fortuny and Luxury Spain. Both associations have seen impressive rises in their membership numbers since their formation.
“ In an attempt to promote Spanish luxury goods two trade associations have been launched ”
Spain’s recovery will be a slow one. Real rates of GDP growth will range between 1.4% and 2.0% in the medium term. There is still a need to unwind accumulated imbalances and the tight financial conditions facing the Spanish economy. The potential rate of growth is also declining. Exports will probably be the main driver but domestic demand should also strengthen gradually.
There is consensus amongst the industry is that the conservative attitude towards spending will continue to be a defining feature for the Spanish luxury market in the short to medium term. In fact Spanish consumers are not expected to go back to the consumer confidence levels seen prior to the economic downturn for many years to come.
As a consequence, the polarisation of sales will continue to take place. The gap between those with a high and a low disposable income is expected is wet to widen emphasising the polarisation of sales seen over the review period and a growing need for affordable and absolute luxury price points.
The growing number of wealthy visitors to the country teamed with and increasing number of millionaires will be the key drivers of luxury sales growth in the short to medium term.
To further investigate local luxury markets on Luxury Society, we invite your to explore the related materials as follows:


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It beats Japan as world's largest pork importer this year.
Contrary to other agricultural imports, which are proving weak in 2016 thus far, China's meat imports are reaching record levels in 2016 due to local production issues.
Moving forward, BMI expects import demand for pork, beef and poultry meat to remain robust in 2017.
Here's more from BMI:
Local meat production has been struggling to expand for several years and China has been recording weaker output growth than its global and Asian counterparts, in particular.
We forecast output to remain well below consumption levels in 2017. Local production is under pressure due to a myriad of factors including elevated production costs (beef), stricter production regulations (pork) and the import ban on grandparent stocks imposed in 2015 (poultry).
Although pork production will reaccelerate in 2017, incentivised by the pickup in pork prices and the sharp decrease in local feed prices stemming from the ongoing changes to the country's grain policy, production will remain well below consumption.
Meanwhile, poultry output will remain constrained by the lack of grandparent stocks and will decline for a second consecutive year in 2017.
As a result of these domestic challenges, China will import record volumes of pork, beef and close to record volumes of poultry meat in 2016 and 2017.
The country turned into the world's largest pork importer in 2016, bypassing Japan, and will be second only to the US regarding beef imports.
Do you know more about this story? Contact us anonymously through this link.


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Get in the KNOW
on LA Startups & TechX
But authors—arguably the original creators of the creator economy—have lacked a social media platform designed to help them reach readers, contends Allison Trowbridge, founder and CEO of social media app Copper Books. Trowbridge, an author herself, aims to fill that void with the app, which just launched this week with the goal of creating an online community connecting writers and their readers.
“Authors are micro-entrepreneurs spending years of their lives developing a product—this book—which they then need to launch to an audience,” Trowbridge told dot.LA. “There was nothing to really support that process.”
West Hollywood-based Copper, which went live on Apple devices Thursday, lets authors host live online events like book readings and chat with fans in forum discussions. Readers can discover books and share what they're reading with friends using “bookshelves” on their Copper profile pages.
“Books are a word-of-mouth industry,” Trowbridge said. “We want this to be the easiest place to find those meaningful recommendations from authors and readers that you admire, trust and have shared interests with.”
Copper isn’t the first company to try to socialize the book-reading experience online. One of the better-known is Goodreads, an Amazon-owned website where users can craft reading lists and write book reviews. But Trowbridge notes that, unlike Copper, Goodreads is solely focused on the reader and doesn’t bring the author into the equation.
As of last week, Copper had a waitlist of around 6,500 potential users, including 3,000 published authors, according to Trowbridge. Some of those are would-be Android users who can’t join the app yet, though Copper plans to launch on Android in the coming months.
The nine-employee startup raised $2.5 million last year in a pre-seed round led by San Francisco-based venture capital firm Wave Capital. Other investors include early Twitter employee Claire Diaz-Ortiz, Paypal CEO Dan Schulman and Fran Hauser, the former head of digital at Time Inc., who now sits on Copper’s board. Popular science writer Adam Grant is also an investor, advisor and user of the app.
Copper is free for fans and authors, though the company plans to eventually roll out a premium version with additional features for paying members. Down the line, Trowbridge said she could foresee publishers paying Copper to promote their books through the app. For now, the startup is focused on building the user base, she said.
“It's such a hard industry to break into, especially if you're an aspiring author,” Trowbridge noted. “I wanted to create a place where if you have a dream of writing a book, this is where you can meet, build your community, find your agent [and] get encouragement and advice.”
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- Kajabi Raises $550 Million to Lure Creative Entrepreneurs - dot.LA ›
Instagram is tired of reposted TikTok videos dominating its feed—and is now doing something about it.
On Wednesday, Instagram head Adam Mosseri announced that the Meta-owned social media app is changing its algorithm to boost original, Instagram-hosted content. As Fast Company observed this week, the move appears geared toward combating the spread of TikTok-produced videos that have increasingly proliferated on Instagram.
As well as introducing new product tags and user category features, Mosseri said the new ranking system will boost photos and Reels made on Instagram across users’ feeds and their Explore page recommendations. The new algorithm comes as Instagram is beta-testing “Use Template,” a Reels feature that lets users replicate editing and formatting touches from other videos, Business Insider reported Friday.
Aggregators—accounts that repost viral content—are still popular on Instagram, and Mosseri tweeted that the new ranking system will ensure the app’s recommendations “don’t overvalue aggregators, as that would be bad for creators, and therefor [sic] bad for Instagram long term.” He noted that the algorithm predicts a post’s originality based on indicators like the people in the video and whether the algorithm has previously seen the content—but added the caveat that it “can’t know for sure” who the original creator is.
Despite launching Reels, its own short-form video feature, in 2020, Instagram has been confronted by TikTok’s growing prominence in recent years and made efforts to counter its rival’s popularity. Last year, Instagram’s algorithm began to make videos with visible watermarks from other social media platforms, including TikTok, less discoverable. Instagram’s efforts come amid recent reports that its parent company, Meta, reportedly financed a targeted public relations campaign against TikTok.Other social media companies contending with Culver City-based TikTok’s massive user base have also tried to replicate the video-sharing app’s success. Snap launched its TikTok-esque Spotlight feature in 2020 and paid out some $250 million last year to more than 12,000 creators on the platform. In its first-quarter earnings report this week, Santa Monica-based Snap announced a 230% year-on-year increase in the total time spent by users on Spotlight.
Creators will soon be able to set up digital storefronts on Instagram. Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg made the announcement on Tuesday along with a slew of other monetization features. The company is trying to lure and keep influencers on its social media platforms amid stiff competition from the likes of TikTok and Twitter, which recently introduced a "tip jar."
"If you have an idea that you want to share with the world, you should be able to create it and get it out there easily and simply across Facebook and Instagram and then earn money for your work," CEO Mark Zuckerberg said. His keynote kicked off "creator week," a three-day virtual event Facebook and its subsidiary Instagram are hosting for influencers, "designed to help them build their careers and personal brand, support their wellbeing, and connect them with their peers," according to a company statement.
The digital storefront feature lets creators sell their own products, as well as link their accounts to Facebook's existing merchandise partners (Bravado/UMG, Fanjoy, Represent and Spring).
Influencers can also recommend products and earn a commission when their followers make a purchase. Those brands set a commission rate; in such cases users will see an "eligible for commission" label on creators' pages. The company said it will be testing this feature over the coming months.
Starting this week, creators will be also able to earn extra cash by attaining "badges" on Instagram and "stars" on Facebook, though the company didn't reveal specifics about how much they'd be paid. The idea is that creators will be rewarded for achieving certain milestones, such as broadcasting for a certain number of hours on Instagram Live.
The company has already used badges and stars as a form of tipping, but this new feature adds another layer of compensation.
Facebook has said it will begin taking a cut of creator compensation in 2023, though Zuckerberg noted that its share will be "less than the 30% that Apple and others take."
"I really believe that people are naturally creative and we want to share what we make with others. And a lot of times we want to turn that into a career," Zuckerberg said. "You just need access to the right tools, and that's what we hope to continue to build for all of you."
The new features will further embed ecommerce into the user monetization features of Facebook and Instagram, which already offer a degree of online shopping tools. It is part of a broader trend of social media companies competing to keep their users engaged by attracting content-makers.
TikTok is reportedly testing incorporating ecommerce, for instance, while Snapchat has launched a "creator marketplace" to match brands with augmented reality creators. Platforms are also increasingly offering other monetization options, including ad-revenue sharing and launching funds earmarked for creators.
Instagram head Adam Mosseri, who's led the Facebook subsidiary since he took over in 2018 when Instagram's founders left, also noted that the emphasis on helping creators make money on Instagram is part of a broader "shift in power from institutions to individuals."
He said it was in much the same vein as the rise of fans rooting for athletes rather than teams and the surge of journalists going it alone on platforms like Substack and Patreon rather than relying on publications.
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- Poparazzi Photo App Reportedly to Hit $135 Million Valuation - dot.LA ›
- Who's Paying What for Creator Content - dot.LA ›


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My detectives at the Vol- usia Sheriff’s Office recently received a heart-breaking report of an older resident who was scammed out of more than $16,000—all because scammers promised him $100,000.
This gentleman told us he had been scammed over several months by several people who pretended to work for the U.S. government.
Here’s what happened: First he was told to send $6,000 by mail and a truck would deliver the money to his house. Then he was told the truck was “stopped by the FBI” and wouldn’t be released unless our victim sent another $7,000.
Next, he was contacted by another caller who claimed to be an FBI agent, who instructed the victim to send another $3,000 to someone in California.
Unfortunately, this man sent cash by mail as well as purchasing Apple pay cards, as instructed. When the calls continued to come, suggesting he send thousands more to receive thousands of dollars more, he’d had enough.
When he refused to send any more money, he was threatened with being arrested by the FBI. He contacted us. Our detectives are actively investigating this fraud case.
My purpose in telling readers this story is to remind you that these cases continue to happen in Volusia County and elsewhere. People of all ages in our community report being victims of fraud nearly every week. Criminals think up new ways to rob trusting individuals using all kind of scams like this one.
You can help us thwart scammers by knowing what to look for and how to avoid becoming a crime victim.
Family Members: Please watch out for your parents or grandparents to help them avoid falling victim to these crimes. It’s your responsibility too.
Florida Attorney General Ashley Moody’s website myfloridalegal.com offers helpful information about common scams. One program is Scams At A Glance and includes downloadable brochures in English and Spanish to teach consumers how to avoid becoming a fraud victim. The other program is Consumer Alert. To view recent Consumer Alerts, visit MyFloridaLegal.com/ConsumerAlert
Avoid Becoming A Victim: Here are general signs of common scams:
If you have any doubt or think you may have become a victim of fraud, call us right away: Call the Sheriff’s Office non-emergency number, 386.248.1777 or 911 in an emergency. We’ll be glad to help.
Stay well and enjoy,
Sheriff Mike Chitwood