text:
Parking sucks, music started it.
That's the short version of the Baker boom, particularly on Broadway where it seems as if a new storefront opens everyday. Despite the Dunkin' Donuts that's replaced the A&W at 4th Avenue, the trend is toward ultra-local businesses with young business owners who live in the neighborhood and whose employees enjoy the historic neighborhood, one of Denver's oldest and the spot where all the city's numbered east-west avenues begin.
Baker is bordered by 6th Avenue on the north and the abandoned Gates Rubber Factory on the south, Lincoln Street on the east and the South Platte River on the west. It stretches back to the early 1800s but the city officially designated it the Baker district in the 1970s, named after Baker Junior High School. Broadway, Baker's most commercial street, came to be when Thomas Skerritt drug a lengthy tree behind his wagon to clear broad way into Denver in 1871.
Today it has more than 5,000 residents -- and counting. New apartments are sprouting up on and around Broadway at an impressive pace, and many more are on the drawing board.
As the neighborhood has changed, the makeup of businesses that dot it's streets has changed. "Even five years ago there were a lot less restaurants, a lot more antique stores, book stores, sex shops, head shops -- all that kind of stuff," observes Sweet Action Ice Cream
Co-Owner and Founder Chia Basinger. Now it's increasingly a place for people to shop and eat.
One of the old sex shops recently became Eslinger Art Gallery
, for instance. New, locally grown businesses on the street level range from Hope Tank
, the charitable boutique -- the owner contributes profits from sales to roughly 70 organizations -- to Sweet Action to the recently opened Breathe
, a yoga and cycling studio next to the brand new Illegal Pete's
burrito-plex and bar.
The second floors of most Broadway buildings are similarly filled with local businesses. "It's all young independent business owners," says Basinger. "You don't see many other neighborhoods like that in Denver."
Matthew Brown, owner of Baker-based crafting mecca Fancy Tiger
, sees the transition occurring in the heart of the residential neighborhood as well. "I love that Humble Pie
moved over to 3rd and Elati," he says. "The minute they opened up, whoever owned the property across the street from them just sunk a bunch of money into it and developed it. Now they're looking at renting it or selling it."
Music makes for changeThe 3 Kings Tavern moved into Baker in 2005 and brought in a younger crowd.
Basinger, Brown and other local entrepreneurs largely attribute the resurgence of Baker's popularity to music venues moving into the neighborhood.
"When I first came in there was just the Hi-Dive
," says real-estate entrepreneur and Baker resident John Crays. "Nothing else was here as far as bars go. There was Famous Pizza, the Irish Rover was The Shamrock. The guy that owned the Shamrock was some big, bald sonofabitch and he would knock people's teeth out and there were teeth that he had knocked out under the bar."
When Crays bought a foreclosed home in Baker about a decade ago his neighbor was, well, a condemned building. "They had rats, bones and we'd shoot windows out of it with rocks. Since then that building got revamped into these $350,000 condos," he says. "I started noticing that all of these buildings were kind of changing, the neighborhood was going from these older people who had been in these houses for the last 30 years to a younger generation."
"When 3 Kings Tavern
came in [in 2005] that made a big difference -- we have music and music usually brings in more creative minds," Crays contends. "That was bringing in more young people as opposed the guys smoking cigarettes and drinking beer at 7 a.m."
During a recent meeting at Mutiny Information Cafe
of the Baker Broadway Merchants Association, a roughly year-old coalition of local business owners and entrepreneurs, parking was the topic du jour. Parking issues might not be a bad thing however, it's reflective of the neighborhood's resurgent popularity. It's no longer a seedy cousin of Colfax where stupefied bums freely spark crack pipes in front of businesses, says Fancy Tiger's Brown. "People smoke crack in my alley rather than in the front of my store," he quips. "There's more pressure on people now that are doing less savory things down here to do it in secret."
Fancy Tiger is one of the earlier new guard businesses that set up shop in Baker, opening its doors in 2006. Since then it's split from one store into two -- one for crafts, the other for unique, fashionable clothing. The latter has moved four times and now both stores are beside each other and next to Buffalo Exchange (formerly on 13th Avenue). The owners of Fancy Tiger and Buffalo Exchange partnered to purchase the building they now reside in, Brown says. Fancy Tiger is one of the retail stores that lines Broadway.
As Fancy Tiger moved, it also helped bring new businesses to Broadway, Sewn, a boutique specializing in local clothing and accessories, and Happy Coffee are now in its former storefronts. "We courted or invited every business that's in our previous locations," says Brown. "It's so hard to get space down here that when space opens up it usually goes to a friend of a previous owner and they seal that deal three months before it's even public."
Sweet Action Ice Cream, which opened its doors in 2009, was also a welcome addition to the neighborhood, enjoying lines out the door on most summer days. Basinger says he remembers the neighborhood as a child. "It was always a pretty cool neighborhood, but it was always sketchy," he says.
Basinger explains that he and Sweet Action Co-Owner Samantha Kopicko decided to open up the ice cream shop in Baker about a year after they moved there. "When we moved here, there were a couple of places we were looking at moving and we decided to move into the Baker neighborhood because honestly it felt the most like New York City," he asserts. "We like having an urban lifestyle, we like having an urban and walkable neighborhood with a lot of things you need within walking distance. You have bars, you have restaurants, you have a movie theater [the historic Mayan Theatre], you have all the amenities you want so that was attractive for us."
Like Buffalo Exchange, Lindsey Hanahan's Move Studios
, a Pilates and movement therapy facility, is in the final processes of signing a lease to move into the neighborhood, but from Cherry Creek. "Cherry Creek rents are going crazy and we're in a bad situation there right now, so we're looking for a new site," explains Tom Geissler, who's helping Hanahan with the transition. "We needed to find a larger space that we could grow into. We needed to try to make it convenient enough so that we can retain the majority of our clients," he says. The new space will have more than 2,000 square feet -- the current facility has about 1,200.
It took Move Studios two years to decide on a new location, searching from 8th Avenue and Colorado Boulevard to I-25, Geissler says. They chose Baker because "it's a dynamic area, it's a neighborhood we think is still transitioning. It also happens to be kind of on the way for a lot of our clients. We have a fair number of people that work downtown, then they come south," he explains. He also thinks the studio could draw new clientele from the neighborhood as well as remaining close enough to Cherry Creek to retain its clients there.
More to come
There are still eyesores, like Kitty's South -- the now-closed adult theater with an unclear future -- or the abandoned Foot & Ankle Clinic, which Crays has tried to purchase. The strip mall south of Alameda, home to Albertsons and other big-box stores like Kmart and Office Depot, sits in stark contrast to the character of the neighborhood, which is characterized by brick storefronts and turn-of-the-century Queen Anne-style Victorian homes. It was redeveloped in the 1990s and the target for another redevelopment today.
"At the time they didn't know they weren't aesthetically pleasing," says Push Gym
Owner Martin Levine, who's lived in the neighborhood most of his life. Levine founded the Broadway-based gym nine years ago. He calls the redevelopment two decades ago a good and bad thing. "There was a lot of yuck there. The Montgomery Ward was there but getting run down, the houses there weren't very nice," he says.
Still, newer developments promise a more lasting appeal, like the 388-unit Alta Alameda Station
apartments -- across the street from the strip mall and the Alameda light-rail station. They'll start leasing at over $1,200 a month and are just one of number of new multi-unit buildings under construction in the neighborhood. To the south, the Denver Design District is the subject of a long-term redevelopment that could double the population of Baker in 20 years, and bring a hotel and more than a million square feet of retail space to boot.
With all this growth the neighborhood could use some more business diversity, say most of the merchants. "I would like to see the growth in bars slow down. Let the retail catch up," says Brown of Fancy Tiger. "I just want to see a balance. I want to see as many people who want to shop in the day as there are coming down to drink at night."
Sweet Action's Basinger echoes the sentiment. "Albertsons is our only real big grocery store and none of the other places on Broadway are really delis or markets…something where you can pick up foods," he says. "I think that's something that would be really good for us to have. "I would love to have a sandwich shop. Just being able to walk down here and go to a market or a deli or something like that."
It looks like they may be in luck. Nooch Vegan Market
will be opening very early in 2014 at 10 E. Ellsworth Ave., according to Co-Owner Vanessa Gochnour. And with new restaurants like Gozo
and Denver Biscuit Co.
opening, the neighborhood might just get that sandwich shop that Basinger craves.
Photos by Kara Pearson Gwinn.


text:
From being just a beverage option, to becoming favourite morning drink, coffee in India has grown to new heights. Needless to say, the coffee sector in the country is growing at a significant rate with the market expected to grow annually by 7.2% CAGR in 2021 - 2025. In fact, in the last couple of years, we have seen huge transformations in the market where superior taste, quality, innovative brewing techniques along with unique flavours are drawing the business for coffee brands.
Today, Indians do not look at coffee as just a filter coffee or ‘Kaapi’ to go with their morning breakfast, coffee these days are more experiential, locally grown, sustainable and what not. From international brands like Starbucks, Costa Coffee and Di Bella to Indian home grown brands like Café Coffee Day, Coffee Culture, Araku Coffee to Blue Tokai and Rage Coffee, the sector has also seen a deep interest from investors.
Not just a trend!
While International coffee day is an occasion to celebrate and promote coffee as a beverage, it is also important to highlight the issues related to it. For example, fair trade and the plight of coffee growing communities. International coffee chain Starbucks that is also celebrating its 50th anniversary this week has taken a bold aspiration to be a resource positive company, to take less and give more to the planet in every aspect of its business – including coffee. In March, Starbucks announced coffee-specific environmental goals to achieve carbon neutral green coffee and conserve water usage in green coffee processing by 50 percent by 2030.
Starbucks purchases coffee from more than 400,000 farmers in 30 countries around the world and is committed to a sustainable future of coffee for all. The company believes it has a responsibility to care for the entire supply chain and the many people who make coffee possible, from seed to cup, farmer to customer.
Similarly, Costa Coffee has launched a trial of a new blockchain technology-powered reusable cup scheme called BURT. BURT – which stands for ‘Borrow, Use, Reuse, Take Back’ – builds on Costa Coffee’s work to improve the sustainability of its cups and packaging by utilising innovative digital technology, seeking to shift consumer behaviour towards reuse. The trial launches on 29th September across 14 stores in Glasgow, the home of COP26, and will last for six months.
Costa Coffee will be using the trial to gain feedback from customers and learn about uptake and behaviour towards reusable cups. It will then use its findings to optimise and develop a scheme that will roll out more widely across the UK in phases.
What’s happening in India
Not just cafes but India has also seen a rapid growth in coffee production and manufacture. Brands like Rage Coffee, Araku, Blue Tokai are doing a fab job when it comes to giving an exceptional product to the ever growing Indian customer. As per reports the ~INR7000cr Indian packaged coffee segment is dominated by incumbents with two players - Nestle and HUL (Nescafe &Bru) - controlling over 65% market share of the industry and this is a good time for homegrown brands to tap the market.
“Along with our constant effort to innovate and launch innovative new offerings and trend setting products, we are planning to expand our distribution network. It is also our vision to grow our revenues by 5x and reach over 3000 retailers by the end of 2021 and be a leader in building true omni-channel presence in our category,” shared Bharat Sethi of Rage Coffee in an interview that is targeting 16-35 years old who have already identified coffee as their go-to beverage.
On the other hand, Gurgaon-based coffee startup Blue Tokai Coffee Roasters that raised Rs 17 crore in pre-series B bridge round led by Anicut Angel Fund, is aiming to launch new products, execute farm-level interventions to improve quality, expand internationally and for marketing.
“Cafes were an important part of that mission, but like many brands, Covid-19 completely upended the economics of that business. We were fortunate to already have a strong D2C (direct-to-customer) presence and by refocusing our efforts on our online sales channels, we’ve been able to grow our revenue nearly 50 per cent more than our pre-Covid peak,” said Matt Chitharanjan, Co-founder, Blue Tokai Coffee Roasters that started selling its coffee online and through B2B partnerships.
Hence, we can say that there is much more that is brewing in coffee segment this year!

domain: news


text:
EPA approves Cat’s entire 2004 engine lineup
PEORIA, Ill. — Caterpillar has become the first engine manufacture to have its entire 2004 engine lineup certified for the Environmental Protection Agency’s 2004 emissions standards.
The 2004 standards require manufacturers to demonstrate 2002 emissions levels for nearly double the miles of operation in heavy-duty on-highway truck engines. Cat’s C7, C9, C13, C11 and C15 engines all meet these impending regulations.
The final engine to get the EPA’s green light for 2004 was the C11, which is popular among vocational truck customers.
"Caterpillar is the only engine manufacturer to offer a full product family of 2004 engines that are both EPA-certified and compliant," said Richard L. Thompson, Caterpillar group president with responsibility for the company’s Engine Division. "Customers who operate Cat engines in trucks, transit and school buses, and emergency vehicles demand engines that comply with EPA standards without sacrificing performance, reliability or fuel efficiency. Caterpillar, relying on our breakthrough ACERT technology, is best positioned to meet both customer needs and clean air goals."
ACERT technology reduces emissions at the point of combustion and is comprised of engine electronics, fuel injection systems and aftertreatment systems that work collectively to reduce emissions. All 2004 Cat engines will feature ACERT technology.
"Two years ago, we took a bold step by pursuing a technology path that offers more value than competing engine technologies," Thompson said. "Acceptance of our new engines in North America continues to grow. To date, more than 15,000 customers and fleets have ordered new engines with ACERT technology."
Have your say
This is a moderated forum. Comments will no longer be published unless they are accompanied by a first and last name and a verifiable email address. (Today's Trucking will not publish or share the email address.) Profane language and content deemed to be libelous, racist, or threatening in nature will not be published under any circumstances.


text:
Samsung’s long-awaited Galaxy S III launched in New Zealand this week, with the three providers all competing to offer the device at the best price.
Telecom fired the first shot last week, announcing they would give the handset away free for customers who signed up to a 24-month, $120-per-month plan.
Vodafone followed that with a special launch offer of $90 per month, rising to $120 per month when an undisclosed number of devices have been sold.
Both incumbents were then trumped by 2degrees the day before the launch, with the third provider offering the handsets free for plans worth $89 per month. The aggressive move even forced Telecom to cut its pricing, the company announcing the day the device went on sale that it would drop its minimum contract price to an even $100.
Of course, as Techday commenter Damian Funnell pointed out, the price comparisons must be considered in regards to what calling, text and data allowances come with each plan.
That may be why Vodafone opted to throw in a chance for buyers to win a space travel prize worth a hefty $270,000 as an added incentive (incidentally, Techday’s reviewer has put the Galaxy S III through its paces, and we’ll be posting a full review next week).
In other telco news, an Australian analyst has mooted the possibility of Telstra buying one of the kiwi mobile providers to complement its local internet operation, TelstraClear.
Our telecommunications columnist was all for the venture, saying Telstra has the cash to invest, and with the local providers all facing significant capital expenditure if they hope to keep up with the arrival of LTE technology, they may feel it’s a good time to sell.
Unfortunately, it seems the new apps may suffer from the same hindrance as the old offering, which is the need to pay for their production.
The iPad app is criticised on its app store page for using hefty ads to pay its way. With the iPhone and Android versions, MetService is simply asking users for cold-hard cash.
Admittedly, $2.59 isn’t a huge amount to pay for a cool-looking app, but responses to our story indicate there will be plenty of people around who would rather save their pennies and just use the standard MetService website.
In overseas developments, Google started rolling out its new search feature, Knowledge Graph, while Microsoft offered a near-final version of its new operating system with the launch of the Windows 8 ‘release preview’.
And finally, months of work here at Techday came to a head this week with the re-branding of our website and our three print titles, NetGuide, The Channel and IT Brief. We’re really excited about this move and we think it’s going to make it a lot easier for people to find the stories they want to read on Techday, without feeling like they’re disconnected from the rest of the site. The coolest thing of all is the ‘responsive design’ that’s been built into Techday, which makes the site automatically re-arrange itself depending on the type of screen it’s being viewed on, whether it’s a wide desktop display or a mobile device like a tablet or smartphone.
We’re just doing some final tweaking at the moment but you’ll be able to see the new site yourself in the next few days. We hope you like it – please let us know what you think!


text:
Tech Mahindra, a medium-sized operator controlled by India's Mahindra & Mahindra industrial conglomerate and partly owned by BT, has bought Satyam, the FT says.
A sale had seemed impossible in January after Satyam's former chairman B."‰Ramalinga Raju, admitted cooking its books for six years, even inventing a fictitious cash reserve of over $1 billion. It looked like the company would be closed down, leaving 48,000 employees jobless.
Mobile call minutes consumed in Germany rose from 136.5 billion in 2007 to 150.2 billion in 2008. On average, Germans spent 30.5 hours talking on their mobiles, 10% more than in 2007, according to figures from German regulator BNA. The number of active SIMS grew to more than 107 million in 2008, meaning an average of 1.3 mobile connections per citizen.
Russia's parliament has approved a new law, enabling citizens to vote by mobile phone in the next parliamentary elections, scheduled for 2011, reports Ria Novosti citing the head of the elections commission, Vladimir Churov.
ZTE has released a 3G netbook called the V60 in Beijing, according to local media reports. Produced by unnamed OEMs, the computer has an Intel Atom processor and works with China Unicom's 3G network.
Later, ZTE will launch netbooks available to the TD-CDMA and CDMA2000, the other two 3G standards in use in China. The company will mainly rely on mobile operators for the distribution of its 3G netbooks, it said.
The UK's information commissioner has ruled that Google's Street View service does not pose a threat to personal privacy and dismissed Privacy International's argument that Street View should seek people's consent.


text:
The ASEAN Foundation, with funding support from the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), recently conducted a workshop on “Prospects of Economic Relations between Southeast Asia and Latin America: Some Policy Options including Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs)” at the ASEAN Hall, ASEAN Secretariat in Jakarta, Indonesia. Dr. Filemon A. Uriarte, Jr., ASEAN Foundation Executive Director and Mr. Kaname Okada, Chief of Japan Program, Inter-American Development Bank welcomed the participants and H.E. Mr. Sundram Pushpanathan, Deputy Secretary-General of ASEAN for ASEAN Economic Community, delivered the keynote address. The one-day workshop was attended by over 70 business executives, government officials, ASEAN and Latin American Ambassadors and representatives from the diplomatic corps.
Held on 12 October 2009, the workshop provided a venue for participants from the two regions to share knowledge and best practices on trade and investment, explore collaborative projects and strengthen network linkages especially those related to SMEs. Background papers on economic relations between ASEAN and Latin America were presented by the Center for Strategic and International Studies, Indonesia (CSIS), the United Nations ESCAP and the Philippines’ University of Asia and the Pacific. Experts from relevant organizations shared their views during the panel discussion.
“The workshop is a small step towards restoring the once flourishing trade between Southeast Asia and Latin America which started 444 years ago through the Manila-Acapulco galleon trade,” said Dr. Filemon A. Uriarte, Jr., Executive Director of ASEAN Foundation, in his opening remarks.
ASEAN DSG Pushpanathan, in his keynote, also stressed that despite the logistical challenges between the Southeast Asian and Latin America regions, “economic engagement should no longer be impeded by geographical distance, but must be promoted on the basis of mutually beneficial economic growth through closer engagement.”
The workshop is the first of a series under the ASEAN Foundation project “Transfer of Knowledge between Southeast Asia and Latin American countries on trade and investment” funded by IDB. Under this project, series of workshops would be conducted in Jakarta and other ASEAN cities to enhance inter-regional collaboration through sharing of best practices on trade and investment and strengthen network linkages between the two regions. This is the first activity between IDB and ASEAN.
Established by the ASEAN Leaders in 1997, the ASEAN Foundation aims to promote ASEAN awareness and identity, encourage interaction among various ASEAN stakeholders and help address socio-economic disparity and poverty issues in the region. Since its establishment, the ASEAN Foundation has so far supported over 100 development projects amounting to nearly US$ 20 million and provided training to over 18,000 ASEAN nationals.
In Bahasa Indonesia


text:
Published in Mobiles
Sprint customers bailing in droves
by David Stellmack on29 April 2010
5,000 lost revealed during Q1 results
It seems that Sprint is losing customers in droves. In the latest results for Q1, Sprint announced that it had lost 75,000 customers while posting revenues of $8.1 billion, which is still a $865 million dollar loss. Dan Hesse, Sprint CEO, said that “we continue to make progress in improving the business.”
The losses are based on a variety of things, but it does seem that the continued roll out of more 4G is something that could help the carrier turn the tables. We have to think, however, that despite the progress that the company is making in rolling out 4G services (also know as WiMax), it is too little, too late. Many analysts believe that Sprint cannot roll out enough WiMax in enough places fast enough to have a significant impact on the company’s bottom line.


text:
Meyer Distributing Adds Midwest Cross-Dock
Meyer Distributing Inc has added a new location in Springfield, Missouri. The cross-dock will have a direct, next-day feed from Meyer’s Dallas distribution hub, which houses one of the largest inventories of automotive accessories and exhaust parts in the region, according to the company.
“We have focused on increasing sales of exhaust parts in Oklahoma and Missouri,” said Collin Gentry, the exhaust sales manager for Meyer. “We are thankful so many customers are giving us a good look and seeing quickly what we can bring to the table to help their businesses and margins. Our exhaust parts business has been growing, and it helped us to be able to open this new service point in Springfield.”
“We continue to expand delivery to reach more customers in less populated markets,” said Jeff Braun, CFO of Meyer. “We are expanding delivery service to Branson, Harrison, Mountain Home, West Plains, Lebanon, Camdenton, and Bolivar on our own trucks connecting our popular truck service to those customers who were previously serviced only by a third party. We are also now providing daily service to the Springfield metropolitan area.”


text:
The device comes with a super AMOLED 4.3-inch screen and, at 7.69 mm thick, is one of the thinnest smartphones currently available.
US District Court Judge Denise Cote originally took issue with the settlement because Apple could end up only paying $70 million.
Though not perfect, the Asus RT-N66U Dark Knight Double 450Mbps N Router would make an excellent network gateway for home and small-office environments.
After the tech giant agrees to pay millions in the e-book price-fixing lawsuit, the presiding judge says, "I'm concerned about the terms of the settlement."
Despite a few quirks, the Asus RT-N66U makes an excellent N900 router for homes and small offices alike.
The latest in a line of sub-$500 ILC announcements this spring, Nikon's cheapest model certainly doesn't skimp on the performance specs.
Telstra is claiming a world first on recent trials of its LTE-A network, with a live test combining three data channels to achieve speeds of 450Mbps, three times the current theoretical 4G peak speeds available in Australia.
That story about the shipwrecked woman who was spotted and saved by Google Earth? Total BS. We'll tell you how Weblore spreads online, an app that uses 'algorithms' to transcribe any song into sheet music, how to game Spotify, and a new teen pregnancy text-message campaign sweeping the nation.
The Trendnet TEW-692GR 450 Mbps Concurrent Dual Band Wireless N Router provides cutting-edge wireless technology but falls a little short on 2.4GHz throughput performance, comparatively.
The 2014 Lexus GS 450h features many techie goodies, but how does it stack up against its luxury competition? CNET's Wayne Cunningham takes one for a test drive.


text:
So says William Barnum, a Brentwood Associates partner. Barnum, who co-founded the PE practice at Brentwood and speaks about fundraising (below), says private equity is not as well organized as other industries. He contrasted PE to venture capital, where nearly all VC firms belong to the NVCA, Barnum says. The group does a pretty good job of representing venture capitalists, says Barnum. (Brentwood was a member of the NVCA during the 1980s, he says.)
“Private equity hasn’t done a good job representing itself,” says Barnum, who spoke to me by phone today. “It isn’t as united in the ‘one for all and all for one’ way that some industries are.”
The lack of cohesion in PE may be due to each firm having a different investment strategy, Barnum says. One PE firm may focus on middle market consumer companies (like Brentwood), while another may target large financial services buyouts. And another firm may focus on growth equity. “What we’re all doing isn’t the same,” Barnum says.
PE firms also compete with each other to buy companies. In auctions, whoever wins the process usually acquires the target. This compares to the VC industry, where multiple firms typically invest in a company to diversify risk. There is more cooperation among firms in the VC industry, which may explain why they are better coordinated, Barnum says. “PE isn’t as collaborative of an industry as VC,” he says.
The PE industry does have some trade groups to help with its image. Last week, the Private Equity Growth Capital Council, an advocacy organization that represents the PE industry, unveiled a new campaign, “Private Equity at Work,” that aims to fight baseless attacks. The PEGCC represents about 36 firms, including the Blackstone Group, the Carlyle Group and TA Associates. By comparison, the NVCA has more than 400 members.
(One industry source, who called Barnum’s comments “absurd,” says that the NVCA hasn’t done much to defend the VC industry against attacks. They pointed to a Washington Post story today that examines the “subtle influence” VCs currently exert at the Department of Energy. )
“On behalf of our member firms and the PE industry, we have taken unprecedented steps to highlight the important contribution that private equity makes to the U.S. economy,” says Ken Spain, a PEGCC spokesman, who says the group plans to “aggressively defend” the PE industry against mischaracterizations and attacks.
Separately, Barnum did confirm that Brentwood would likely begin fundraising for its next fund later this year. The PE firm’s current fund, Brentwood Associates Private Equity IV LP, is about 70% invested, he says. The pool raised $440 million in 2006.
Brentwood fund V will likely raise about $500 million, he says.


text:
Company: Winnipeg Free Press
Winnipeg Free Press is a daily newspaper based in Winnipeg, Manitoba, and has the largest circulation of all newspapers in Canada. It is also the oldest. Founded in 1872 and originally called the Manitoba Free Press, the paper provides broad coverage of local, provincial, national, and international news, sports, business, and entertainment.
The digital revolution is nothing new, but many legacy media organizations are still trying to master the art of giving their online audience what they want, while bringing in enough revenue on the digital side to make up for dwindling income on the print end of the business. Winnipeg Free Press was no exception.
Vendor of Choice: cxense
Cxense (pronounced "see-sense") is a software company headquartered in Norway. It assists media, ecommerce, and consumer brands in taking control of their audience data to deliver more engaging and personalized user experiences. Customers include Condé Nast, Dow Jones/The Wall Street Journal, Forbes, Gannett, and, of course, Winnipeg Free Press.
The Problem In-Depth
Commonly held web design wisdom suggests that homepage content should be easily consumed from a single screen. We've been told that too much scrolling serves to alienate readers. That logic has long driven website design and content delivery, but, as Winnipeg Free Press found, it's not necessarily the best way to provide an engaging reader experience. When content is customized to individually connect with readers, they'll not only keep scrolling and reading, but they'll also be willing to pay for the content they consume.
Winnipeg Free Press is just one of many content organizations that is finding the ability to customize the content engagement experience to potentially reinvigorate what has been considered to be a dying industry-print publications. Fortunately, Winnipeg Free Press is in an enviable position. It has the highest readership for a major metro newspaper in Canada. "That's a nice place for us to be," says Christian Panson, VP of digital content and audience revenue at the newspaper. This position has provided "a longer runway," he says. It has given the paper the ability to take some time to watch what others are doing in the digital space and to think strategically about how it might most effectively engage with readers.
Of course, publishers are looking for more than engagement; they need to somehow monetize the ability to consume content to ensure their long-term viability. There are a lot of payment models out there, but Panson says that as the paper reviewed the various options, it saw issues with all of them. This is why Winnipeg Free Press decided to try something different.
Winnipeg Free Press recently teamed up with Cxense to develop and deliver an entirely personalized and demonstrably engaging content experience that follows users across all of their devices-desktops, laptops, tablets, and mobile phones, etc. Winnipeg Free Press found that consumers will actually pay to consume this content.
Lauren Pedersen, VP of global marketing at Cxense, says, "We believe that it is in publishers' best interest to start really taking advantage of data to understand audiences better and to understand what each user wants." Pedersen points out that not every reader is looking for the same type of news. "Users coming into sites like the Winnipeg Free Press have different interests, whether that's sports, technology, or local/regional news," she says.
The newspaper took a different approach with the customization of its content, says Pedersen. Other clients, she says, might start out by personalizing a small section of their homepage. Winnipeg Free Press decided, instead, to customize the entire homepage of the newspaper. The results, she says, have led to users staying on the site longer and being more engaged with the content-which is exactly what the newspaper wanted.
"We came up with this metered micropayment strategy," says Panson. Readers can choose from a variety of subscription options, including traditional print, print and digital, and a unique 27-cents-per-article option that offers the risk-free ability to check out the content and receive a refund for any article they aren't happy with.
Not only does this payment model minimize risk for consumers, but it also provides the newspaper with data that indicates which pieces best captured-and held-the attention of readers. Further, the more readers engage with the site, the better the site knows what topics are of the most interest to a particular reader. "We're not just letting an algorithm decide which news to display," says Panson. "We're making content recommendations to you based on your past behavior." Another feature of the site is continuous scrolling. "When you hit the bottom of the page, it automatically serves up more content," says Panson.


text:
Court Rules in Favor of Google/YouTube Against Viacom
Remember the golden days when people watched Daily Show clips on YouTube (for that matter, remember when you could watch them on Hulu)? Well, those clips (and 100,000 others) led to a lawsuit between Viacom and YouTube-owning Google that had its ruling today. In the end, the judge ruled in Google’s favor which means the company won’t have to pay Viacom the hefty $1 billion worth of damages that Viacom was asking for.
U.S. District Judge Louis Stanton dismissed the lawsuit today effectively taking YouTube off the hook. However, don’t expect to see those clips returning ever. In fact, it seems that the very fact that YouTube removed them so quickly was one of their saving grace.
From the judge’s ruling:
“Indeed, the present case shows that the DMCA notification regime works efficiently: when Viacom over a period of months accumulated some 100,000 videos and then sent one mass take-down notice on February 2, 2007, by the next business day YouTube had removed virtually all of them.”
Tech Dirt points out that Viacom will most likely appeal so the story isn’t done yet. They also have an in depth analysis of the ruling here.
To refresh your memory, here is Viacom’s original statement from back in 2007:
YouTube is a significant, for-profit organization that has built a lucrative business out of exploiting the devotion of fans to others’ creative works in order to enrich itself and its corporate parent Google. Their business model, which is based on building traffic and selling advertising off of unlicensed content, is clearly illegal and is in obvious conflict with copyright laws. In fact, YouTube’s strategy has been to avoid taking proactive steps to curtail the infringement on its site, thus generating significant traffic and revenues for itself while shifting the entire burden – and high cost – of monitoring YouTube onto the victims of its infringement.
This behavior stands in stark contrast to the actions of other significant distributors, who have recognized the fair value of entertainment content and have concluded agreements to make content legally available to their customers around the world.
There is no question that YouTube and Google are continuing to take the fruit of our efforts without permission and destroying enormous value in the process. This is value that rightfully belongs to the writers, directors and talent who create it and companies like Viacom that have invested to make possible this innovation and creativity.
After a great deal of unproductive negotiation, and remedial efforts by ourselves and other copyright holders, YouTube continues in its unlawful business model. Therefore, we must turn to the courts to prevent Google and YouTube from continuing to steal value from artists and to obtain compensation for the significant damage they have caused.
Have a tip we should know? [email protected]


text:
Is Organic Food Worth the Cost?
Are organic foods really healthier than non-organic foods? Are they better for animals? Are they better for the environment? Bjorn Lomborg, president of the Copenhagen Consensus Center, explains.
“You are what you eat,” goes the old saying. And everywhere we are urged to eat organic: it's more nutritious, pesticide-free, and protects animals and the environment. At least, that's what we are being told – or rather, sold. And thanks to a lot of very effective marketing, many people believe it. That's why, when researchers at Cornell University gave study participants a choice between two identical items, one labeled "organic" and one "regular," the participants confidently declared the "organic" choice to be lower in calories and more nutritious. They also said they'd pay 16 to 23 percent more for the organic choice. But these beliefs about organic food have nothing to do with reality.
In 2012, Stanford University's Center for Health Policy did the most comprehensive comparison and found organic foods are not nutritionally superior to conventional alternatives. And a more recent review of 20 years of research into animal products by Italian researchers confirmed these findings. The authors concluded: "Scientific studies do not show that organic products are more nutritious and safer than conventional foods."
That's fine, you might say. You don't eat organic foods just because of the health benefits, but because you care about the treatment of farm animals and of the environment. Unfortunately, the facts don't support these beliefs either.
Animals on organic farms are not generally healthier than animals on regular farms. A five-year US study of dairy farms showed that "health outcomes [for animals on organic farms] are similar to conventional dairies." And the Norwegian Scientific Committee for Food Safety reached a similar conclusion. It found "no difference in objective disease occurrence" on organic dairy farms as compared to conventional dairies. And while pigs and poultry on organic farms may enjoy better access to open areas, this freedom, studies show, also increases their exposure to parasites, pathogens and predators.
As for the environment, yes, organic farming will mean that in any one field, a farmer will use less energy and create fewer greenhouse gases. But there's a problem here. By forgoing fertilizers and pesticides, organic farming is much, much less efficient than standard farming, which means that organic farmers need much more land to grow the same amount of food.
A major study in Europe found that to produce the same gallon of milk organically, you need 59% more land. To produce meat, you need 82% more land. And for crops, it’s more than 200%.
And more land for agriculture means less land for nature. If U.S. agricultural production was entirely organic, it would mean we would need to convert an area bigger than the size of California entirely to farmland. Economically, the lower productivity of organics means we have to commit more resources – land, labor and capital. The total cost to the US economy of going organic would run to about $200 billion annually.
But, surely organic food means no pesticides, right? Wrong. Organic farming can use any pesticide that is "natural.” Natural pesticides include, for example, copper sulphate and Pyreethrin. The former has resulted in liver disease in vineyard sprayers in France, according to a 1996 study; and the latter, a 3.7-fold increase in leukemia among farmers who handled it compared to those who had not, according to a 2002 study.
Yes, it is true that non-organic foods carry a higher risk of pesticide contamination. But that risk is almost non-existent. Rough calculations suggest that all the pesticides on food eaten by Americans may cause around 20 extra cancer deaths per year. You have a similar chance of being mauled to death by a cow.
In sum, organic food is not healthier for you, nor is it better for animals and the environment than conventionally farmed food. I know this goes against everything you have come to believe, but that only proves the power of marketing. Organic food is a First World luxury. And while buying it is just as valid as any other luxury purchase, one should resist any implied moral superiority – as, for example, when fashion designer Vivienne Westwood famously exclaimed that people who can't afford organic food should "eat less."
Unfortunately, a lot of people in the developing world don't have the option of eating less. They worry about eating, period. To do that they need access to cheaper food, which means more access to effective fertilizers and pesticides.
So, next time you see organic produce at the supermarket, don't just swallow the marketing campaign without some critical thought.
I'm Bjorn Lomborg, president of the Copenhagen Consensus Center.


text:
Earlier this year, the music industry made a major shift to a universal release date. For years – decades, even – albums had been released on Tuesdays, with a different date set for international release. But now, all over the […]
FRESH TRACK: Sylvia Tyson – ‘Sweet Agony’Check it out
SPONSORED BY STONY PLAIN RECORDS
Sign up for our twice-weekly email newsletter for roots music reviews, stories, columns, and more from No Depression.
We respect your privacy and will never sell our email list to a third party.


text:
Pavigym has received an extremely positive testimonial from the German fitness studio franchisor Injoy at the 2014 FIBO.
Pavigym has received high praise for the PRAMA concept from Paul Underberg, CEO of Injoy Quality Cooperation GmbH , a fitness studio franchisor with 166 studios in Germany and more than 200 across Europe. Injoy fitness studios have close to 200,000 members in Germany alone. Underberg himself has 25 years of experience in the fitness industry and owns two fitness studios in Dorsten, where the company is based. The company has also launched several sub-brands under the umbrella brand Injoy International Sports & Wellness Clubs in recent years, including Injoy Physio, Injoy Med, and Injoy Station.
Injoy has used the PRAMA program since January. After promoting it to its members, the fitness centre started drawing new target groups, which led to introducing a new type of membership that made PRAMA an integral part of the program. "In no time, we had 300 new memberships from the student and trainee sector," said Underberg. "Really effective and we got great feedback, which we've just seen here. If you go about it the right way, they are a target group that can certainly be inspired by innovative things. And PRAMA is exactly that."
The concept has also helped grow Injoy's membership. "It also multiplies because they make films here and send these on to friends, and so on. There is a high multiplier effect involved. It's something completely new because it's innovative, just right for the current moment," Underberg explained. "Installing it has already paid off. Not only has it helped us stand out, [which is] something very important when it comes to the competition and sustainability, rather than just installing a fad. No club can afford that anymore."
PRAMA, however, does not appeal only to students. The fitness centre introduced a morning program that involves coordination and fall prevention training, which attracted an older target group, one that generally isn't drawn to fitness activities.
PRAMA uses advanced technology and high quality flooring to deliver an ultimate fitness experience, one that reinvents the fitness environment itself by adding special effects, luminescent lighting, and atmosphere to the rooms, making them more aesthetically appealing and dynamic.
The concept allows instructors and users to control and adjust the mood of the room, which can help fitness centres draw more members. It also promotes group cohesion while exercising, which motivates members to keep coming back. The fitness sessions are suitable for users aged 7 to 77 and provide a wide and diverse range of applications. The concept can be used as an induction tool, helping clubs enroll new members, and also as an independent exercise tool, allowing members to exercise by themselves using pre-programmed workout sessions. PRAMA can also be used for small group programs and for free workouts, helping personal trainers increase the demand for their services.
Pavigym has more than 48 years of experience in the industry and has worked with a number of leading health clubs, gyms, and hotel chains across the world in recent decades. The company specializes in producing interactive floors for the health club industry and helps sports centres design their fitness areas, optimize their space, and increase their member retention rate and profit.
Watch the interview with Paul Underberg to see PRAMA in action.


text:
Millions of Africans who cannot afford mobile handsets will now be able to access telecoms services following the launch of a group-wide sharing system.
This comes after Pan Africa telecoms company Airtel Africa signed an agreement with Movirtu, an innovator in Virtual SIM solutions, which will enable multiple numbers to be active on a single standard SIM card.
The deal creates a platform that allows mobile operators to provide services to users who cannot afford to purchase a personal handset while also allowing subscribers to keep multiple numbers on same handset.
With a Virtual SIM linked to their own personal mobile number, users can temporarily activate the Virtual SIM on a friend’s handset or shared village phone to make voice calls, send text messages or access value added and informative services such as mobile banking and mFarmer.
The service is already live in the Democractic Republic of Congo and Madagascar and is set to be replicated in other countries where Airtel operates.
“Working with Movirtu has proved to us that there is a strong appetite amongst people who currently do not own a mobile phone for a low-cost, secure service that keeps them connected,” said Willie Ellis, Airtel Group Director of Products and Innovation.
According to Movirtu CEO Carsten Brinkschulte, the agreement will help some approximately one billion people across the globe who do not possess a mobile phone to gain access to the mobile network.
“It’s clear that there is a significant market opportunity to convert many of these people into mobile subscribers for the first time, with their own phone number and prepaid account,” he said.
The virtual SIM platform is based on standard mobile network technology and, when integrated into the operator’s network, provides the basis for a variety of innovative service offerings. Subscribers are managed in the same way as any other with regards to customer care, provisioning and billing.
Airtel Africa operates in 17 Africa ountries with a total of 81.5 million subscribers. It is estimated that Africa, which has a population of one billion, is forecast to have 346 million unique subscribers by the year 2017.


text:
KANGAR, June 16 — All parties have been urged to continue working together to ensure agricultural sector in Perlis particularly the Harumanis mango industry to remain competitive, said Raja Muda of Perlis, Tuanku Syed Faizuddin Putra Jamalullail.
“It is also a reminder to all entrepreneurs to prepare early for the next season particularly in combating prevalent fraud and theft incidents due to the increase in the price of Harumanis in recent years.
He said some unscrupulous individuals were selling low-quality fruits for a premium price and selling other mango varieties from elsewhere but claimed that the fruits were from Perlis.
“If these are not immediately addressed, it will undermine Perlis Harumanis industry,” he said in a statement today.
Tuanku Tuanku Syed Faizuddin said this after the 23rd instalment of the ‘Peduli Menjejaki dan Menyantuni Asnaf’ cycling programme organised by Perlis Islamic Religious and Malay Customs Council (MAIPs) at state veterinary department in Sungai Batu Pahat.
“Let’s play our part to ensure Perlis harumanis industry remain intact despite attempts from irresponsible parties,” he said.
Tuanku Syed Faizuddin said the issue of mango theft this year was under control compared to the previous year due to efforts by authorities including the Royal Malaysia Police (PDRM) to intensify patrols.
Meanwhile, MAIPs chief executive officer Mohd Nazim Mohd Noor also reminded the farmers in the state to pay their agriculture tithe or zakat on all agricultural products including rice and Harumanis mango, as decided by the state Fatwa Committee.


text:
On the release of iOS 5.1 earlier this month along with new iPad and Apple TV, we have seen three different formatted jailbreak exploits from various iOS hackers to bring jailbreak Cydia on the latest new iPad and as well as for the iPad 2 and iPhone 4S, but it seems in the past few days that iOS hackers disappears from the field with the new iOS 5.1 jailbreak. Including us, many of you may have been curious to know about the latest update about the new iOS 5.1 untethered jailbreak for the newer devices with A5 and A5X processor.
However, this morning finally the season changed as the Pod2g finally comes up on his twitter profile and shared some of its work on the iOS 5.1 untethered jailbreak for all devices It seems that iOS 5.1 untethered jailbreak for all devices is going to take a bit more time like the few recent untethered exploits. It is reported that Chronic DevTeam, behind the new Absinthe Untethered jailbreak has just got their hands on some exploits that could jailbreak the iOS 5.1 on new-generation devices, but still there is some piece of code is missing or some kind of exploit is missing that completely allow them to port Cydia and its tweak on the devices running iOS 5.1.
iOS 5.1 Untethered Jailbreak For iPhone 4S / iPad 2 / iPad 3
The Chronic DevTeam is working on a weekly basis to acquire some more exploits on iOS 5.1 to crack the new-generation processors. However on the other side, the iPhone Dev Team is completely missing from the vision, we have not heard any single word from the MuscleNerd regarding the jailbreak on iOS 5.1 they are mostly focusing on A4 devices untethered jailbreak, which devices are already vulnerable to Geohot kernel based limera1n exploit that allows them to tethered jailbreak iOS 5.1.
We would recommend you to stay away from the iOS 5.1, unless the developers doesn’t show any sign to upgrade your devices to the latest iOS 5.1 firmware. The new iOS 5.1 Untethered Jailbreak is surely going to take a more time, as Apple introduced some more restrictions on the iOS to protect users data.


text:
The book promises landscapes and environments from the upcoming game, citing Ubisoft’s commitment to historical accuracy in depicting colonial America (as much of the action will take place insides as outside of the city walls as the colonies make their push against the British).
Andy McVittie is the editor on this, having spent years prior working for game mags and sites like Nintendo Official Magazine and PlayStation Plus.
Right now, the preorder price is a suggested retail price of $29.99 in the U.S., while in the U.K. where Titan Books is based it’ll run you £24.99.
Follow @MTVMultiplayer on Twitter and be sure to “like” us on Facebook for the best geek news about comics, toys, gaming and more! And don’t forget to follow our video gaming and TV writer @TheCharlesWebb.


text:
ZTO Express, a Chinese logistics company that counts e-commerce group Alibaba as its biggest client, aims to raise as much as $1.3 billion in what could be the largest initial public offering in the U.S. this year.
The Shanghai-based company plans to sell 72.1 million American depositary shares for $16.5 to $18.5 per share in New York, according to a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission last Friday. It will use the proceeds to buy land, trucks, build delivery facilities and for general corporate purposes including investing in information technology.
The offering is also the biggest U.S. IPO by a Chinese company since Alibaba’s record $25 billion New York debut in 2014.
ZTO’s listing comes as its competitors, such as YTO Express, S.F. Express and Shentong Express, are raising funds through IPOs at home. The companies are accelerating their expansion in China's fragmented but fast-growing logistics market, which is expected to handle 60 billion parcels in 2020, a 189% growth from last year, according to an iResearch report cited in its prospectus.
Last week, China’s securities regulator, the China Securities Regulatory Commission, approved S.F. Express’s plan to go public via a 43.3 billion yuan merger with a Shenzhen listed rare-earths producer. YTO Express and Shentong Express also merged with China-listed companies to fight for a bigger market share.
ZTO had 14.3% of the market in terms of the total number of parcels it handled last year, second only to YTO’s 14.7%, according to iResearch statistics.
The company reported a net income of $200.4 million on revenues of $915.8 million in 2015. In the first half this year, net income was $115.1 million on $638.8 million in total revenues.
Choosing an U.S. stock exchange allows ZTO to access capital markets funds more quickly, said Morningstar analyst Marie Sun.
“China’s big logistics companies are all seeking to raise more money,” Sun said. “The IPO process is very, very slow in China A share.”
The company, however, cited its reliance on e-commerce group Alibaba as a risk factor.
Delivery parcels generated by Alibaba’s shopping sites accounted for 77% of its total business volume last year. The number went down slightly to 75% in the first six months this year, according to its prospectus. It also provides delivery services to Alibaba’s smaller competitor JD.com.
The company warned in the prospectus that Alibaba may encourage merchants to choose other services or initiate demands, such as the use of digital waybills, that can increase costs, weaken customer connection and even “be disruptive” to its current business model.
“The reliance on Alibaba is indeed a risk, but the company is so dominant in China’s e-commerce market,” Sun said. “It is difficult for ZTO to diversify.”
Follow me on Twitter @yueyueyuewang


text:
Clearwater International advises Libratone A/S on the sale of assets to a Chinese investor consortium
Clearwater International has advised Libratone A/S (Libratone) on the sale of assets to a consortium of investors in China. Libratone is a lifestyle audio brand specialising in sales of wireless portable speakers and in-ear headsets across the globe.
Libratone was declared insolvent by the former owners and the transaction was orchestrated by the trustee as part of a rescue. Hired by the trustee, Clearwater International helped secure the future of the business by assisting in an accelerated sale process accommodated to the special situation of the business.


text:
Saab's parent company has successfully applied for protection from bankruptcy as it seeks extra time to source funds to save the car maker from financial collapse.
The company trying to revive the Saab brand to make electric vehicles, National Electric Vehicle Sweden (NEVS), recently admitted that it did not have enough money to pay all of its 900 suppliers.
However, NEVS stated that it was involved in "tripartite negotiations with two global vehicle manufacturers" who might invest in Saab and enable the suppliers to get paid.
It also said, however, that negotiations "are still progressing, but are complex and have taken more time than we predicted".
The majority of NEVS suppliers have chosen to await the outcome of the ongoing negotiations, but some creditors have filed applications for a court order to force the company to pay them.
That is a situation NEVS is keen to avoid because it fears it might jeopardise its investment negotiations with the unnamed car companies.To give itself more time, NEVS applied to a Swedish district court for bankruptcy protection.
That was turned down on Thursday, but a second application earlier today was approved and the district court of Vänersborg has appointed an administrator during the reorganisation period.
Saab has been rarely been far from financial turmoil since it was offloaded by General Motors to Spyker in 2010.
The latest round of financial woes comes shortly after NEVS finally presented its Saab 9-3 electric vehicle. The car is equipped with lithium-ion batteries and has a claimed range of approximately 120 miles, a maximum speed of around 75mph and a 0-60mph time of ten seconds.
The 9-3 EV is part of a prototype series built in Trollhättan in May as test beds for technical development and to verify the manufacturing set-up in preparation for the production of customer cars.
NEVS started production of petrol-powered 9-3 Aero Sedans in December 2013, but stopped the build in May.
In a further twist, Reuters has reported that Saab AB, the defence firm which licences the Saab name to NEVS, has withdrawn that right in light of the financial situation.
Get the latest car news, reviews and galleries from Autocar direct to your inbox every week. Enter your email address below:


text:
Local hotel consortium Luxury Jersey Hotels has launched a refreshed, responsive website to plug into a growing digital demographic. Featuring fresh engaging content and visuals along with easy to use functionality, the website has also been designed to be mobile and tablet-friendly, matching the trend for increasing device usage across their client base.
The consortium of local four and five star independent hotels, which joined forces in 2010 with the aim of marketing Jersey as a premium destination, commissioned local web design company Webreality to carry out the updates. Webreality director Matthew Robins said: ‘With the ever-increasing use of the internet as a tool to research, plan and discover new destinations, it’s important that tourism businesses embrace digital technology and use it to their advantage. We’re pleased to see forward-thinking organisations making the move to responsive sites, and reacting to the digital evolution.’
Research from luxury travel monitoring organisations reveals that today’s technology-savvy travellers are looking for local flavour, insider guides and peer recommendations when researching a destination*. To answer this demand, Luxury Jersey Hotels have brought more of a magazine editorial style to their online content, with concierge-style tips, chef interviews, hotel, restaurant and spa reviews, as well as a blog-style selection of features and insider guides.
Commenting on the decision to invest in their digital presence, Patrick Burke, chairman of Luxury Jersey Hotels and owner of The Atlantic Hotel said: ‘The key to any successful hospitality business is the quality of the product and the service you deliver, from a potential client checking out a hotel online right through to checking out of their hotel room. Rethinking our digital communications to meet the changing needs of our customer base ensures that our online presence is as polished and professional as our hotels and maintains the same high levels of quality our clients expect.’
The website refresh also coincides with a reinvigorated social media presence for Luxury Jersey Hotels, from Facebook and Twitter through to Pinterest and Instagram. ‘We like to view our social media as more of a conversation’ says Patrick Burke. ‘It enables us to remind previous guests of their time with us, and allows us to share the experience of staying at one of our hotels with people who may be considering visiting the island.’
As for the question of whether digital marketing can replace the traditional tour operator, Luxury Jersey Hotels are keen to point out that links with travel providers are even more important in an era where travel-related industries are under threat. ‘We’re certainly not leaving behind the traditional booking routes’ explains Patrick Burke. ‘On the contrary, we believe that luxury travel providers play an important role in our evolution. We view them as partners and have been delighted to work closely with local organisations such as CI Travel Group and Blue Islands on bespoke experience packages such as our Jersey Michelin Star gastro-break. We look forward to further collaborations in the future.’


text:
SAN CARLOS, Calif — December 6, 2011 — MarkLogic Corporation, the company empowering organizations to make high stakes decisions on Big Data in real time, today announced that John Shap has joined the company as executive vice president of worldwide sales. In this role Shap will oversee MarkLogic’s global sales strategy and demand generation. Shap brings more than 25 years experience leading enterprise software companies and selling products and services to major corporations in retail, financial services, healthcare, media, retail, and other verticals. He has an exceptional and proven track record for sales growth, generating new business, opening new markets, and building strong, scalable teams in the U.S. and internationally.
“We are pleased to welcome someone of John’s caliber to MarkLogic where he will lead a team that is integral to our global sales expansion and growth,” said Ken Bado, president and CEO, MarkLogic. “As MarkLogic eyes opening up the Asia-Pacific market and further accelerating our growth in the U.S. and Europe, John gives us the necessary leadership to execute on all cylinders. He is a proven industry veteran and his arrival enhances not only our executive team, but our ability to capitalize on the incredible market opportunity in Big Data.”
Shap has held a number of executive leadership positions with companies that include Hyperion Solutions, Siebel Systems, SPSS Inc., and Chordiant Software. At SPSS (acquired by IBM), he was part of the team that drove top-line growth with a 5X increase in market capitalization. This increase was widely attributed to sales execution and operating efficiencies under Shap’s direction.
“I am joining MarkLogic at a very exciting time – right when the company has established itself as a market leader in Big Data Applications,” said Shap. “My job is to continue that leadership with an aggressive growth strategy in key markets worldwide. MarkLogic technology is revolutionizing the database industry – we offer a database capable of handling all data, at any volume, and in any structure. The prospect of working for such a forward-looking company with superior technology and hundreds of happy customers made the decision to join the MarkLogic team an easy one.”
MarkLogic helps customers create value from complex data faster. Our platform ingests data from any source, creating and refining metadata to support powerful models. Customers use these models for deep search and query, building enterprise applications and bringing unique insights to analytics and machine learning.
Vector Capital is a San Francisco-based leading global private equity firm focused on transformative investments in technology and technology-enabled businesses. Founded in 1997, Vector oversees approximately $4 billion of capital across its private equity and credit strategies from a variety of investors including university endowments, foundations, and financial institutions. With our disciplined approach to valuation and deep-rooted operational experience, Vector has generated competitive returns and established a successful track record spanning nearly 25 years. For more information, please visit www.vectorcapital.com.


text:
Business with the most beautiful weeks of the year is back in full swing after the tough Corona years. Tour operators report strong bookings so far. German airlines are looking forward to the new year in a somewhat relaxed manner, even if the number of seats available remains tighter than in other European countries. However, holidaymakers should not hope for price reductions. “The ticket prices remain high – like other prices,” Lufthansa boss Carsten Spohr recently announced.
According to the German Travel Association DRV, prices for package tours are only likely to rise moderately, if at all. However, the federal government's planned increase in air traffic tax could make summer vacations significantly more expensive for many millions of people in Germany, warns association president Norbert Fiebig. Before the plans became known, several large organizers expected average price increases in the mid-single-digit percentage range. The German Tourism Association expects something similar for trips between Rügen and Mittenwald.
According to the DRV, for the first time since Corona, travel agencies and organizers have had a normal travel year again. “Sales from tour operators were able to exceed those of the record year 2019 – driven by an excellent summer season. The early bookers are back and so are the package holidays,” reports DRV President Fiebig.
However, due to high inflation, not everyone could afford an organized trip. According to data from the analysis company TDA, the number of holidaymakers in the past tourism year 2022/2023 lagged behind by 15 percent compared to 2018/19.
Given the strong demand for the coming summer season, the industry is confident that it will also catch up in terms of guest numbers. Industry leader Tui expects the number of its customers in the current travel year to climb back to the level of 2019.
The second in the industry, DER Touristik, is particularly optimistic about the summer season. “With Dertour and the sister brands ITS and Meiers Weltreisen, we are currently heading towards the best summer we have ever had in terms of guest numbers,” said Ingo Burmester, Central Europe boss of DER Touristik Group, recently.
Schauinsland managing director Gerald Kassner expects strong package travel business. “The demand for vacation continues to be high,” he said at the end of November. Alltours boss Willi Verhuven sees it similarly: “People want to get out of everyday life. They want to travel, despite and especially because of the many crises.” This trend is likely to continue in the coming year.
There is also confidence in tourism in Germany. “The mood and booking situation for 2024 have been very good so far,” reports the managing director of the German Tourism Association, Norbert Kunz.
The German airlines are looking forward to the new year in a somewhat relaxed manner, even if the traffic light coalition chose an increased ticket tax as an additional source of money shortly before the end of the year. This makes air travel even more expensive, even if details are still missing. According to the forecast by the airline association IATA, profits will continue to rise moderately globally and also in the individual European market. For 2024, IATA chief economist Andrew Matters expects European companies to make a profit of $7.9 billion (€7.3 billion) after $7.7 billion in the current year.
The supply of seats on the German market remains scarcer than in other European countries, but prices are not falling even on a global scale. Even though tourist providers are starting more flights, the overall offer in Germany remains well below the values from the last pre-Corona year of 2019. According to an evaluation by the Federal Association of the German Aviation Industry (BDL), the number of seats available up to and including May 2024 will only be 84 percent of the level by 2019. In the rest of Europe, however, 102 percent is expected.
The Lufthansa Group, by far the largest provider, wanted to increase its offering in 2024 by around 10 points to 95 percent of the pre-crisis level, but has to cancel flights again in order to keep operations stable due to a lack of staff, aircraft and handling capacity. After sharp price increases in 2023, CEO Spohr has already prepared the audience for consistently high ticket prices because supply continues to lag behind demand. The higher ticket tax is now added on top for all passengers departing from a German airport.
The only thing that could ensure more flights are the large direct airlines such as Ryanair, Wizz and Easyjet, which tended to avoid German airports with their high fees last year. Industry leader Ryanair wants to increase its passenger numbers from the current 184 million to more than 300 million guests by 2034 and will not be able to do without the German market to achieve this.
Air traffic control chief Arndt Schoenemann therefore expects the low-cost airlines, which are currently limited to a few German airports such as Nuremberg, Cologne and Hahn, to return soon. For now, the Irish are struggling with the consequences of delivery problems at US manufacturer Boeing and, like most airlines, have fewer aircraft than desired.


text:
By teaming up with mega-supplier Magna International, Fisker Inc. appears to have locked in place plans to bring its Ocean battery-electric vehicle into production by 2022.
Magna also will provide the underlying platform for the all-electric SUV, company founder Henrik Fisker said, and for other products to follow. Earlier this year, the eponymous startup announced a goal of launching four products by mid-decade, and a total of seven by later in the decade, ranging from a sleek sports sedan to a large pickup truck.
“This is huge news for us (and) pretty exciting,” the Danish-born Fisker told TheDetroitBureau.com during a telephone interview on Thursday.
As part of the deal, Canada-based Magna will take a 6% stake in Fisker. The announcement comes barely two weeks before the new EV maker completes a reverse merger with a so-called blank check company, or SPAC, that will see it listed on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol “FSR.” That move will value Fisker at more than $3 billion and give it access to around $1.1 billion in capital.
By teaming up with Magna, however, Fisker should be able to better spread out its assets as it won’t have to come up with the money needed to set up a factory to start building the Ocean SUV – a project that Henrik Fisker said should save as much as $1 billion. Fisker also will have a ready-made, skateboard-style platform it can use to underpin the Ocean and some of the products scheduled to follow, amounting to more big savings.
“I believe most EV startups likely won’t survive because it’s hard to set up your own factory,” said Fisker, a one-time designer for Aston Martin. “We’ve de-risked our own program”
Word that Fisker was talking with Magna leaked out during the summer. Before that, it seemed likely that the California-based EV wannabe would be working closely with Volkswagen AG. In fact, a prototype of the Fisker Ocean unveiled last January at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas was based on the same MEB “architecture” that VW is using for its new ID.3 and ID.4 battery-cars.
The platform Magna has developed is slightly larger and will allow Fisker to make Ocean slightly larger. “So, it allows us to put in a third row and achieve class-leading range” with a larger battery pack than originally planned, said Fisker.
The prototype featured an 80 kilowatt-hour lithium-ion pack. Fisker won’t say how much larger the new platform’s pack will be but stressed that it will allow the production version of the Ocean to top the longest-range version of the Tesla Model Y which currently manages 315 miles between charges, according to the EPA.
At least initially, the Ocean will be assembled in Graz, Austria at the Magna-Steyr plant that has handled contract assembly work for a range of different manufacturers as diverse as Toyota and Mercedes-Benz. The goal is to begin production in 2022, with a target of assembling 50,000 of the electric SUVs the following year.
Longer term, Fisker has begun talking with Magna about setting up a U.S. production facility, the CEO said, adding that another EV manufacturer “may be involved.”
If anything, Fisker said he welcomes the idea of sharing the Magna EV platform and a future plant with another automaker as it would increase utilization and improve economies of scale.
“We are very happy to be able to work with Fisker on such an exciting sustainable product and to see what additional opportunities this cooperation may bring,” said Magna International President Swamy Kotagiri. “This is a great example of our strategy to leverage our strong portfolio to scale for future mobility needs and utilize our full vehicle engineering and manufacturing capabilities.”
While the deal with Magna scuttles plans to use the Volkswagen MEB platform for the Fisker Ocean, they have not completely parted ways.
“Fisker and VW are in continuous discussions to grant Fisker access to specific parts and/or components mainly focusing on body and interior parts, subject to an agreement between the parties,” Fisker said in a statement on Thursday.
“Details of the specific parts being supplied will remain confidential, respecting the status of discussions, product planning and intellectual property rights of both companies.”
Deals like the one between Fisker and Magna are becoming more norm than exception these days, noted the Fisker CEO, reflecting what he described as a “free-for-all” reshaping the auto industry.
Nikola is finishing up negotiations with General Motors that would see the industry giant both assemble the start-ups new Badger pickup and provide both fuel-cells and batteries for a host of Nikola products. Rivian, meanwhile, is partnering not only with Ford but Amazon, the online giant ordering 100,000 electric vans for its Prime delivery operations.


text:
Snapchat partners with top US media brands - including DailyMail.com - to launch in-app news service
- The messaging app today unveiled its new 'Discover' feature which allows users to access the day's top news articles and videos
- DailyMail.com is one of 11 media brands who have partnered with Snapchat
- Martin Clarke, Publisher and Editor in Chief of DailyMail.com, said that the company's in-app stories will include 'breaking news, showbiz and lifestyle'
Popular messaging app Snapchat today announced that it has partnered with 11 of America's top media brands, including DailyMail.com, in order to launch a new in-app news feature that will allow users to access a collection of the day's top stories and videos with just one swipe.
The app's new 'Discover' feature, which launches today, features 12 unique news channels, one for each media partner, plus a dedicated Snapchat channel which will include original content from the app's creators.
All of the media brands will handpick up to 15 different news stories and videos to feature on their own channels every day.
'Every day DailyMail.com will offer Snapchat users 10-15 of its best news stories,' Publisher and Editor in Chief Martin Clarke said of the company's channel.
Scroll down for video
New and improved: Snapchat today announced that it would be partnering with ten of the country's best media brands in order to launch Discover, an in-app news feature which will provide users with the day's top stories
Breaking news: The app's new Discover homepage will showcase each of its 11 media partners, plus Snapchat's own unique channel
‘Stories are either full length articles or the best video stories of the day. It will encompass a collection of breaking news, showbiz, lifestyle and all of the stories that DailyMail.com is famous for.’
Jon Steinberg, CEO of Daily Mail North America, added: ‘DailyMail.com on Snapchat is news and entertainment in our style and substance but also custom to this new media channel.
'I think the notion of channels and "snaps" as news makes Discover something truly different from what anyone's seen on a social platform to date.’
Evan Spiegel, CEO and co-founder of Snapchat said: ‘We are huge fans of the DailyMail.com and we are grateful for the opportunity to partner with their outstanding team.’
Other media partners who will have their own channel on the app include ESPN, Comedy Central, the Food Network, CNN, Cosmopolitan, Yahoo! News, People, National Geographic, Vice and Warner Music Group.
Top Snaps: Each story featured on the different news channels, including DailyMail.com's (examples pictured), will include a ten-second teaser which gives the user an overview of what the main piece is about
Top stories: According to DailyMail.com's Publisher and Editor in Chief Martin Clarke, the company's channel will include 'a collection of breaking news, showbiz and lifestyle stories' (examples pictured)
Each media outlet will have complete editorial control over its channel, offering users a hand-curated and easy-to-digest collection of the stories which it feels are the most important.
All of the stories included in the Discover section of the app will be headlined with a 'top Snap' ten-second teaser which users can access simply by holding their finger down on the headline of the story that they wish to view.
After the ten second teaser has come to an end, they can choose whether to scroll up and continue reading the story, or move on to something new.
When all of the stories on a channel have been read, the color of its logo will change. The original color will return when the channel has been updated with a new edition the following day.
Social media savvy: Snapchat's co-founders Evan Spiegel and Bobby Murphy, pictured in April last year, initially launched the app as a photo and video messaging service
The new Discover service will be available to all users of the app, simply by downloading an update.
Users will be able to access the new feature alongside the app's 'Stories' page, which shows when your friends have updated their profile and added any new public content.
Since its launch in 2011, Snapchat, which now boasts more than 100 million worldwide users, has become one of the world's most popular social media platforms and is estimated to be worth close to $10 billion.
The app was originally launched as a messaging service for those wishing to share slightly risque content, allowing users to send pictures - and, later on, videos - which would vanish from the recipient's phone within a matter of seconds.
Most watched News videos
- Moment fire breaks out 'on Russian warship in Crimea'
- Lords vote against Government's Rwanda Bill
- Shocking moment passengers throw punches in Turkey airplane brawl
- Shocking moment balaclava clad thief snatches phone in London
- Shocking moment man hurls racist abuse at group of women in Romford
- Mother attempts to pay with savings account card which got declined
- Russian soldiers catch 'Ukrainian spy' on motorbike near airbase
- Shocking moment woman is abducted by man in Oregon
- Brazen thief raids Greggs and walks out of store with sandwiches
- China hit by floods after violent storms battered the country
- Shocking footage shows men brawling with machetes on London road
- Trump lawyer Alina Habba goes off over $175m fraud bond


text:
Apple surpasses 25 billion app downloads
Do you know when Apple’s iTunes app store launched? July of 2008. I have socks in my sock drawer that are older than the app store. Well, it turned out a lot more successful than anyone expected, certainly more so than my socks. It has just surpassed 25 billion downloads.
The iTunes App Store opened in July 2008, a year after the release of the iPhone, and within a year 50,000 apps were available and the store had seen more than one billion downloads.
Apple announced 10 billion app downloads in January last year, meaning that a further 15 billion have been downloaded in a little over a year. There are now more than half a million apps available in the app store.
The 25 billion isn’t all that meaningful a number I suppose, though it is a high one, but that rate of growth is what’s astonishing.
Marketplace is on a mission.
We believe Main Street matters as much as Wall Street, economic news is made relevant and real through human stories, and a touch of humor helps enliven topics you might typically find…well, dull.
Through the signature style that only Marketplace can deliver, we’re on a mission to raise the economic intelligence of the country—but we don’t do it alone. We count on listeners and readers like you to keep this public service free and accessible to all. Will you become a partner in our mission today?


text:
An announcement of the sale of Selfridges to a Thai department store giant is merely days away, it has been reported.
Central Group, which is Thailand’s largest department store owner, is reportedly inches away from finalising a £4bn deal to acquire the UK luxury store chain.
Two sources familiar with the matter told Reuters that the deal was days away, while The Times newspaper has also reported an announcement could be made as early as this week.
Selfridges is owned by the Canadian Weston family, who took the company private for £598m in 2003.
The billionaire Chirathivat family behind Central Group inked a deal in partnership with Signa last year, to acquire Swiss department store chain Globus.
According to The Times, Central Group has negotiated a similar deal for Selfridges.


text:
We at Airkit understand that our success greatly depends on how well we can empower our customers to use our platform and build on their own. You asked for better supporting documentation, and we heard you. Introducing the new Airkit developer site.
In honor of Airkit’s 3rd birthday, we want to introduce you to some of the teammates responsible for building and maintaining the company’s one-of-a-kind culture. Read on for the inside scoop on life at Airkit.
With the help of Airkit, SkipTheDishes was not only able to expand their business in record time, but they also gave restaurants affected by COVID-19 a critical avenue of income right when they needed it most.
Meet Airkit, the world’s first low-code platform purpose-built for customer engagement.
Our low-code platform allows business leaders to create digital customer journeys themselves.
Stephanie Thum’s perspective on customer experience strategy across both the private and public sectors.
“I think what you’re seeing during this time with consumers … is you have a mass audience that has been forced to become digital-first consumers.”
While a chatbot is one type of digital customer experience, Airkit is a low-code platform where teams can create endless customer apps.
The right partners make a huge difference in any business. That’s why we’re excited to announce Airkit has joined the Zendesk Marketplace!


text:
The difference is that today’s repatriates are not coming back for socialism. They are coming back as capitalists. Which is to say, they are returning as trailblazing entrepreneurs. Prompted by President Raúl Castro’s limited opening to small business and his 2011 move allowing Cubans to buy and sell real estate, the repatriates are using money saved abroad to acquire property and open private restaurants, guesthouses, spas and retail shops.
Cuban authorities said they could not provide up-to-date statistics, but in 2012, immigration officials said they were processing about 1,000 repatriation applications each year. The numbers appear to have increased since then, at least judging from anecdotal evidence and the proliferation of new small businesses in Havana run by returnees.
Communist authorities no longer stigmatize such Cubans or view them as ideologically suspicious, provided they’re not coming back as anti-government activists. Virtually all Cubans who emigrated are eligible for repatriation unless they are deemed to have committed “hostile acts against the state.”
Returnees say the paperwork takes about six months to process.


text:
Mercedes’ official date when it plans to completely give up on internal-combustion engines is around the year 2039, but according to a new report, that may happen even sooner. Markus Schäfer is chief of the board for Mercedes-Benz development, as well as COO for the entire group (now called Daimer, but soon to be renamed Mercedes), and he believes the shift to EVs will happen way sooner than the official 2039 deadline.
Electrive points to statements Schäfer made for Handelsblatt, where he said
In any case, we are preparing for an earlier changeover. in terms of products, there is no longer any rational reason to opt for a combustion engine in the near future.
He also explains that he believes the end of sale date for Mercedes ICE vehicles will be determined by the introduction of the Euro 7 emissions standard. The European Commission (EC) is reportedly going to show a draft for what Euro 7 will be like by the end of the year. As a reminder, the current emissions standard enforced on the Old Continent is Euro 6d, which went into effect in January, 2020 (although Euro6b was introduced way back, in 2014).
But even if the EC shows a draft for the future Euro 7 standard, it won’t go into effect immediately (that’s expected to happen around 2025). Schäfer believes that once Euro 7 is introduced, it could be almost impossible to sell ICE vehicles in Europe and that Mercedes needs to be ready for this before 2039. He said
Depending on which regulations are applied in the end, the outlook for internal combustion vehicles can change dramatically – up to a scenario that makes it almost impossible to register internal combustion vehicles after 2025.
Don’t expect Mercedes to just stop selling ICE overnight. It will be a gradual shift that will see the manufacturer steadily drop its fuel-burning offerings without launching a direct replacement. Schäfer expects the number of ICE vehicles on offer in the Mercedes lineup to drop
By 40 per cent by 2025 and by 70 per cent by 2030.
More Mercedes news


text:
Jeep® Is More Than Just A Brand -- It’s A Lifestyle
Seventy-five years and still going strong, we salute an iconic brand that made its debut as a wartime hero and successfully transitioned from battlefield performance to an alluring lifestyle, both on- and off-road. It’s fascinating how something so utilitarian simultaneously represents individuality, empowerment and adventure, evoking a sense of pride and unity among a community of diehard loyalists, while maintaining its exclusive status. All because they’ve managed to sell a lifestyle, not a product.
Few execute at the level of Jeep® and even fewer brands balance a global impact with social responsibility. The current tag line -- “We Don’t Make Jeep®. You Do” -- is a humbling nod to loyalists around the world, because anything is possible behind the wheel of a Jeep®.
Jeep® has succeeded both quantitatively and qualitatively, from global brand recognition to impressive unit sales and more. In 2015, Fiat Chrysler reported a record-breaking year. Not only were annual sales up seven percent, marking the sixth consecutive year of growth, but Jeep models also increased 42 percent collectively, experienced unprecedented sales in the U.S., and had its best December to date.
Jeep® steamrolled into 2016 and drove FCA profits during the first quarter. An impressive 15 percent year-over-year sales gain marked 72-plus months in an upward trajectory, with Wrangler continuing to lead the way. Yet, the sales are merely a profitable byproduct of an even bigger feat. Jeep® has evolved into an international phenomenon with significant influence over consumer demand, touting a rugged appeal that transcends societal demographics.
What makes the Jeep® such a commanding consumer purchase? In part, its ability to attract everyone from mainstream consumers and general car enthusiasts to outdoor lifestylers and hardcore rock crawlers, commented industry veteran George Lathouris, Keystone’s director of U.S. sales. “Until 2007,”said Corby Phillips, Warn Industries’ national sales manager, “we were accustomed to the 2-door sport utility of Jeep®s of the past,” which had a more limited consumer base. “With the release of the JK 4-door, it appealed to a whole new buyer,” he added. “You now see more women than ever piloting their own JK and jumping into the lifestyle. The new Jeep® platform offers extra space and convenience, and truly marks a new era for the brand.”
For an insider look at the current ins and outs of the Jeep® market, Keystone, the leading and largest wholesale distributor of aftermarket parts in North America, teamed up with some of its customers, sales associates and accessory manufacturers.
Racecar aficionado Enzo Ferrari once said, "Jeep® is America's only real sports car." It’s true, kind of. Synonymous with freedom, the Jeep® brand is an experience, an adventure. It offers enthusiasts a similar thrill in a top-back, doors-off, monster-truck tires sort of way, but is exhilarating nonetheless. “Jeep®s are a fun vehicle to drive, plain and simple. It’s a vehicle that’s easily accessible to consumers, and it’s a highly customizable option that truly offers something for everyone, whether someone is building it to tackle Moab trails or just wants to take the doors off, add a bikini top and cruise,” said Ryan Osborne, off-road enthusiast and Keystone sales associate in Greensboro, NC. There are no limitations to its appeal, and that alone spells cash for retailers and restylers.
Ricky Artes, owner of Jeepers Den, Orlando, Florida, has been living the Jeep® lifestyle since 1995 and transformed his hobby into a business venture in 2003. The rest is history. Jeepers Den is booked solid for months at a time and experiences double-digit growth every year. While it’s a Jeep® specialty shop, Artes and his team can fix or customize any vehicle. “We believe in doing business the right way. We’re honest, provide great customer service, treat people kindly, and build awesome Jeeps,” said Artes.
There are very few shops that operate within a silo anymore. Modern means smart diversification to increase inventory margins and bolster profit potential. Archie’s Off Road & Performance Center in Wells, ME, has been thriving for 34 years. The company quickly learned the benefits of diversification during the 2008 economic downturn, rounding out its offerings in retail, enhancing installation capabilities and taking advantage of market trends, such as the steady and reliable Jeep business. “The Jeep® market has grown tremendously, and we don't see it changing any time soon, as Jeep® is the number-one accessorized vehicle in the market,” said owners Archie and Julie Stevens. “They have done a great job continuously reinventing the brand to appeal to a wide variety of consumers. You can have a hardcore off-road Jeep®, one that dominates at the drag strip, appeals to a pavement princess, rides at the beach or pleases a soccer Mom.”
How many products and at what cost to build a rig that can withstand the assault of harsh landscapes? Accessorizing a Jeep® doesn’t need to be a tug of war between quantity versus quality. “The brands and products continue to evolve, but the main, core focus of the Jeep® market remains the same,” said Rhonda Pilto, a West Coast-based Keystone sales associate. And this consistency offers retailers and restylers a level of stability when investing in inventory.
Keystone offers its customers access to hundreds of aftermarket manufacturers that produce quality products at an affordable price point and for those who want the premium treatment, well, they have that too!
Archie’s Off Road purchases plenty of JKS, Fab Fours, Pro Comp, ReadyLIFT, Mickey Thompson, Toyo, Super Swampers, Skyjacker, Smittybilt, WARN, Crown Automotive, Hypertech, Superchips, Edge, Magnaflow, MBRP, K&N and aFe from Keystone. Jeepers Den kicks out its fair share of TeraFlex, Factor 55, Rancho, BOLT high-lift mounts and fender flares of various brands. “Lifts, wheels, tires, bumpers and LED lighting continue to drive Jeep® aftermarket sales for my customers in the Upper Plains region,” said Jeff Grega, a Keystone sales associate with experience in the Northeast and Midwest regions. “But one of my favorite new products is the Bestop Sunrider, which is an all-weather replacement for bulky freedom panels on factory hardtops.”
Keystone’s Osborne agreed that Bestop’s new product is a game changer. “We anticipate this to be a hot seller in the Southeast areas, states that see sunny weather most times, but benefit from having a hard top (during) some poor conditions throughout the year.” In Texas, it’s go big or go home. “Texas continues to knock out the 3.5-inch lift and 35-inch tire option as its go-to, or adding flat fender flares to get even larger tires stuffed under their rigs,” said Erich Ross, Texas-based Keystone sales manager. “LED headlight replacements are still very popular as well, and I think Jeep® owners are always looking for new and innovative ways to carry bicycles, kayaks, etc. to promote their outdoor lifestyle, so cargo-management options are important, too.”
So how do aftermarket manufacturers produce game-changing products year after year? “Rugged Ridge is always in motion to remain successful,” said Northeast Sales Manager Ray Weaver. “Everyone from marketing to engineering contributes and everyone shares in the company’s success. We’re not afraid to try new things and if something isn’t working, we’re not afraid to change course either. Our new C3 Cargo Cover, Exo-Top and stamped steel bumpers are unique, functional and give the consumers what they want.”
As Jeep® gears up for its 2017-2018 launch, aftermarket manufacturers are ready to pump out even more dynamic product. “New models always represent a sales opportunity and Jeep® will be introducing a redesigned Wrangler soon. Our engineers already are implementing a strategy so that Rugged Ridge can be first to market with several products,” said Weaver. “One nice thing about the Wranglers is they pass through several owners, each wanting to add their own modifications. As a manufacturer, distributor, retailer or restyler, this offers several bites of the apple so to speak,” he added.
Failing to merchandise a showroom properly can result in missed opportunities with new and repeat consumers. Keystone’s Pilto believes in the power of displays, always reminding her customers about the importance of allowing consumers to use their senses to interact with the product they want to purchase.
“Displays sell product! They trigger a consumer response since they can look, touch and judge the quality right in front of them. When consumers shop online or out of a catalog, they have to rely on pictures, descriptions and reviews,” said WARN’s Phillips.
It’s also a perfect opportunity to upsell, he added. “If you’re selling a WARN winch, then merchandise winching accessories near the winch display and help a Jeep® consumer make the most of their purchase. WARN offers a rigging/accessory bag that comes with a snatch block, 2 d-ring shackles, an 8’ tree strap, winching gloves and a 30’ tow strap -- everything they need to get unstuck!”
Jeep® -- An Aftermarket Game Changer
Shop owners and aftermarket manufacturers that continue to engineer, market and sell quality products perpetuate the success of the Jeep® brand. Continue to ensure generation after generation of Jeepers have access to the most innovative aftermarket products, so they can trail blaze an individualized path and explore, pushing boundaries both on- and off-road.