Boat trips: Fifty-six percent of Carnival’s North American cruises booked for 2015 go to the Caribbean, according to the company.
Europe and Asia are not as popular.
Next year marks the 50th anniversary of Princess Cruises and in May the Regal Princess will have a christening ceremony featuring members of the original cast of the television series, The Love Boat, as godparents.
New wheels: Over 90 percent of CarMax customers receive loan approvals of some sort in its stores.
However, while in the past a $ 13,000 loan might require a down payment of $ 100 or $ 200, that number now tends to be several hundred dollars higher today, making the transaction more difficult for the bank. customer.
Customers generally want to buy used cars that are two, three or four years old.
Money application: Apple’s new Pay system breaks the barrier between mobile payment and e-commerce with in-app payment, Visa explains.
Under the platform, Apple uses Visa’s tokenization solution which is basically a database that matches a Visa card number with a 16 digit BIN token that will be placed in an Apple 6 or 6 Plus.
This underlying account will be stored on the phone in the hardware-based secure element that will be used when everyone wants to pay at the point of sale.
Then it allows people to use their thumbprint to authenticate and make payment through the app.
Unequal economy: Uniform rental supplier Cintas continues to see reluctance among many of its corporate clients to expand or add employees.
That said, Cintas has seen growth in its ancillary products and services, such as carpet rental, hygiene products and services, which consist of air fresheners, soap and towel dispensers, and chemical distribution.
All of them are growing quite well.
Sales increase : Sometimes all it takes to increase sales is to move the item to another department. Reddi-Wip whipped cream increased sales simply by placing displays next to the fruit, says parent company Con Agra.
Telephone lines: You can get Apple’s new iPhone 6 for around $ 199, but Blackberry values its new Passport smartphone at $ 599.
“We have a very good receptivity for the product,” says John Chen of Blackberry. “It’s sold out on blackberry.com within six hours and sold out within 10 hours on amazon.com. In fact, I think we were number one in selling unlocked smartphones on Amazon the day before it sold out.
Addressing the choir: Peps Boys is revising its advertising strategy to focus only on the people who buy it frequently.
“It is a competitive environment both within the automotive aftermarket and for consumer spending in general and that is why we have been striving to change our culture to improve our customer experience, changing our position. marketing to customers to attract our target customers, ”said Pep. Michael Odell for boys. “But it was difficult to attract our target customers at a faster rate than we lost targeted customers at lower cost and less profitable prices. “
Difficult labor market? The Kroger Company, which operates Kroger’s, Fred Meyer and Harris Teeter is currently hiring to fill approximately 20,000 positions in our supermarket stores.
Additionally, the grocery chain is the largest wine retailer in the United States, producing approximately $ 1.2 billion worth of wine each year.
Name change: 3M is officially no longer Minnesota Mining and Manufacturing. The mining part continued to confuse people. The company therefore eliminated this name.
Part of how it measures its performance in its innovation at 3M is what the company calls the New Product Vitality Index.
It measures what percentage of its revenue comes from products that have been introduced in our last few years.
Last year, a third of 3M’s sales came from products introduced in the past five years.
School lessons: Reading in school accounts for 50 to 60 percent of the total market for teaching materials for educational lesson plans, while mathematics accounts for 30 percent. Other subjects, such as science and social studies, are not in great demand, Scholastic reports.
Grape season: The Californian harvest for wine production is currently underway, almost a month ahead of last year, with over 70% completion at that time.
The current California industry estimate is for a total crop yield of 3.8 million to 4 million tonnes compared to about 4.4 million tonnes last year.
The quality of this year’s harvest promises to be very good if not excellent. From a pricing perspective, brands such as Robert Mondavi continue to expect prices to be flat or slightly down from last year depending on variety, location and demand. .
Spicy meals: In a recent US study, 90 percent of adults say taste remains the main factor influencing food and drink purchases.
Additionally, the influence of ethnic demographics and increased exposure to other cultures and their foods are fueling demand for packaged spices and flavors. Indeed, cuisine-specific or ethnic dishes now represent about 44 percent of all flavoring occasions in the United States.
