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Many local distilleries are giving away hand sanitizer, but it’s not free
Customers have lined up in droves at local distilleries for free bottles of hand sanitizer.
When David Johnston tried to buy several bottles of hydrogen peroxide the other week, the clerk at his local Walgreens gave him a hard time.
“They were only going to let me buy two bottles, and I’m like, ‘I was contacted last night by someone from Abington Hospital and they say they need sanitizer.’”
Fortunately, Johnston, the owner of Huntingdon Valley’s Mermaid Spirits and a research scientist for the U.S. Department of Agriculture, was wearing a shirt with the distillery’s logo, plus his federal ID badge.
“It didn’t take much convincing,” Johnston said with a laugh. “And the salesperson, she says, ‘If you need more, you come back and see me, sweetie.’”
Johnston is one of hundreds of distillery owners in the United States who have curbed regular production of rum, vodka, whiskey, and other spirits in order to concoct something with less favorable profit margins and, at the moment, exponentially more demand: hand sanitizer.
After hand sanitizer evaporated from store shelves and the internet in early March, distilleries all over the country started brewing makeshift substitutes with various formulas. On March 18, the Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau (TTB) issued a letter to the nation’s distilleries, authorizing them to make it according to World Health Organization’s guidelines, which call for a mix of ethanol, glycerol, and hydrogen peroxide.
Small distilleries have been quick to act since then, cobbling together hydrogen peroxide, diverting their own booze for sanitizer, using whatever vessels they can to bottle it. At least 12 distilleries in the Philadelphia area, including New Jersey, have started making sanitizer. And customers have lined up in droves for free bottles of the stuff.
But although the sanitizer is desperately needed, the pivot to it isn’t straightforward. Distilleries’ regular business — events, tasting room sales, and distribution to bars, restaurants, and liquor stores — has been upended. For some, producing sanitizer is a way to stay busy, allowing distilleries to fill the void and keep employees on, or even add more. For others, especially smaller, lesser-known outfits, it’s all they can do to stay afloat during an indefinite stretch of economic uncertainty.
‘None of this is free’
“There’s no war chest that you can create in a start-up company after two or three years to take you through something like this,” said Mark Ganter, co-owner of Atlantic City’s Little Water Distillery, which began making hand sanitizer shortly after the TTB’s letter went out. Ganter is fielding orders for hundreds of gallons’ worth from Amazon and other shipping organizations, and giving free bottles to locals.
In normal times, Little Water makes 48 Blocks Vodka, Liberty Rum, Whitecap American Whiskey, and other brands. New Jersey distilleries can sell bottles to-go from their sites under the state’s stay-at-home order, but current laws prevent them from delivering to consumers. With Little Water’s restaurant and bar clients shut down, regular production is on hold as the distillery blends hand sanitizer.
“Even getting involved in an endeavor like this is an enormous risk to us, because none of this is free,” Ganter said. “Without having any outlet to sell our products, there’s no money coming in the door.”
Pennsylvania distilleries have an advantage in that they’re able to ship directly to in-state customers. But even with pickup and delivery capabilities, the loss of tasting room sales is significant, said Bluebird Distilling founder Jared Adkins.
“All of the distilleries that I know, we all make our money off of the tasting rooms,” Adkins said. “[They’re] 80% or 90% of our business.” Bluebird’s main location is in Phoenixville, and it has two locations in downtown Philadelphia.
With enough inventory on hand for online orders, Bluebird still has shifted to sanitizer. Requests have flowed in from ambulance services, police forces, an energy company, even Lockheed Martin. The company prioritizes orders for hospitals and community centers, but organizations with purchasing power are essential.
“The companies that can … pay for it are happy to donate to the cause,” Adkins said. Bluebird donates sanitizer to organizations that can’t pay.
‘It’s getting much tougher’
As with materials for DIY hand sanitizer, professional-grade ingredients have become harder to find, and prices have spiked with demand. Adkins’ staff luckily secured glycerin off Amazon while they still could. They scoured pharmacies and grocery stores for hydrogen peroxide. For ethanol, they used a combination of their own high-proof alcohol (which otherwise would have been used to make Bluebird’s regular line of spirits) and some from wholesalers. But even that’s in short supply.
“It’s getting much tougher,” Adkins said. “Even containers — it started out there was an abundance of containers. Now, 2½ gallons [was] the smallest container anywhere online that we could find.”
Johnston, of Mermaid Spirits, was in a similar predicament. He had planned to buy 2-ounce bottles for sanitizer that he could give away to customers, but when he went online, there were none. Instead, he’ll use bottles intended for his Forbidden Drive Vodka. “I can’t get anything else,” he said.
Mermaid Spirits is tiny: It produced 2,700 bottles last year (“Bacardi spills more in the shift than I make in a year,” Johnston likes to joke) and has three part-time employees, plus family help. After the Montgomery County shutdown closed his bar at Huntingdon Valley’s Penn Cinema, Johnston redirected his bartenders and salesperson to help make deliveries and blend sanitizer.
‘We’re getting orders left and right’
Bucks County’s Theobald & Oppenheimer is on the opposite end of the spectrum: The second-largest distillery in the state, it made $2 million worth of alcohol last year between its two brands, Faber Liquors and Single Prop Rum. Like its smaller peers, Theobald has pivoted to hand sanitizer — also using its own bottles — but it can churn it out by the pallet.
“We bought ethanol at 200 [proof] and we get a tanker in a day,” said T&O chief financial officer Kelly Festa. “We mix it with hydrogen peroxide and glycerin, and then we run it through the bottling lines.”
The Trumbauersville company has increased the number of production shifts and employees. “We’re running three shifts a day, seven days a week, trying to get as much out the door as possible,” Festa said. “We’re getting orders left and right, from hospitals, the U.S. Postal Service, huge supermarket chains, you name it.”
By the end of March, T&O had filled 167,300 one-liter glass bottles with hand sanitizer branded with the Faber Liquors label. (“Do not drink!” it cautions.) It was prioritizing orders for health-care facilities, nursing homes, and first responders — organizations that are buying it by the truckload, Festa said. But the company also sold a small amount (at $8 a bottle) online through Art in the Age’s website; it quickly sold out. Customers who order liquor for pickup at T&O’s Telford outpost can buy sanitizer there, as well — while supplies last.
At the moment, hand sanitizer is all T&O is making. Like Bluebird and Little Water, it has enough existing inventory for online orders.
“It’s kind of hard for us to make as much money [selling to individuals] to begin with, vs. huge orders that bars place,” Festa said. “So it is in our best interest financially to make the sanitizer as well.”
‘Pull everybody together for a common good’
Theobald & Oppenheimer has no tasting rooms. Though its brands are less familiar than local standouts such as Bluecoat Gin or Dad’s Hat Rye, the company is better positioned to weather the coronavirus-induced quarantine than its craft competitors.
The successful model for building a craft distillery in modern times — “starting small, selling directly out of your tasting room, giving people tours of your distillery,” with only limited retail distribution — will be challenged in this time, said Rob Cassell, master distiller at Kensington’s New Liberty Whiskey Distillery.
“The way things have kind of panned out, if your model was leaning toward that or still in that phase before you’ve gone to the larger three-tier distribution model, you’re definitely in a danger zone right now,” he said.
Cassell, also president of the Pennsylvania Distillers Guild, has been involved in an initiative that might level the playing field and aid smaller distilleries making sanitizer. The guild centralized purchasing power — eliminating markups on ethanol and hydrogen peroxide — and partnered with a plastics supplier in Boyertown to produce 1.3 million bottles. It also secured funding from Pennsylvania’s state government and PIDC to reimburse distilleries for materials and labor.
“That allows us to deliver a product to the state at actually less than what you would buy a bottle of hand sanitizer before the crisis,” Cassell said. “We’re able to deliver a 4-ounce bottle for $1.50.” He estimates a 1-ounce bottle would have cost about $1 precrisis.
The guild initiative also centralized blending at a few larger facilities like Philadelphia Distilling, so it can distribute the liquid to smaller partner distilleries. From there, distillers can use their bottling lines and professional networks to get sanitizer out to organizations in Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Harrisburg, and beyond. The effort will enable some distilleries to hire contract employees.
Cassell and his colleagues have been on-boarding new distilleries for the last few weeks. He projects having 21 to 24 online by mid-April, with more on the way — enough to produce 450,000 four-ounce bottles daily.
“It’s a good thing when you can organize and pull everybody together for a common good,” Cassell said.
Pennsylvania distilleries’ ability to ship alcohol directly to consumer was also a result of organizing. Until the coronavirus quarantine cut off access to state stores, it was little-utilized by the public at large. But it’s become central to distilleries and customers alike in recent weeks.
“We probably have more people than ever experimenting with stuff from their local distilleries,” Cassell said.
For small distilleries making a suddenly precious commodity — if only temporarily — this may be a moment to bring in new customers: Come for the hand sanitizer, stay for the craft booze.
“When we all get back to work,” Little Water’s Ganter said, "the hope is that there’ll be some kind of public support for what was endured here.”


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The Failure of McDonalds
Tom Dougherty, CEO – Stealing Share
7 May 2015
McDonalds fails to be believable. Loses ground.
McDonalds fails. Brand problems.
McDonalds seems to be losing share to other fast food and casual restaurants. Not too surprising from my perspective because the amount of competition has increased beyond belief. The choices for quick and other poor food choices has exploded.
There is even a new major player in a gas station (Sheetz). The category is rife with new entries and new day parts. It seems that everyone has entered the breakfast category.
One chain tried to create a Fourth Meal category, hoping to attract the morbidly obese. Some chains are now available 24 hours a day for the sudden need to get a burger and a thick and frosty drink after you unexpectedly wake up to pee at 3:30 am.
So what is the news for today? McDonalds fails is the news. McDonalds is repositioning itself as vegan. You think I am kidding? Well, actually I am because it would be absurd for McDonalds to claim such a position. They are actually moving into a position of quality ingredients.
To my thinking, it might just as well say it is vegan. But the truth about how McDonalds fails is almost as absurd. (Read another recent blog on McDonald’s here)
The art of branding with importance is a subtle formula. What you claim must be of highest emotional intensity to the target audience you wish to influence and you brand has to have an innate permission to claim it as true. I’m not sure of the validity of either support points for McDonald’s new position de jour.
McDonalds Fails Again
How about when McDonalds was all about kids? Ronald McDonald and the Hamburgler all got their start here.
(Read an interesting update on the Hamburgler here). Happy Meals replaced the Big Mac as the signature dish. Playgrounds sprung up at the front of nearly every store.
Then McDonalds decided to try a dual strategy and excite adults with its Arch Deluxe burger.
In the past, a statement like McDonalds fails would have been absurd in itself. No one REALY paid attention to the changes because McDonalds was the 800-pound gorilla who, it seemed, could do no wrong. It just ate everyone else’s lunch (pun intended).
But more scrutiny is on the aging chain now as its market share continues to slip. Operations and process improvements won’t save it this time. Possibly all McDonalds has going for it is a menu like everyone else but better locations.
I doubt that it is.
After all, The forgettable Papa John’s brand has been claiming the same thing for years with a massive TV spend that has the founder and owner in our face repeating the inane line at every turn.
Papa John’s spends more than any other pizza chain and yet it has never been able to get out of the less than $10 pizza wars. In other words, Papa John’s still competes on price. That is all it has going for it.
McDonalds Fails— Unbelievable Claims
We all believe it is mass produced hockey puck-like food. What’s in those shakes (that they can’t call milk shakes)? How many beaks and chicken feet are ground up and reformed into nuggets? What’s a McRib? What part of the sow does that come from? The ribless part?
Once you lose the brand myth from those that identify with you… well you have lost all of your equity. McDonald’s needs a brand makeover and not the costume festooned Halloween-like change it is proposing now.
iPhone SE Tom Dougherty, CEO - Stealing Share 21 April 2020 Why Apple’s iPhone SE will become THE mainstream smart phone I’ve certainly been writing quite a bit about our COVID-19 messaging model that tracks the changes in human motivators during this...
Podcasting Tom Dougherty, CEO - Stealing Share 4 November 2019 What brands can learn from podcasting In a bit of irony, I remember listening to The Ringer’s Bill Simmons a few years back saying that podcasting would become one of the fastest growing...
Smart glasses Tom Dougherty, CEO - Stealing Share 14 October 2019 Smart glasses making a comeback. This time, with Apple. Well, maybe I don’t know everything. With the announcement that Apple will be unveiling its own smart glasses, it’s time to fess up....

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ELKHART — Police have arrested two people and are looking for two others suspected of robbing a small store on the southwest side of Elkhart.
Joshua Bagwell, 19, of Nappanee was arrested on a preliminary charge of robbery Sunday morning, June 23. Justin Kearney, 25, of New Paris was arrested on a preliminary charge of robbery Monday afternoon, June 24.
According to the probable cause affidavit for Bagwell’s arrest, the robbery happened around 8 p.m. at the Neighborhood Convenience Store at 1712 Oakland Ave.
The owner of the store told police he was working at the time when two men entered the store and remained there while other customers left.
One of the suspects grabbed the owner from behind and put him in a headlock, pushing him to the ground while the other man looked for money. The store owner tried to scare the men out of the store with a golf club, but both men started hitting him and one of the suspects took the golf club and hit the owner with it.
The owner of the store suffered injuries to his neck, legs and chest.
After taking about $2,000 in cash the suspects fled in a car. Surveillance video from the store showed the suspects and a third suspect as a driver of the vehicle waiting outside the store.
According to the affidavit, a few people who saw published photos of the suspects called the police department to give information and to help identify the suspects.
On Saturday, June 22, Bagwell went to the Nappanee Police Department to turn himself in. After being transferred to the Elkhart Police Department and waiving his Miranda rights, Bagwell provided information that was consistent with the robbery investigation, according to the affidavit. He was arrested the next day.
Police are still looking for Andrew Ormanovich and Kala Losee, who are believed to be connected to the robbery.
Anyone with information should contact Det. Scott Hauser at 295-7076, ext. 300, or the Elkhart Police tip line at 389-4777.


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BusinessCloud searching for UK’s top 150 tech start-ups
- 6th February 2017
- Innovation & Technology
Tech website and quarterly magazine BusinessCloud is searching for the top 150 tech start-ups in the UK.
Nominations are now being accepted, with at least 12 start-ups to be selected from each UK region.
The organisation is looking for businesses that are using technology to disrupt a traditional industry or creating/selling a tech-based product.
They must have been operating for less than five years, be based in the UK, fast-growing, and able to be scaled-up. Nominations should include information such as location and why the start-up stands out from other businesses.
The businesses will be selected by a panel of judges, which will also select six additional start-ups to be included in the special awards.
BusinessCloud Editor Chris Maguire said: “Start-ups are the lifeblood of business, especially in the technology sector.”
He added that what is different about their list is that they are casting their net across the UK; when it comes to tech, they know that London and the South East are thriving, but other regions such as the South West, Midlands and North West are too.
They are aware that the tech sector is buoyant in Wales, Northern Ireland and Scotland, and they wish to recognise them all.
A study from data analytics firm Consumer Intelligence has highlighted the impact of technology failures in banking, with more than…


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- LA Auto Show Will Be Electrifying: Here's Why
- Auto show is worth the drive to L.A.
- The 11 Hottest Rides Driving This Year's LA Auto Show
LA Auto Show Will Be Electrifying: Here's Why
Press Releases 1 LOS ANGELES, August 22 – The Los Angeles Auto Show ( LA Auto Show®) recently AutoMobility LA Releases Its Full Schedule.2017 streaming per
This summer, Porsche did it again. Carrying a 4. Sounds good. Aston Martin's been on something of a roll lately. It's finally got some money, it's making new cars, it finally revamped its flagship DB series with the DB
The Los Angeles Auto Show was founded back in , then it slowly became one of the most important automotive events in the calendar.
www rai it tv
To give you some background, the L. Auto show was founded in and is the first major North American auto show of the season. I attend the press days before the show opens, which is always exciting, and this year was no exception. Wednesday I was among press from around the world getting a glimpse of the latest in what automakers have to offer for and beyond with futuristic concepts. The show at the L. Convention Center runs from Nov. A lot of the discussion at the seminar was about how the industry was developing technology protecting against this possibility.
It has featured hundreds of expert speakers, been the stage for dozens of significant technology announcements and facilitated countless business deals. In , CCE doubled its number of exhibitors over the previous year, saw a 95 percent increase in attendance and achieved a 73 percent increase in the number of technology stories, as a result of the conference. The AutoMobility LA schedule will encompass four days of networking, three days of press conferences and two days of learning opportunities presentations by a diverse range of experts. A full list of panel topics and speakers to be announced in the coming months. AutoMobility LA will feature panels, high-level presentations by executives, technology exhibits, automaker displays, networking events and breaking news conferences that will examine all aspects of the rapidly evolving automotive and new mobility industry. AutoMobility LA will also feature more than 50 world and North American product debuts over the course of the show. It will kick off on Monday, November 14, with a networking reception at 5 p.
Auto show is worth the drive to L.A.
Located in the largest car-buying market in the United States, AutoMobility LA brings some of the brightest minds in the automotive and technology sectors together onto one stage to discuss the new mobility industry. Over the four-day press and trade event , diverse professionals — from automakers, tech companies, media, designers, developers, startups, investors, dealers, government officials to analysts and more — network , gain expert insights and witness breaking news. AutoMobility LA brings together a diverse mix of automotive, technology, business and media professionals.
The 11 Hottest Rides Driving This Year's LA Auto Show
The show begins with AutoMobility LA,  a several day press showing. In , the event was held under a canvas big top at Fiesta Park. In , it took place at the corner of Hill and Washington where it stayed for the next four years. There were no injuries. With the help of the community, the show reopened one day later at the Shrine Auditorium. The show continued to prove successful throughout the s, but took a down turn during the Second World War and went on hiatus from through
The AutoMobility LA schedule is filled with vehicle debuts, conferences, & networking with auto and tech professionals // Formerly LA Auto Show Press Days.
o bag borse primavera estate 2017


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Australian Stock Market Report – Midday June 4, 2014
By Steven Daghlian, CommSec Market Analyst | June 4, 2014 1:46 PM EST
The Australian sharemarket is falling for the second day and for the fourth time in five trading days. U.S. stocks snapped a three day win streak, giving the market a negative lead today. Despite a 0.5 per cent rise in the iron ore price, the metal's recent weakness has made the miners less attractive to investors.
The main indicator of the Australian Securities Exchange (bottom R) is seen in red shortly after the local market opened in Central Sydney October 4, 2011. Australian stocks eased 0.6 percent on Tuesday, pressured by falls in global equities markets in a fresh flight from riskier assets, but losses were limited after steep declines on Monday. REUTERS/Daniel Munoz (AUSTRALIA - Tags: BUSINESS)
The mining sector is down 0.5 per cent, taking the losses since the start of this calendar year to 4.84 per cent. A mixture of weak commodity prices and a firm Australian dollar is not ideal for the resources space. Iron ore has slumped by 30 per cent this calendar year due in part to oversupply concerns in China; the world's biggest consumer of the metal and Australia's number one trading partner. The Australian dollar is 30 per cent firmer against the greenback now than it was a decade ago; keeping the miners under selling pressure. BHP Billiton (BHP) is down 0.8 per cent, while the smaller Rio Tinto (RIO) is 0.4 per cent softer.
Rare earth minerals firm Lynas Corp (LYC) is down 4.4 per cent after surging in recent days thanks to successfully raising $40m via investors - helping it buy some time to ramp up production. Oil and gas explorer, Karoon Gas Australia (KAR) is down 3.8 per cent; however is still 41 per cent higher this week thanks to the sale of exploration permits in the Browse Basin to Origin (ORG) for around US$800m.
The financials are down 0.22 per cent, with the major banks all down as much as 0.5 per cent. Commonwealth Bank (CBA) continues to pull back from the all-time high reached a few days ago. Property trust Australand (ALZ) is a standout, up 5.8 per cent after receiving a $2.59bn takeover bid from a Singapore based property developer named Frasers Centrepoint. This beats Stockland's share-swap deal put forward last week.
The Australian economy grew by a better than expected 1.1 per cent between January and March according to the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS). This takes annual growth to 3.5 per cent which is higher than the long-term average. The Australian dollar has jumped to US92.7c after hitting a high of US92.99c earlier. The market is still only factoring in a 1 per cent chance of a rate hike next month despite the strong GDP numbers.
At lunch, 923.1m shares have been traded worth $1.66bn. 345 stocks are higher, 421 are lower and 337 are unchanged.
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AMSTERDAM — Dutch specialty chemicals company DSM is expecting strong demand for its food additive which limits the amount of methane burped into the air by cows, its contribution to the global fight against climate change.
Methane has a much larger effect on global warming than carbon dioxide (CO2) and reducing methane emissions could buy time to confront the much bigger challenge of cutting the amount of CO2 released into the atmosphere.
tap here to see other videos from our team.
“We see a lot of demand already, from food producers and farmers,” DSM’s Clean Cow program director Mark van Nieuwland told Reuters in an interview, even though the launch of the additive, Bovaer, is still more than a year away.
“Large (food) companies have clear climate targets, and they need farms to change to meet those. Also consumers are increasing pressure on farmers and many farmers themselves want to limit emissions.”
Swiss KitKat and Nescafe maker Nestle this month said it wanted to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to zero by 2050, while French dairy maker Danone has said it wants to halve its CO2 emissions by 2030.


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AMD has announced its sixth-generation A-series accelerated processing units (APUs) in a system-on-chip (SoC) design.
Previously codenamed Carrizo, the AMD A-series processors bring HEVC/H.265 to the notebook, enabling consumers to benefit from higher quality, lower bandwidth streaming video playback versus traditional H.264 videos.
The APUs support Ultra HD resolution videos. The APUs also have a faster media conversion rate with up to five times accelerated encoding performance compared to CPU-only processing.
The A-series processors come with discrete-class graphics built in, harnessing AMD Radeon Graphics Core Next (GCN) architecture.
The APUs also supports AMD's FreeSync technology as well as DirectX 12, Vulkan and AMD's Mantle.
AMD Gesture Control is available on mainstream notebooks, allowing users to navigate and control their notebook with a wave of the hand.
For Microsoft Windows 10 experience, the A-series processors accelerate video playback on the forthcoming operating system with native HEVC decode supported, and enable the latest Windows 10 features with Secure boot and resume, Trusted Platform Module (TPM 2.0), and Drive Key Encryption using the first AMD Secure Processor for performance APUs.
Notebooks powered by AMD new A series APUs
Photo: Shihmin, Fu, Digitimes, June 2015


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Leading CRM platform, salesforce.com, has announced Salesforce1 promising retailers can use Mobile Clienteling and Salesforce Communities for Retail to build one-to-one relationships with shoppers anytime, anywhere and on any device to make every customer feel like a VIP.
In addition, its global alliance partners Capgemini and PwC have joined the Salesforce1 for Retail ecosystem to develop innovative new retail solutions built on the Salesforce1 Platform.
Salesforce1 for Retail
Salesforce.com believes the retail industry is at a crossroads. In addition to brick-and-mortar stores, websites and mobile apps are becoming more pervasive and retailers need a strategy that enables them to connect with shoppers seamlessly across every channel. The proliferation of social networks and mobile devices provides new opportunities for retailers to create one-to-one digital experiences but many are struggling with how to connect it all. Today, customers walk into stores anonymously and sales associates have no sense of their interests, past purchases or wish lists.
Salesforce1 for Retail, promises to deliver transformational solutions for retailers that use the power of social, mobile and cloud. It claims to help retailer get to know their customers better than ever before, from understanding the way they like to shop to their favourite colour and the products they’ve pinned to Pinterest, to personalise every aspect of the shopper’s experience, whether it’s in the store, on a website or through a mobile app.
Mobile Clienteling Allows Retailers
Technology has created more informed, more connected customers who are empowered with information. They can access competitive pricing in an instant, easily buy products from around the world and read in-depth reviews from other customers on a mobile device. To drive brand loyalty, retailers today need to connect with customers wherever they are, and deliver a consistent experience at every touchpoint.
Mobile Clienteling claims to empower sales associates with a 360-degree view of every customer, right at their fingertips, including their location, purchase history, shopping preferences, social profile and personal information such as anniversary dates and birthdays.
Promised benefits include:
· Instantly access a customer’s browsing history and past purchases right from an iPad to make recommendations that match their style and budget on the spot. For example, a salesperson can recommend the perfect tie to complement a recently purchased suit.
· View a shopper’s social profile to make product recommendations and offer discounts based on what shoppers are pinning and tweeting about. A sales associate will know if a shopper in the store recently tweeted about a camping trip and will be able to instantly offer a recommendation for outdoor equipment.
· Create a virtual profile to track customers’ birthdays and anniversaries. For instance, a jeweller will receive a reminder when a client has an upcoming wedding anniversary, so he can invite him into the store and recommend the perfect necklace or pair of earrings.
· Get up-to-the-minute information on inventory levels and product data right on a mobile device. With Mobile Clienteling, a furniture store associate helping a customer in the store can instantly pull up a list of coffee tables that are in stock and ready for delivery right on an iPad, instead of having to step away and check a terminal.
Shelley Bransten, senior vice president of retail, salesforce.com, said: "The retail industry is undergoing massive disruption where brands that do not innovate will fail. With Salesforce1 for Retail, retailers can use the power of the Salesforce1 Platform to personalise the micro-moments that matter along each shopper’s journey as they blend the digital and physical worlds."


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Android recaptures lead in smartphone sales, with Windows trailing
- Staff Puget Sound Business Journal
Google Inc.'s Android operating system has taken back the top spot in smartphone sales in the U.S., with 49.4 percent of smartphone sales in the three months ended January 2013, according to Kantar Worldpanel ComTech.
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American workers get an average of 14 vacation days a year, but an Expedia survey says they only use 10. Are you using all of your vacation days?


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Team17 has dropped the first teaser for a new game in the long-running Worms franchise.
The video itself provides few hints as to what the new game will entail, with most of the 50 second runtime taken up by footage from earlier 2D entries in the series, including the 1995 original. Nevertheless, a 3D worm appears towards the end, alongside staple weapons, including the baseball bat and holy hand grenade.
The video description promises that the upcoming title will be “Worms like you’ve never played before!”
“Things are getting real in 2020,” it continues. Meanwhile, the publisher’s website hints at “new ways to play.” Details about what those taglines allude to are unavailable at present, though Team17 says that more information will be coming soon.
Worms 2020 will be the first new entry in the series since 2016’s Worms W.M.D., which introduced vehicles and turrets while removing other features such as character classes. If the new game does employ a 3D interface, as the end of the trailer suggests, it will be for the first time since 2012’s Worms: Ultimate Mayhem.
Platform details have not yet been announced, but previous games have found their way to PC, consoles, and mobile alike. The game should be expected to arrive later this year.


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The exponential growth in online payments in India, with total digital payment market expected to grow to USD 1 trillion by FY23E and the post-demonetization emphasis on building a cashless economy has once again severely underscored the need for strengthening and bolstering financial cybersecurity. While cyber threats to the BFSI sector have been increasing globally, the type of attacks vary from country to country. India, for instance, faces one of the highest number of financial Trojan infections.
Very soon, most BFSI organizations are likely to deploy services related to cryptocurrencies in one form or another as vulnerability to such mining malware is definitely a matter of growing concern.
Cryptocurrencies – wildly popular and a prominent target:
Mobility security threats will take the forefront: Mobile-first consumers are more vulnerable to malware variants devised to steal personal banking information by cyber criminals. Increasing demand for faster BFSI transactions. Supply chain attacks will be on the rise: Large financial organizations invest considerable resources in cybersecurity.
Fraud-as-a-Service isn’t rare anymore, especially account-centric frauds: Support for smart cards at purchase points, biometric authentication, tokenization of payments, etc. have made hacking more difficult for cybercriminals. Demand for higher speed will lead to more threats: Growing demand from consumers for real-time and frictionless cross-border financial transactions pressurizes banks and financial service providers to verify information more quickly,
The era of social engineering and phishing is not over yet:
Given that security investment is going to be a priority in the BFSI sector, how robust would you consider your strategy? What are the security threats your organization faces?
Israeli companies excel in providing innovative technologies in FINSEC solutions. Please visit the website at https://cybertechisrael.com/cybertech-tlv-2019 to know more on Cybertech Tel Aviv 2019.
Relevant companies, interested to learn more on potential collaboration are invited to contact the Economic and Trade Department at the Israeli Consulate General in Bengaluru.
For further queries, contact : Kavitha Saravanan, Trade Officer, Bengaluru.


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OPPO Philippines, has finally confirmed that the OPPO Reno11 5G and OPPO Reno11 Pro 5G, will arrive in the Philippines this February 1st.
OPPO has consistently pushed the Portrait Expert branding as they’ve been continuously focusing on the camera of their smartphones. The Reno11 Series 5G lives up to that legacy, boasting a new camera technology and better algorithms for better portraits across subjects and environments.
Both variants pack an Ultra-Clear Portrait Camera system equipped with telephoto and ultra-wide sensors, ensuring exceptional photo and video quality in any scenario. The OPPO Reno11 5G boasts a Sony LYT600 sensor for its 50MP main camera and a Sony IMX709 sensor for its 32MP Telephoto Camera
While the OPPO Reno11 Pro 5G takes it up a notch with a 50MP main camera featuring a Sony IMX890 sensor and the same reliable Sony IMX709 sensor for the 32MP Telephoto Camera. Aside from that, the Portrait Expert Engine makes a return in the OPPO Reno11 Series 5G with upgraded algorithms.
So if you want to know more about the smartphones, be sure to stay tuned as we can expect the arrival of these smartphones in the Philippines soon.


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Samsung recently announced that the Galaxy S23 series would be released on February 1. And though they are not out yet, we are already getting leaks concerning a generation that will come in 2024. For instance, it turns out that the Galaxy S24 Ultra will sport an improved telephoto camera.
Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra camera
A tweet from whistleblower @RGcloudS shows that the Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra will have a telephoto camera with “Gen4” optics, with an aperture between “2.5 and 2.9”.
This also means that the S24 Ultra might also support 150x zoom. This is not anything unexpected, as the Samsung Galaxy S22 Ultra supports 100x space zoom.
In addition, last month LG Innotek announced the launch of a telephoto camera lens that can provide a continuous zoom range of 4x to 9x. It is expected that the S24 Ultra will also come with similar camera hardware. The corresponding lens might have a variable zoom feature. But you should take this news with a grain of salt.
According to the whistleblower, although the telephoto camera on the S24 Ultra offers significantly better zoom capabilities, it can’t close the gap with the telephoto camera of the Mi 13 Ultra. There have been various rumors about the launch date of the latter. Prior to this, we’d heard that it would be uncovered at MWC at the end of February. But later, it became known that the phone would come in a few months. In this sense, the Mi 13 Ultra will compete with the Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra in terms of camera. So for the Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra, Xiaomi should prepare another model.
Samsung has always been known for its excellent camera performance. So news about the telephoto lens of the Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra doesn’t sound surprising. But at the moment, we should still focus on the Samsung Galaxy S23 series.


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It’s never been easier to start a travel tech business, but it’s never been harder to grow one. Former stock analyst Tom Underwood became Stayntouch’s CEO because he believes the startup can defy the odds.
You might think most hotels wouldn’t try to overhaul their travel technology during a pandemic that’s hurting revenue and cutting staff. But that’s not the story of Stayntouch, a maker of hotel management systems..
To find out more, I CEO interviewed Tom Underwood Wednesday at the company’s headquarters in Bethesda, Maryland. Underwood said his business is growing.
- Hotels use Stayntouch’s comprehensive property management system to manage 65,000 rooms, up from 40,000 in March 2020.
- December marked the company’s best quarter for new monthly recurring revenue since its inception in 2013, although the company did not disclose the amount.
- On Wednesday, the company announced that it had signed mint house, a new generation hotel brand. He apparently stole the company from Guest, another provider of property management services.
- Other customers include First hotels, Conscious Hotels, Margaritaville, Valencia hotel group, and Modus Hotels.
- Most of the rooms serviced by Stayntouch are owned by traditional, non-boutique brands, such as Showboat in Atlantic City, Sage Hotel Group, Village hotels, and innisfree. But the company expects strong growth with emerging hospitality players similar to Mint House.
- google will use Stayntouch’s property management system to help manage its hotel-style residence halls for corporate city employees that it is building on a campus near Mountain View, California. That’s for five properties, totaling 302 rooms. Given Google’s security requirements for working with partners, this is an interesting endorsement.
Is Stayntouch a serious challenger?
- The company seems small. In 2020, Tyler Morse, the impresario behind the American hotel operator MCR developmentst — the owner of the TWA Hotel and other properties – raised capital through a fund to buy Stayntouch at Shiji. The price was $46.8 million, a modest sum compared to the $4.6 billion paid by Oracle Hospitality in 2014 for Micros, which it turned into a global market leader. Oracle Hospitality.
- Underwood said the price of the Stayntouch transaction did not reflect the full value of the company because it was an unusual forced divestment.
- The fund defended by Morse raised additional capital at the time of the purchase. This gave the CEO resources to grow. Underwood, hired a year ago, has taken on 20 employees, including a chief revenue officer and a chief technology officer.
the the company appears undercapitalized compared to Oracle Hospitality and other rivals. The landscape includes:
Underwood said Stayntouch has an ownership structure that lends itself to new outside investment, which could help fuel its growth.
- “We are an independent company, with all employees having shares in Stayntouch, similar to a VC- [venture capital-] supported startup,” Underwood said. “We are a prospect for additional investor capital.”
Underwood has, over the course of his career, oscillated between being an equity analyst and an operational decision-maker in online travel agencies. So he has an analyst’s overview of the hotel software industry.
- He was previously CEO of Room 77, CFO at business travel agency Lola, Senior Vice President at Orbit, a leader in online consumer action research at Legg Mason, Director of Revenue Management at Price line, and equity analyst at Morgan Keegan & Company.
- He said the two most critical metrics for evaluating hotel software companies are growth momentum and gross profit margins.
- He declined to divulge details. But he said he joined Stayntouch a year ago because he liked the numbers he was seeing and the numbers have since improved.
- Underwood sees consolidation in the hotel technology sector over a five-year horizon. Technology categories, in general, tend to see a few players dominate thanks to economies of scale.
- “There will be absolutely fewer players with a bigger market share,” Underwood said..
Industry figures debate the right setup for operational software in hospitality.
- “Twenty years ago when I joined Priceline, the exciting change was in distribution with the arrival of online shopping on the internet,” Underwood said. “The exciting change is now in the content, so to speak. The product is evolving into new alternatives away from the traditional hotel, traditional vacation rental, etc.
- Examples include hotels now selling multi-night stays without housekeeping and hotels selling packages that bundle a stay with free access to coworking space or off-site gym.
- “Hotel software should be flexible enough to adapt to the evolution of the product,” Underwood said. “The PMS and the CRS [central reservation system] converge to meet the challenge.


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Starbucks workers in Buffalo won a pathbreaking bid to form a union after votes were counted Thursday, part of a wave of labor activism sweeping the country in the midst of the pandemic.
Baristas at the store voted 19 to 8 to unionize despite months of opposition from the Seattle-based company. Senior executives and teams of managers spent weeks in Buffalo and held repeated meetings urging workers to reject the step.
The employees will join Workers United, an arm of the Service Employees International Union.
“We’re hoping it’s a transformative action for this industry,” said Michelle Eisen, a Starbucks barista who has worked for the company for 11 years. “It’s an industry that deserves good working conditions and a livable wage.”
Baristas at three stores in Buffalo cast votes in a mail-in election conducted by the National Labor Relations Board. A second store rejected the union drive, but union officials said they expect to challenge the result. The third store’s results remain inconclusive because of objections to some of the ballots.
The vote marks a victory for the labor movement at a time of increasing leverage for workers and growing support for unions. Nearly 70 percent of Americans now approve of unions, according to a Gallup survey conducted in August, the highest such figure in more than 50 years.
Recent months have witnessed a surge in unionization activities, by warehouse workers, museum staffers and university instructors. A landmark effort to unionize an Amazon facility in Alabama failed in April, but federal regulators ordered a fresh election after the union challenged the result. (Amazon founder Jeff Bezos owns The Washington Post.)
The newly formed union at Starbucks gives organized labor a small presence in one of the best-known companies in the United States and a rare foothold in the fast-food industry.
Starbucks employees in Buffalo say that working conditions in recent years, combined with the nationwide labor shortage, propelled them to act. Dozens of workers from across the city joined the union organizing committee in August, bonded by grievances about understaffing, raises for long-serving employees and safety measures during the pandemic.
Before Thursday’s vote count, a dozen Starbucks workers gathered at the union office. As the ballots were tallied one by one on a video call, the baristas linked arms and held hands. When they realized they had a majority of votes at the Elmwood store, the workers — mostly in their 20s — jumped into the air, screamed with relief and hugged. Several broke into tears. Five workers from the winning store collapsed into a group hug as their fellow baristas chanted “Elmwood! Elmwood! Elmwood!”
Although the number of employees involved in the Starbucks unionization vote is small, the trailblazing nature of the effort makes it “a pretty big deal,” said Wilma Liebman, a former chairwoman of the National Labor Relations Board. “Of course, winning is contagious.”
Three more Starbucks stores in Buffalo and a store in Arizona have petitioned to hold union elections, but a date has not been set. Unionizing employees say they have been contacted by fellow baristas throughout the country and hope their efforts will be replicated in other regions.
Other employees in the retail and service sectors are “definitely going to be taking a cue from these Starbucks workers in Buffalo,” said Lane Windham, a labor historian at Georgetown University. “It’s been a while since we’ve seen this kind of interest among young people in union organizing.”
Starbucks has told employees — called “partners” in the company’s terminology — that it does not think a union is necessary and that workers are better served by the current relationship with management.
Rossann Williams, the president for North America at Starbucks, sent a note to the company’s more than 200,000 U.S. employees following Thursday’s results. She acknowledged that one store “voted to be represented by a union” but said the vote outcomes “will not change our shared purpose.” The results for the Elmwood store will be certified by the labor board next week if Starbucks does not file any objections.
Some workers in Buffalo expressed the hope that Starbucks would quickly open negotiations with the union. But many think Thursday’s result is the first step in what could be a long struggle. Reaching a negotiated contract can be a protracted process that companies often seek to delay.
“I want to hope that they will negotiate with us in good faith but I am not confident,” said Alexis Rizzo, a shift supervisor who has worked for Starbucks for six years, since age 17. “We need government support and public support.”
While Starbucks embraces liberal causes as part of its corporate ethos, that stance does not extend to union organizing. The company fended off prior attempts to unionize stores in New York and Philadelphia. In July, an administrative judge found that Starbucks had violated labor law by retaliating against two baristas involved in the Philadelphia unionization effort.
In Buffalo, Starbucks flooded the 20 stores in the area with management personnel from other parts of the country. The company says such officials were dispatched to address employee concerns and fix operational problems. Unionizing workers filed a formal charge with the labor board accusing Starbucks of engaging in surveillance and intimidation, something the company denies.
Howard Schultz, the man who built Starbucks into a global giant, traveled to Buffalo last month for a meeting with company baristas. He told them that the company had given workers pioneering benefits — including health insurance, stock options and online college tuition — without being pushed to do so.
A union briefly represented Starbucks store workers in the United States in the 1980s but shut down shortly after Schultz bought the company in 1987, according to his autobiography. Before Thursday, the only unionized company-owned Starbucks in the world was in Victoria, B.C. It negotiated its first contract this year. There are also unionized workers at some of the 6,500 locations run by Starbucks licensees.
Thursday’s vote “changes everything,” said Gianna Reeve, a shift supervisor in Buffalo. But the “jumping up and down, screaming moment” will come when the union negotiates a contract, she said. “Once we have that, it sets a precedent for the rest of the country.”
Jaffe reported from Buffalo.


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Capital Group seeks zoning amendment for Maynard Crossing
MAYNARD — Capital Group Properties wants to build a self-storage facility at Maynard Crossing.
The Southborough-based development firm has been working to develop the 58-acre property at 129 Parker St. for several years. The multi-use project includes an apartment complex, a senior living facility, a Market Basket grocery store, restaurants and retail stores.
Currently, the Neighborhood Business Overlay District, under which the property is being developed, does not allow for a storage facility. Capital Group is hoping the town will be willing to amend the overlay district to allow for the use.
Town Planner Bill Nemser said the first order of business would be to amend the Memorandum of Agreement between Capital Group and the Board of Selectmen.
In addition to a new zoning bylaw, changes would also have to be made to the concept plan, Nemser said.
The bylaw change would have to be drafted by the Planning Board, which would necessitate public hearings. Once finalized, it would require a two-thirds approval at Town Meeting.
Angelo Catanzaro, attorney for Capital Group, said retail space has been difficult to market, particularly during the pandemic. But he said Capital Group has a potential tenant for a self-storage facility. The building, known as R1, would also include some retail space, geared to small businesses.
He said the change would not impact parking or traffic flow.
The footprint of the building would decrease by about 3,000 feet because the self-storage facility would be three stories. Capital Group is also asking for an increase in the total amount of retail space from 310,000 square feet to 360,000 square feet to accommodate the added floors of the storage facility, he said.
The R1 building is in the rear of the property, adjacent to the senior living facility. It backs up to the high school grounds, Catanzaro said.
“Self storage is a service that is becoming more and more in demand,” he said.
With an apartment complex and senior living facility at Maynard Crossing, Catanzaro said he expected the storage facility to fill up pretty quickly.
He added that if the selectmen didn’t approve changes to the MOA, the developer likely would not go forward with the plan.
Catanzaro said Capital Group had hoped to get a proposed bylaw change ready in time for the annual Town Meeting in May, but selectmen did not want to rush the process.
In the end, selectmen voted to refer the matter to the Planning Board for consideration, after which they will consider changes to the MOA.
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FOMC minutes and more Fed speakers to be key for terminal rate pricing
The FOMC minutes from the November 2 meeting are scheduled to be released on Wednesday, just ahead of the Thanksgiving holiday. The key message delivered by Powell at this meeting was that the pace of rate hikes will slow down as needed, and that will likely remain the highlight of the minutes as well. However, Powell managed to deliver this message hawkishly at the press conference, but the risk from the minutes remains tilted to the dovish side. There is likely to be little consensus about whether the rates are in restrictive territory or there’s still room for that, and the divide within the committee remains key to watch as investors remain on the edge to expect a Fed pivot sometime in 2023. We have heard multiple Fed speakers over the past week, after a significant downside surprise in US CPI prompted a move lower in Fed’s terminal rate projections and fuelled significant easing of financial conditions as equity and bond markets rallied and the US dollar weakened. Waller and Bullard have tilted on the hawkish side, while the usual-dove Brainard remained more balanced as she repeated the message on cumulative tightening and being data-dependent. Daly, Mester, George and Bullard will be on the wires this week.
In China, attention will be on how local authorities respond to outbreaks and implement pandemic control measures. Watch how commodities respond
The economic calendar in China is light this week. However authorities may respond to China’s first Covid-related death in almost six months and the surge in new cases, which have hit their highest levels since April last year. There is concern there could be tighter restrictions, while China implements its new 20-point tweaking covid restriction plan, aimed at minimising disruptions to people’s daily lives and the economy, while adhering to zero-Covid. Officials will find it difficult to balance this, as well as the surge in cases. As such, commodities pegged to Chinese demand are front and centre again this week. The iron ore price is lower on Monday down 4% on fears China could increase restrictions, but the key steel ingredient holds onto a gain of 23% this month. This means stocks that make most of their revenue from China are also in focus like Fortescue Metals (FMG) which is up 30% this month, after China announced a somewhat property rescue package. Oil prices will continue to remain volatile as well as global growth and China lockdowns remain on watch, and the deadline for European sanctions on Russia crude also looms.
Flash PMIs on the radar for US, UK and EU
The S&P flash PMIs for the US, EU and UK will be released in the week, and will likely test the soft landing rhetoric that has been gaining traction. We will likely see further broad-based easing in the metrics from the October prints, as consumer spending remains constrained amid high inflation and a rise in interest rates. While expectations for December remain tilted towards a downshift in rate hikes for the Fed, ECB and the BOE, the upcoming data point will be more key in determining the terminal rate pricing. Markets are now back at pricing 5% levels for the Fed, but the ECB’s pricing for the terminal rate is still sub-3% while UK’s is 4.7% with fiscal austerity being delayed.
RBNZ’s hawkishness to continue to outperform while Riksbank to play catchup
The monetary policy decision from the Reserve Bank of New Zealand (RBNZ) will be key on Wednesday to determine the direction of NZD, which has seen strong gains over the past month from higher hawkishness. After a series of 50bps rate hikes, there are some expectations that RBNZ could deliver a 75bps rate hike this week, as inflation and labour market conditions support the case for further front-loading. Inflation has reached 7.2% YoY in Q3 – well above the RBNZ’s 1-3% target. Most members of the RBNZ shadow board also supported a 75bps rate hike. Meanwhile, the Riksbank has been lagging other G10 central banks in tightening policy and is now playing catch up after delivering a 100bp hike in September. The Riksbank is expected to deliver a 75bps hike on Thursday while another 100bps hike can’t be ruled out.
Key earnings to watch this week; from Virgin, to Dell to two Chinese companies
Virgin Money, which is one of the UK’s biggest banks reports earnings this week, as well as the agricultural giant Deere & Co and the PC juggernaut, Dell. Separately, as discussed in Peter Garnry’s note, the highlight may be from Kuaishou Technology and Xioami, as Chinese equities have recently rallied amid the country’s fine-tune pandemic control measures. Nonetheless, increasing regulation in the private and technology sectors have still caused headwinds. The two Chinese earnings results are not expected to be blockbusters, but their outlooks may give investors a glimpse through the curtain.
Buy now pay later equities again on notice
Buy now pay later (BNPL) companies could be further bruised this week, with the Australian government considering policies that could see BNPL firms subject to the same rules as credit card providers. This could not only affect Australian firms but global companies which operate in Australia, such as Block (SQ, SQ2) - which owns Afterpay and Affirm (AFRM). The Australian government is weighing up options to strengthen the BNPL Industry Code, and perhaps introduce an affordability test or put the BNPL companies under the Credit Act. Such a move would ensure BNPL companies that operate in Australia, would work within the guardrails as other credit providers. Companies to watch include Zip, Block and Affirm. Sentiment could also flow to other BNPL companies including Japan’s GMO Payment Gateway and India’s Paytm.
Saxo Strats 2022 World Cup Predictions: the Netherlands has the highest probability of being the champion
In this article, Peter Garnry, Saxo’s Head of Equity Strategy shows how Saxo Strats used quantitative analysis to predict the winner of the 2022 World Cup and came up with a non-consensus result: expecting the Netherlands to win.
Key economic releases & central bank meetings this week
Monday, Nov 21
- Germany Producer Prices (Oct)
- Taiwan Export Orders (Oct)
Tuesday, Nov 22
- New Zealand Trade (Oct)
- Eurozone Consumer Confidence (Nov, flash)
Wednesday, Nov 23
- Japan Market Holiday
- Australia S&P Global Flash PMI, Manufacturing & Services
- UK S&P Global/CIPS Flash PMI, Manufacturing & Services
- Germany S&P Global Flash PMI, Manufacturing & Services
- France S&P Global Flash PMI, Manufacturing & Services
- Eurozone S&P Global Flash PMI, Manufacturing & Services
- US S&P Global Flash PMI, Manufacturing & Services
- New Zealand Cash Rate (23 Nov)
- Singapore Consumer Price Index (Oct)
- United States Durable Goods (Oct)
- United States Initial Jobless Claims
- United States UoM Sentiment (Nov, final)
- United States New Home Sales (Oct)
- US Fed FOMC Meeting Minutes (Nov)
Thursday, Nov 24
- US Market Holiday
- Japan au Jibun Bank Flash Manufacturing PMI
- South Korea Bank of Korea Base Rate (Nov)
- Japan Leading Indicator (Sep)
- Germany Ifo Business Climate (Nov)
Friday, Nov 25
- US Market Holiday (Partial)
- New Zealand Retail Sales (Q3)
- Singapore GDP (Q3, final)
- United Kingdom GfK Consumer Confidence (Nov)
- Germany GDP (Q3)
- Germany GfK Consumer Sentiment (Dec)
Key earnings releases this week
- Monday: Virgin, Compass, Agilent Technologies, Zoom Video, Dell Technologies
- Tuesday: Kuaishou Technology, Medtronic, Analog Devices, VMware, Autodesk, Dollar Tree, Baidu, HP, Best Buy
- Wednesday: Xioami, Prosus, Deere
- Friday: Meituan, Pinduoduo


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In what appears to be a reversal of the company's position on Windows Phone 7, last week Verizon revealed on Twitter that it's "excited" to offer Windows Phone 7 devices. Verizon had previously been the only U.S. phone carrier to refuse to commit to the new mobile OS.
The tweet appeared November 8 among a series of replies to other Twitter users. When one person asked when the company would be carrying Windows Phone 7, the response was, "As soon as Microsoft has 'em ready, we're excited to offer Windows 7 mobile devices." This is in stark contrast to Verizon chief executive Lowell McAdam's comments from last month when he said in an interview with CNET that, "Microsoft is not at the forefront of our mind."
Why has Verizon changed its tune? No explanations have been given 140-character or otherwise though considering Windows Phone 7 has garnered generally positive reviews and Microsoft's ambitious launch includes 60 carriers in 30 countries, it was probably as simple as putting two and two together and wanting to ride a potentially lucrative wave.
On the other hand, this could be a case of someone simply being excessively loose on the Internet. We should know either way in the coming weeks.


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The company Microsoft, as it is known, diligently promoting its mobile operating system Windows Phone smartphones, and Windows 8 tablets. However, before the popularity of its competitors in the face of Android it is still very far. However, this popularity brings significant benefits and most Microsoft: it became known some time ago, from licensing systems used in Android and Google Chrome technology it gets higher returns than most of the Windows Phone.
Licensing is carried out not Top Google, but with specific hardware manufacturers use in their devices these systems. Another such manufacturer is the company Motorola Solutions (not to be confused with the sold Lenovo Motorola Mobility, which produces smartphones). This company has been producing devices such as laptop computers, car computers, shockproof and moistureproof tablets and laptops, etc. For the use of all these devices and Chrome OS Android Motorola Solutions will now pay Microsoft royalties, the amount of which is not called.
Such charges already paid more than 20 companies, including such large companies as Dell, Samsung, LG, HTC, Acer, Barnes & Noble and Amazon. For what it is Microsoft technology gets these profits are also not reported.


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Volvo has acquired a stake in San Francisco-based mobile charging company FreeWire Technologies via the Volvo Cars Tech Fund. While Volvo does not plan to own charging or service stations directly, it says the investment reflects its support for user-friendly charging options as electric mobility continues to grow.
“To support wider consumer adoption of electric cars, society needs to make charging an electric car as simple as filling up your tank,” said Zaki Fasihuddin, CEO of the Volvo Cars Tech Fund.
With its fast charging technology, FreeWire aims to do just that. Its charging stations use low-voltage power rather than traditional high-voltage connections, enabling charging through existing power outlets.
“FreeWire’s fast charging technology will simplify the experience for customers of electrified Volvos,” said Volvo’s Chief Digital Officer Atif Rafiq. “We aim to make the future of sustainable electric cars more practical and convenient.”
Volvo isn’t the only company to partner with FreeWire; BP invested $5 million earlier this year to offer mobile charging options at fueling stations.
Source: Volvo Cars


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In an age dominated by performance marketing and programmatic buying, how is out-of-home's £19 million audience delivery system, Route, helping clients improve the efficiency of their investment? Mark Henson, Head of Business Development at Primesight, explores.
There are times when the traditional media are barely acknowledged in the crowd crush of new technology, social strategies, data usage and the buying mechanics that are pushing marketing’s frontiers beyond previous recognition.
Performance marketing and programmatic buying are 2014's new buzz phrases. Indeed, the latter has been hailed as the antidote to "spray and pray" marketing via its ability to separate out audiences and buy them efficiently with the gilt-edged combination of critical mass and targeting capabilities.
But in this world of algorithms and software, how is out-of-home’s audience delivery system, Route, helping clients improve the efficiency of their investment?
Can out of home target someone who has just recently been on a website looking at a BMW 4 series? Not individually, but we do know which sites, from a universe of over 360,000, is likely to be seen by an AB male, aged between 25 and 55.
And what’s more, due to the vast increase in granularity of data behind Route, the efficiencies of targeting a defined audience has increased by up to 40 to 50% in most cases. This, in itself, is a huge leap in terms of efficiency and should be celebrated as such.
Look beyond the new and shiny
So why hasn't it hit the headlines? After all, if a television channel broke the news that advertisers would now be able to target pre-defined audiences at twice the efficiency as they previously did, like Sky IQ let's say, it would certainly make waves.
When Route was launched it was so huge in its remit and its data was unwieldy to extract. Now that the industry has had time to understand how best to use this revolutionary piece of research, clients are beginning to see the benefits of the £19m investment.
But our industry, like most others, pays disproportionate homage to the "new and shiny". The fact is that enhancements or significant evolution within an existing medium rarely get the same column inches as a perceived media first.
Strong case studies for Route are emerging
A good example of a brand using Route’s multi-layered data was Skype's recent out-of-home campaign where they used Route to identify posters that targeted its specific ethnic audiences and outside local convenience stores to remind their customers that they could top up their Skype credit at PayPoints at their local store.
Skype then amplified this relevance by matching their creative designs to the ethnic groups living in each individual area in order to achieve a higher rate of viewer’s self-association.
The real pearl lies in out-of-home’s delivery of these new, more efficiently bought audiences. Like programmatic buying, there is an equally radical potential for a medium that can now combine the benefits of increasing audience buying efficiency, whilst maintaining its inherent benefits of stature and scale. Providing an inclusive rather than an intrusive delivery and at a time when people have the time to consider purchase, be entertained or share.
What Route now allows advertisers to do is to shape a campaign based on a mix of traditional proximity data (the big currency in the mobile world) along with specific data across 256 different behavioural statements reflecting media habits, shopping habits, lifestyles, modes of transport as well as the usual demographic breakdowns.
It feels like a really exciting time for out of home as the industry continues to develop a delivery system that can make our broadcast formats, the ones that deliver mass coverage and high frequency, more efficient at either targeting traditional out-of-home audiences or attracting new advertisers into selecting more niche audiences for their needs.
The combination of geography, modality and personal information can afford out of home similar advantages to programmatic buying and it would be encouraging to think that as more clients discover the benefits Route has to offer, out-of-home’s massive investment in both its portfolio and audience measurement starts to gain a few more headlines.
Mark Henson is Head of Business Development for Primesight


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While the majority of the overall collection is part of the university’s extensive, museum-like collection at the Hocken Library, a university spokeswoman said the university’s "embellishment collection" featured about 1500 pieces.
The Hocken collection featured about 17,000 pieces.
A 2019 insurance report valued the embellishment collection at more than $10 million and the Hocken collection at more than $70 million.
Art in the embellishment collection, used to adorn and enhance university buildings, was on display across the university, the spokeswoman said.
There were some smaller collections within the broader collection, such as the staff club collection.
The university declined to detail its 10 most valuable works, citing security concerns.
Ralph Hotere and Colin McCahon were two of the university’s best-represented artists.
The McCahon mural in the Dunedin campus university library was a work commissioned by university benefactors specifically for the university.
The entire university collection was insured and security features were in place.
The university was not aware of any lost or misplaced art from the collection, she said.
While it was not all on continuous public display, the Hocken’s mandate was to preserve its collection for future generations.
Researchers and the public could see the Hocken collection through online catalogues and could ask to see items in the Hocken reading rooms.
The Hocken also hosted weekly public tours of the collection stores and a monthly opportunity to visit the art store, she said.
The university also loaned art to external museums and galleries.


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“We believe that constant dialogue with the Government is required to resolve some issues with regard to mandatory hallmarking. These issues are more of administrative nature which will ensure that no fake or duplicate hallmarked items reaches out to final consumer. We firmly believe that consumer must get pure jewellery and there is no compromise in the same,” mentioned Surendra Mehta , nationwide secretary of IBJA.
Mehta mentioned that the federal government has already carried out practically ten conferences with trade affiliation and we’re glad that many points have already been resolved. The authorities remains to be open to dialogue and have additionally proposed formation of everlasting advisory committee for obligatory hallmarking which can embrace trade representatives as properly.
IBJA firmly believes full transparency within the commerce with out compromising on high quality of jewelry. IBJA beleives within the democratic strategy of fixed dialogue with the federal government and wouldn’t prefer to resort to any stress approach by the use of strike, Mehta added.


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A top euro-zone official said Friday that cash-strapped Greece is in line for a fresh program of aid from its peers in the currency union, and European Union and International Monetary Fund authorities said Athens would likely get in July the next tranche of money from last year's €110 billion ($158 billion) bailout.
The announcements suggest positions have softened in the complicated standoff between European countries and institutions over how to handle Greece. The IMF had indicated it wouldn't be prepared to sign off on the next dollop of money without assurances that Greece has enough financing to carry it for another year. That worry appears to have been alleviated.
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The highly-anticipated Evora facelift could be coming to the Frankfurt Motor Show. Details inside
According to a recent report, Lotus will introduce an updated Evora at the Frankfurt Motor Show.
Details are limited, but CEO Dany Bahar told Auto Express the model will be given 147 improvements and "the priority is to improve the quality." This likely means we can expect a new transmission, a sportier exhaust and a higher quality interior.
In related news, the Evora lineup is set to expand with a convertible and a high-performance variant that will reportedly adopt a supercharged 3.5-liter V6 with approximately 400 hp (298 kW / 406 PS). Last but not least, there's also word that a plug-in hybrid variant could be launched within two years. Nothing is official, but the vehicle will reportedly have a 1.2-liter three-cylinder engine and two electric motors that will enable the car to accelerate from 0-60 mph in 4.4 seconds and have CO2 emissions of 55 g/km.


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With the endless possibilities and incentives retailers provide to shop online, it has become a regular activity for some people. Over the years, Arubans have also started doing their research and making use of online shopping.
Expandeer recently conducted a survey around this topic. The infographic below illustrates the findings based on responses received.
Some key findings on the current online shopping behavior of consumers in Aruba include:
- 89.7% of surveyed consumers said they’ve shopped online;
- The top 3 items consumers order online are: clothing, small electronics (e.g. mobile phones, ipods, ipads, etc.) and books;
- 61.5% of consumers said they would shop online from local businesses if this was possible;
- 100% of participants said they would most likely shop online to book hotels, cruises & flights.
One of the main issues that prevent businesses in Aruba from incorporating online selling into their business is the lack of easy payment systems available- for instance Paypal.
Do you think Aruban retailers need to introduce more possibilities for online shopping? Leave your comments below.
Don’t forget to LIKE the Expandeer on Facebook to stay up to date on the latest marketing news.


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THE NEWS WRAP: Alibaba continues heavy investment in US tech companies
Chinese internet retailer Alibaba, which is set to go public in New York in one of the largest public offerings ever in the United States, is investing huge sums of money in US tech companies, The New York Times reports.
In March the company invested $215 million in messaging app Tango, and it recently contacted Snapchat about making an investment that would value the company at $10 billion.
Alibaba has also participated in a $170 million bid for online sports memorabilia retailer Fanatics, and last week video-game startup Kabam announced that it has received $120 million investment from the online retail giant.
Share of users that sees ads on Twitter is shrinking
Buried in an online presentation accompanying Twitter’s earnings report last week was an unsettling trend, the Wall Street Journal reports.
Of the 271 million people counted in Twitter’s latest figures, 14%, or 37.9 million, never log in directly to Twitter’s website or mobile app, the only places where people see ads.
Amazon Appstore expands to 41 countries
The global reach of Amazon Appstore has increased to 236 countries and territories, after being made available in 41 additional countries, including Indonesia, Singapore and Turkey.
In a statement announcing the move, Amazon says the expansion represents an opportunity for Amazon developers to target new areas in Africa, the Middle East and Southeast Asia.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average is down 69.93 to 16,493.37. The Australian dollar is currently trading at US93 cents.


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Hot on the heels of Qualcomm’s latest promo video of drones being powered by its chipsets, Intel wasn’t one to sit idly by. The world’s largest chipmaker certainly does not want to be left hanging dry as the company is trailing behind in the smartphone chipset market as it is. In order to gain a lead in the drone market, the desktop and laptop processor king is acquiring a German drone company by the name of Ascending Technologies.
With the Ascending Technologies acquisition, Intel will be able to satisfy several uses and markets by mass producing drones.
With practical applications ranging from disaster response, to infrastructure inspection, to delivery of goods, UAVs offer an incredible opportunity for innovation across a multitude of industries. As a result, Intel is positioning itself at the forefront of this opportunity to increasingly integrate the computing, communications, sensor and cloud technology required to make drones smarter and more connected. – Intel Press Release.
What Does the Move Signal for Intel and Ascending Technologies?
According to Intel, Ascending Technologies features the best-in-class drone auto-pilot software and algorithms. Using the German company’s expertise in mass producing drones, Intel will also be using its RealSense technology’s in order dictate real-time depth-sensing capability. Combining both of these technologies, the completed product will not only feature impressive build quality that can withstand a sufficient amount of wear and tear, but improved sensor technology will ensure these aerial machines can avoid obstacles and collisions that may end up delivering irreparable damage to the drones.
Intel’s CEO Brian Krzanich will also be providing a brief demonstrational and informational speech during CES 2016 about the capabilities of these aerial machines and in the process, the company will go toe to toe with Qualcomm’s aerial products as well. While the press release did not reveal any pricing or availability details of these drones, expect to hear more in the coming days during CES 2016.


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Brokerages Anticipate Gentex Corporation (GNTX) Will Announce Quarterly Sales of $451.65 Million
Wall Street analysts expect that Gentex Corporation (NASDAQ:GNTX) will report sales of $451.65 million for the current quarter, according to Zacks Investment Research. Six analysts have provided estimates for Gentex Corporation’s earnings, with the lowest sales estimate coming in at $448.61 million and the highest estimate coming in at $455.60 million. Gentex Corporation posted sales of $423.80 million in the same quarter last year, which would indicate a positive year over year growth rate of 6.6%. The company is expected to announce its next quarterly earnings report before the market opens on Friday, July 21st.
On average, analysts expect that Gentex Corporation will report full year sales of $451.65 million for the current fiscal year, with estimates ranging from $1.80 billion to $1.84 billion. For the next year, analysts anticipate that the company will post sales of $1.97 billion per share, with estimates ranging from $1.93 billion to $2.02 billion. Zacks’ sales averages are an average based on a survey of research firms that cover Gentex Corporation.
Gentex Corporation (NASDAQ:GNTX) last announced its quarterly earnings data on Friday, April 21st. The auto parts company reported $0.33 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating the Zacks’ consensus estimate of $0.31 by $0.02. Gentex Corporation had a net margin of 21.13% and a return on equity of 19.39%. The company had revenue of $453.54 million during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $444.92 million. During the same quarter in the prior year, the company earned $0.28 EPS. The firm’s revenue was up 11.8% on a year-over-year basis.
Several equities research analysts recently weighed in on GNTX shares. BMO Capital Markets restated a “positive” rating and issued a $25.00 price target on shares of Gentex Corporation in a research report on Friday, March 24th. Zacks Investment Research lowered shares of Gentex Corporation from a “hold” rating to a “sell” rating in a research note on Monday, June 26th. Finally, Wellington Shields lowered shares of Gentex Corporation from a “gradually accumulate” rating to a “hold” rating in a research note on Thursday, May 4th. One analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, two have assigned a hold rating and four have assigned a buy rating to the stock. The company currently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and an average price target of $23.10.
ILLEGAL ACTIVITY WARNING: This piece was originally published by American Banking News and is the property of of American Banking News. If you are viewing this piece on another publication, it was illegally copied and republished in violation of international copyright law. The legal version of this piece can be viewed at https://www.americanbankingnews.com/2017/07/16/brokerages-anticipate-gentex-corporation-gntx-will-announce-quarterly-sales-of-451-65-million.html.
Shares of Gentex Corporation (GNTX) opened at 18.59 on Friday. The stock has a 50 day moving average of $18.90 and a 200-day moving average of $20.22. Gentex Corporation has a 52 week low of $14.66 and a 52 week high of $22.12. The stock has a market cap of $5.34 billion, a PE ratio of 14.99 and a beta of 1.19.
The company also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Wednesday, July 19th. Shareholders of record on Thursday, July 6th will be paid a dividend of $0.10 per share. This represents a $0.40 annualized dividend and a yield of 2.15%. This is a positive change from Gentex Corporation’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.09. The ex-dividend date is Monday, July 3rd. Gentex Corporation’s payout ratio is presently 31.75%.
In other Gentex Corporation news, VP Joseph E. Iv Matthews sold 9,996 shares of Gentex Corporation stock in a transaction on Monday, April 24th. The shares were sold at an average price of $20.31, for a total transaction of $203,018.76. Following the completion of the transaction, the vice president now directly owns 20,100 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $408,231. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through this link. Also, Director John A. Mulder sold 10,000 shares of Gentex Corporation stock in a transaction on Thursday, June 1st. The stock was sold at an average price of $19.22, for a total transaction of $192,200.00. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders have sold 45,610 shares of company stock valued at $926,429 over the last ninety days. 2.50% of the stock is owned by insiders.
Several hedge funds have recently modified their holdings of GNTX. Profund Advisors LLC raised its stake in shares of Gentex Corporation by 5.6% in the first quarter. Profund Advisors LLC now owns 40,105 shares of the auto parts company’s stock worth $855,000 after buying an additional 2,119 shares in the last quarter. Hollencrest Securities LLC bought a new stake in shares of Gentex Corporation during the first quarter worth about $297,000. Nationwide Fund Advisors raised its stake in shares of Gentex Corporation by 0.8% in the first quarter. Nationwide Fund Advisors now owns 479,673 shares of the auto parts company’s stock worth $10,231,000 after buying an additional 3,649 shares in the last quarter. Cape Cod Five Cents Savings Bank bought a new stake in shares of Gentex Corporation during the first quarter worth about $919,000. Finally, Reliance Trust Co. of Delaware bought a new stake in shares of Gentex Corporation during the first quarter worth about $254,000. 82.75% of the stock is owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.
Gentex Corporation Company Profile
Gentex Corporation designs and manufactures automatic-dimming rearview mirrors and electronics for the automotive industry, dimmable aircraft windows for the aviation industry, and commercial smoke alarms and signaling devices for the fire protection industry. The Company’s business segment involves designing, developing, manufacturing and marketing interior and exterior automatic-dimming automotive rearview mirrors that utilize electrochromic technology to dim in proportion to the amount of headlight glare from trailing vehicle headlamps.
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BENEFITS OF US GENERALISED SYSTEM OF PREFERENCES
Date : 08 Dec 2003
Location : New Delhi
The US government presently denies Generalised System of Preferences (GSP) benefits to about 850 agricultural, chemical and pharmaceutical products from India. These products are eligible for GSP benefits from other countries and India’s request for early restoration of GSP benefits on these products has received positive indications for consideration by the US governments.
The US government presently extends the benefit of GSP scheme to about 140 developing countries including India. In the calendar year 2002, India exported duty-free products worth about US $ 2 billion under the US GSP programme.
This was stated by Shri S. B. Mookherjee, Minister of State for Commerce & Industry, in a written reply in the Rajya Sabha today.


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BluJay Radically Transforms Supply Chain Economics, Helps Customers Achieve Greater Trade Velocity and Disruptive Advantage
Manchester, UK and Chelmsford, Mass. – March 6, 2017 – Kewill and LeanLogistics today announced that the companies have rebranded as BluJay Solutions. In conjunction with the rebranding, the company has also unveiled the BluJay Global Trade Network, a fundamentally new model that goes beyond automation to help organizations harness the full power of the global supply chain ecosystem.
“It’s no longer just about multi-modal, omni-channel and booking tools – we’re moving toward a new era of business where global trade shifts to the forefront, and supply chain becomes today’s battleground,” said Doug Braun, CEO, BluJay Solutions. “BluJay delivers the expertise, breadth of cloud-based software applications, and end-to-end collaborative visibility that organizations need to make speed a competitive weapon, and optimize their future in the global economy.”
The new BluJay Solutions brand reflects the company’s unique ability to help customers achieve greater velocity of global trade and operate at the speed of business – even in the face of dynamic market forces and fluctuations in customer demand. With more than 40,000 carriers, shippers, forwarders, suppliers, and LSPs, the BluJay Global Trade Network is the largest in the world, creating a powerful network that delivers the benefits of universal connectivity among participants.
“Our customers’ success is the standard by which we measure our own,” added Braun. “The BluJay Global Trade Network exemplifies our commitment to equipping customers with the technology, services and connections they need to deliver exceptional service.”
“Traditional supply chain solutions focused on optimization from the point of view of an individual company. But as companies moved to more outsourcing and increasing reliance on global supply chain partners, the traditional software architecture has become increasingly less relevant,” said Steve Banker, Vice President, Supply Chain Management at ARC Advisory Group. “A modern global trade network model gives companies access to multiple delivery options and carrier choices so they can quickly seize new opportunities and enjoy frictionless and more efficient movement of goods across any border.”
With BluJay, organizations can easily manage goods and services across an integrated Global Trade Network; rapidly onboard services, carriers, customers and business units; and actively collaborate with trade participants to expedite trade logistics. BluJay captures all data streaming across the network, so that organizations can analyze and operationalize it to their advantage.
BluJay Solutions’ rich domain expertise in all areas vital to global trade – transportation, parcel, warehouse, and customs management, as well as freight forwarding and compliance – combined with four decades of experience, make the company a trusted choice of more than 7,500 customers spanning more than 100 countries. BluJay customers include five of the top 10 food and beverage companies, 32 of the top 40 logistics service providers, and 24 of the top 25 freight forwarders. With BluJay, 1.9 billion transportation transactions are processed and 4.5 billion boxes shipped annually.
In December, Kewill completed the integration of LeanLogistics, which it acquired in May 2016, bringing together supply chain execution and global trade management in one comprehensive and integrated portfolio of logistics applications, analytics and services – all delivered through a scalable, multi-tenant cloud.


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GSMA through the Chief Regulatory Officer, Tom Phillips has released a statement regarding confirmation of the schedule for migrating from analogue to digital terrestrial television in Kenya.
The statements indicates that GSMA believes digital switchover signals growth in Kenya. GSMA congratulated the government and Communications Authority of Kenya for finalising the schedule for the countryâ€™s much-anticipated digital switchover.
Part of the statement reads: â€With all three phases to be completed by 30 March 2015, Kenyaâ€™s announcement demonstrates a clear and welcome commitment to meeting the International Telecommunication Unionâ€™s (ITU) global digital migration deadline of 17 June 2015.
The switchover from analogue to digital television allows more efficient use of a limited resource and frees up precious 700MHz and 800MHz spectrum bands, otherwise known as the Digital Dividend. This lower frequency spectrum delivers excellent geographic coverage and will be a key enabler for the provision of universal mobile broadband access.
Unique mobile subscriber penetration in Kenya is currently 40 per cent, which means that more than half of the country is still unconnected. The availability of Digital Dividend spectrum for mobile will make life-changing mobile services available to all Kenyans, including the three-quarters of the population who live in rural areas, as well as provide substantial economic benefits and new opportunities for digital entrepreneurship.â€
GSMA also noted that Kenya and Tanzania, which has almost completed its digital switchover, are leading the way in East Africa in bringing the benefits of the digital transition to their citizens.


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COLUMBIA — South Carolina collects only a tiny fraction of the taxes that shoppers are supposed to pay when they buy online from an out-of-state company.
Officials said Friday that most people don't even know they're supposed to pay, and those who do — don't.
The issue has surfaced with the debate over whether legislators should give Amazon.com a sales tax exemption to bring 2,000 jobs to the state. Supporters point out the company doesn't collect the tax now from the state's online customers. But shoppers are still supposed to pay.
The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 1967 and reaffirmed in 1992 that a state can't require a company to collect and pay sales taxes from its residents unless the company has a physical presence there, such as a store.
However, state law requires shoppers to self-report the sales tax they didn't pay for items bought out of state, and pay up when they file their income tax returns. That includes items bought with no sales tax added. It also applies to shoppers who pay the sales tax of the state where the item was shipped, if that tax was lower than South Carolina's 6 percent. The taxpayer is supposed to pay the difference.
Small business advocates say that's just silly.
"Even if people know about it, they're going to shrug it off," said Frank Knapp, president of South Carolina's Small Business Chamber of Commerce, and an opponent of the Amazon deal. "I don't think anybody's running to the tax accountant and saying, 'Oh, my God, I owe back taxes!' I think they realize nobody's going to catch them."
The revenue agency's latest annual report shows nearly 11,900 taxpayers self-reported about $941,000 of so-called "use tax."
That means half of one percent of the state's individual tax filers self-reported they owed sales tax on out-of-state purchases. It represents 0.04 percent of all sales and use taxes the state collected.
Knapp said he was surprised the numbers were that high.
"These must be the really paranoid people," he said jokingly.
By law, the criminal penalties for not paying could reach $10,000 and up to five years in prison per violation.
Whether the state's ever penalized anyone for not paying the use tax — or for not paying enough — is unclear. Revenue Department spokeswoman Samantha Cheek said there's no way to determine or track the voluntary reporting of use tax. She said the agency tries to educate taxpayers on their responsibility through audits, workshops, manuals and brochures. But she declined to say whether audits have ever led to penalties on the issue.
From 2007 through 2012, South Carolina will lose an estimated total of $569 million in sales and use taxes not collected from e-commerce sales, according to e-commerce experts at the University of Tennessee. This year's loss would represent 3 percent of total sales and use tax collections, according to the 2009 report.
Officials say the loss will continue to grow.
That partly explains why the Amazon proposal has stoked such debate and opposition from tea party activists and national retail chains. The giant online retailer has become the poster boy of the e-commerce issue.
"It's a major competitive fairness issue for independent small businesses," said Stacy Mitchell, senior researcher at the Institute for Local Self-Reliance. "When you're an independent retailer and collecting sales tax between 5 and 10 percent and up against a company that doesn't have that legal obligation, that's a huge gap. The margins are slim and that's a big number for retailers."
States that have passed laws requiring companies with a warehouse or marketing presence to collect and pay sales taxes include North Carolina, New York and, last week, Texas.
On Wednesday, the South Carolina House voted 97-20 to approve the five-year "safe harbor" sales tax exemption Amazon sought to open a million-square-foot distribution center this year in Lexington County. The company upped its offering three weeks after the chamber rejected it 71-47. The enhanced deal requires the company to create at least 2,000 full-time jobs with health benefits and invest at least $125 million by the end of 2013.
The debate now moves to the state Senate.
Legislators gave QVC the same five-year exemption to come to Florence, and that company now collects the tax.
Michael Shuman, director of Business Alliance for Local Living Economies, argues any incentive a state gives to bring in an outside company is misguided.
"The whole sales tax disparity that exists right now is just an outright subsidy to mail-order companies by states," he said.
But House Majority Leader Kenny Bingham, who helped lead the support, argues the only way to level the playing field is to bring Amazon to the state, since the deal calls for the company to begin collecting the tax in January 2016. If the company stays away, it still won't collect the tax, and the state would miss out on the investment, jobs and resulting boost to area businesses as employees spend their paychecks, said Bingham, a Lexington County Republican.
But online buyers beware: Whether Amazon comes to South Carolina or not, you're supposed to pay up on your income tax return.