Word: retailing
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...shoppers could order shirts and shorts online or by phone and pick them up immediately at their local Sears store. Or they could have the clothes delivered and, if they didn't fit, exchange them at Sears. "This synchronization of multiple sales channels is absolutely the future of retail," says John Champion, a vice president at Kurt Salmon Associates, a consulting firm in Atlanta. The future may already be here: according to Nielsen/NetRatings, for every dollar spent online for apparel in December 2001, an additional $1.63 was spent offline as a direct result of the online visit...
Inside Salomon Smith Barney, analysts date the cultural shift in the research department to 1997, when parent company Travelers Group bought Salomon Brothers and married that firm with its focus on institutions and investment banking to retail-driven Smith Barney, which Travelers (now Citigroup) also owned. Suddenly, "earning money the old-fashioned way" made a far better ad campaign than corporate game plan. "The Salomon guys were a little faster with the rules and more focused on investment banking," says a longtime member of Smith Barney's research team. That's when big money started flying toward analysts...
...credit-card and bank payments using a fingerprint, a copy of which they have placed on file. "People like it for the same reason they like speed passes at gas pumps--mobility and speed," says Frank Pierce, Indivos' vice president of marketing. The company is testing the system at retail outlets, including fast-food restaurants, around the country...
...Morgan Chase utility analyst Pierre Stiennon says to look for a deal with Cinergy, based in Cincinnati, Ohio; Allegheny Energy in Hagerstown, Md.; or PPL of Allentown, Pa. All three companies produce and sell power on the wholesale market and also serve a large base of regulated retail customers. Hartmann is known as a careful shopper. When he explored a U.S. acquisition as CEO of Veba, the man on the other side of the table was Enron's Jeff Skilling. Hartmann walked away after deciding that the two companies' cultures and business models wouldn't mesh well together...
These are queasy days for investors. Stalled stock markets are upsetting enough. Adding to the unease is the Enron scandal, the cloud over corporate accounting, and questions about the impartiality of stock analysts. In the U.S., few of the checks and balances designed to ensure retail investors get a fair shake appear to be functioning properly...