Word: traffic
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Starbucks has been so successful, it may seem unassailable, untouchable--unavoidable. It's not. In fact, the company has had a very difficult year. Traffic at U.S. stores dropped for the first time in its history, and then comparable-store sales--a key measure of a retailer's health--turned negative too. Its stock has slid some 40% in the past 12 months, shaving more than $400 million from Schultz's personal bean pile...
...base was so broad it wasn't recession-proof," says Bear Stearns analyst Joseph Buckley. The summer of 2007 was particularly bad because of consumers' growing boredom with Frappuccinos, which make up about 15% of sales, according to UBS analyst David Palmer. Then, in the quarter ending in September, traffic at established U.S. stores fell 1%, the first drop ever. The next quarter, traffic dropped again--down 3%--and comp-store sales fell 1%, the first time Starbucks had ever swung negative...
...Erez Crossing looks like the empty set of a sci-fi film, an alien spaceship that crashed into a field of rubble. This gleaming metal structure is the sole entry and exit point for human traffic between Israel and Gaza, a territory of 1.5 million Palestinians held by Hamas Islamic militants. Erez was built in more optimistic times, when it was envisioned that every day 30,000 Palestinian laborers, merchants and students would be flowing in and out of Israel...
Rabbit Lips Nabaztag's latest Internet Rabbit, a $170 Web appliance in the form of a cute digital pet, will read you the news, weather or even e-mail. The new model has a belly-button mike so you can ask it aloud about stocks, traffic or anything else of interest...
...autocracy: Beijing has not had to contend with citizens' protests the way New Delhi has - from environmentalists protesting construction on the Yamuna's floodplains and conservationists protesting construction of an underground rail link near a historical monument, to motorists protesting a rapid-transit bus system that actually slows traffic down...