Cross-selling promotions: beauty and bullets?

A husband and wife team in Kansas have been operating a combination hair salon and sporting goods shop that featured treatments and manicures as well as rifles and revolvers using the promotional slogan "where beauty and bullets collide"

Apart from Tracey’s undoubted reputation in haircare, Jeffrey was able to add authenticity to his category via his felony convictions for arson and possession of firearms… Linked-promotion synergies were optimised by combining the message that it was important for women to feel safe, with marketing material featuring sequin-studded revolvers.

Given that ‘an armed society is a polite society’ the salon was able to offer a peaceful haven of rest, a respite from the challenges of the world outside…

Unfortunately, the U.S. Attorney's Office in Kansas took issue with the fact that Jeffrey was operating without a firearm dealers licence, and are recommending five years in federal prison to enhance his CV.
Hopefully he will be able to surmount the more erratic supply-chain issues operating ‘inside’…

Regrettably, this unexpected development, combined with Tracey’s upcoming 3-year probationary period have resulted in the couple dropping all references to the firearms category from their website:  www.beautyandbullets.com

Have a peaceful weekend, from the NamNews Team!

Ten of Britain's most unusual shops?

Bored with store visits? Next time you need a break in the market-checking routine why not include an unusual shop in your schedule?

The Observer have identified what could be the 10 most unusual shops in Britain
1. Unicorn Antiques on Dundas Street in Edinburgh
2. Mr B's Emporium of Reading Delights, Bath
3. Fragile Design, Birmingham
4. Laste, Brighton
5. Nook & Cranny, Liverpool
6. Labour and Wait, London
7. Junk, Manchester
8. Junior Toys, Wells
9. Blaze, Bristol
10. Lupe Pintos, Glasgow
(pics and details in The Observer )

Given the conditions in the high street and the increasing emphasis on productivity, you can be sure that any ‘quirky’ shop still standing must have a unique and profitable appeal. This means that it stands out because of its high degree of match with shopper need, a real standard-setter in terms of assessing how well major mults branches are aligned to your target consumer….

These unusual shops can look messy, disorganised and unprofitable…but in practice they are re-writing the shop-shopper rulebook, in unprecedented times, when everyone is searching for new solutions…

Perhaps these shops have the courage to be different, and have simply found an unusual way forward…..?

Rewards points scheme for smaller shops

Scotland's independent shops are fighting back against the invasion of chain stores and the march of online retailers by launching their own customer loyalty scheme. Over 400 retailers have signed up to Clickypoints, giving them access to mobile marketing and online sales, and will go live early next month with hopes of spreading throughout the UK within two years.

At £1 per point, Clickypoints eliminates the uncertainties associated with traditional schemes, and being redeemable at any member branch allows shoppers to optimise their ‘personal’ value…..

However, in terms of potential spread of usage, the real driver is the fact that offering pound-for-pound points instead of price reductions, not only can the retailer sell at full price and maintain brand equity, they can use what would have been spent on advertising to fund the deals…

Surely a way of combining the interests of shopper and supplier in helping to build a healthy independent sector, everywhere?

'3D tape measure' for online shoppers, a pointer for NAMs?

Scientists from Surrey University and design experts from the London College of Fashion are developing a programme which can take precise waist, hip, chest and other measurements from camera images.
Using the person's height as a starting point, the software will be able to build up a 3D image and estimate their size at various different points on the body, based on their overall proportions.

Why it matters...
The result will be a more accurate sizing guide than systems based on waist size or a "small/medium/large" scale, which rely on limited measurements and the buyer's perception of their own body size. Instead, the programme will use the exact measurements of each individual garment to predict which size will be the best fit, avoiding shopper tendency to order several sizes of the same garment, just-in-case…

Ultimate in shopper engagement 
For fmcg NAMs, the issue is not how much extra clothes it sells, but the degree of competition it represents to ‘regular’ fmcg in terms of shopper engagement (coupons, leaflets, competitions, pale by comparison….).
This advance in meeting online shopper needs really forces fmcg suppliers to find more creative ways of engaging with the shopper, like tying self-measure monitoring to dietary aids/foods, for starters....

Time to encourage your marketing colleagues to re-assess and engage with consumer needs, before retailers add a real difference to private label? 

Bionic Mannequins are Keeping an Eye on Shoppers to Boost Luxury Sales

The EYE SEE mannequin from Almax S.p.A. (Italy) in collaboration with Kee Square makes it possible to observe who is attracted by store windows and visual displays using facial recognition software. The software, powered by IBM, uses a camera embedded in one eye that feeds data into facial-recognition software like that used by police. It can track age range, gender, race, number of people and dwell time.

Results
The €4,000 ($5,072) device has spurred shops to adjust window displays, store layouts and promotions to keep consumers walking in the door and spending.

According to Bloomberg, Benneton US are among five retailers currently trialling the mannequin camera.

A step too far?
Like all attempts to monitor shopper behaviour, the innovation raises privacy issues for both staff and shoppers. Staff issues could be managed via loading of all personnel pics into the software and eliminating them from the tracking, hopefully….

However, given that privacy tends to be less of an issue when consumer needs are being met via tailored offerings, like with Amazon’s relevant emails, providing the store can demonstrate reactive use of the insight, then size and quality of basket will deliver the ultimate endorsement.

Happy own-brand Xmas, how Ansoff can help?

Given Sainsbury’s predictions that this will be an own brand Christmas as hard-up Britons “splash out” to enjoy a family Christmas, making their money go farther via own-brands perhaps the Ansoff Matrix can spell out the moves and help suppliers to anticipate the impact…?

As you know, Ansoff identifies four ways of growing a business by selling:
- More current products to current customers
- New products to current customers
- Current products to new customers
- New products to new customers

How Sainsbury’s could increase own-brand sales

More current products to current customers:
Essentially, as most produce sales are own-brand, coupons and keen prices and store-level assortment could encourage purchase of larger portions of Christmas meats turkey, fruit & veg, with pricing delicately balanced to avoid over-purchase/waste….making current customers happier

New products to current customers:
Here the emphasis could be on encouraging purchase of complementary Christmas items both food and non-food, brands & own-brands, with in-store promotion/theatre and linked couponing to tease custom away from branded alternatives and other mults/channels via current JS customers in the aisle – making current customers even happier....

Current products to new customers:
By studying the profile of their current customer, JS could seek out new shoppers of similar profile, and try to attract them to the store via the own-brand products that appear to appeal to current JS customers, given that they probably have similar appetites. These new customers will need to be attracted and retained by a combination of virtually one-to-one communication and coupon-swaps to encourage a first-time switch from their traditional Christmas destination. To achieve an acceptable ROI, this has to result in an unprecedented and compelling experience, well suited to the JS approach.

This will probably be the most competitive segment as Tesco tries to recover lost share/customers and retain its current customers via its £1bn investment programme…

New products to new customers:
This high risk alternative means trying to attract new shoppers and sell them new products, targeting consumers that are unaccustomed to the JS experience, with products that are new to JS, a double-whammy that may attract the risk-seekers, but will probably play a small part in own-brand Christmas..

So, from a supplier’s point-of-view, this is all about own-brand, wrong!
This is about how a skilled and systematic retailer is going to make this an unforgettable own-brand Christmas, using differentiation to build and hold an enlarged customer-base, at the expense of brands…unless suppliers make Ansoff work even better for their brands…
PS  For insight on the subtle moves see our free paper : 4 generations of private label

'Boots the Grocer' - How Walgreens and Musgrave are helping them become a force in UK convenience…

Given that Walgreens, Boots 45% partner’s experience of food in pharmacy, give c15% of their store space to food, coupled with the Musgrave trial of food-to-go in Boots’ branches means that ‘Boots the Chemist’ could become a big competitor in the UK convenience landscape.

A new report from him! focuses on the Boots / Musgrave food range trial, and new exclusive shopper feedback shows that shoppers are excited about the extended range of food products being trialled in 11 Boots stores.  Looking to Boots to provide healthier alternatives, 58% said that they are likely to buy from this new food range at Boots in the future.

Why this initiative matters to everyone...
Given their track record, traditional suppliers to Boots will not underestimate the ability of this global player to expand synergistically via the right partners. Moreover, this logical brand-stretch via healthy food from a quality convenience retailer, combined with Boots retail footprint and regular traffic, has to represent a major breakthrough in the convenience sector, for both retailers.

Implications in a zero-sum market
The obvious implications in terms of relative space, ease-of-access and increased buying muscle means that it is important therefore that all suppliers tap into the Walgreens food background and link this with Musgrave’s quality convenience-experience in order to adequately factor this innovative food range trial into your trade strategies…

Full details of the Walgreens-Boots merger, the Boots-Musgrave trial and shopper reactions in the him! report

Optimising your E-xperience via the IGD’s: Trading in a Digital World. (Part 1)

With almost 250 delegates, all four major online grocers, Tesco, Asda, Sainsbury’s and Ocado, together with some key suppliers, shared online updates, plans and joint-opportunities with a multifunctional audience that buzzed throughout the session, and not only via text-questions to the speakers...

However, apart from being a great idea-source (I managed to limit my note-taking to 8 pages, more in later postings), the presentations touched on some of the key issues affecting the development of online for both suppliers and retailers that are perhaps not aired sufficiently, but have material impact on personal development within the supplier-retailer environment…

‘The poor relative syndrome’
Essentially, in common with many new business initiatives, online can be a small but patently important development for a company. In a flat-line market online provides high-growth, innovation, novelty and excitement compared with the traditional business. However, it is often seen as a relatively high risk diversion, with many risking a ‘wait and see’ mode. In other words, if successful, online will have many parents, whilst if it fails, it will morph into an orphan. As such, online tends to be insufficiently funded and hampered by inadequate resourcing, especially in uncertain times...

The need to sell from within…
For these reasons, much depends on the drive and enthusiasm of those involved in online to constantly ‘sell’ the online idea and achieve results by persuasion, taking on full responsibility, with little designated authority…(rather like the role of a traditional NAM, a resident expert in achieving change against impossible odds...)

Selling is vital to ensure that online is integrated into mainstream business strategies, taking each of the key business functions and ensuring there is an online equivalent, with dedicated personnel, all sharing the opportunities and insights, enthusiastically, in the face of traditional priorities, envy and deep down, fear of change.

How to sell the online idea
Realistically, online will need to be sold, and sold convincingly by those who hope to make it yield its full potential, fast…

In other words, think of your company as a reluctant buyer, leaving you but two ways of attracting attention of the rest of the business – curiosity and fear. By making a ‘buyer’ of ideas curious to hear more or fearful of inaction, we destabilise their status quo, leaving them susceptible to change.

Fortunately the novelty of online provides enormous scope for making colleagues curious, whilst the continuing downward spiral of categories such as CDs, DVDs, Games, Magazines and Newspapers provides ample evidence of the dangers of inadequate corporate response to emerging technologies….

Keep in mind that online supporters in retail have similar issues
A key point of the conference for me was that colleagues in online retail share the same in-house issues. In other words, you will find your equivalent within your major customer needs support and can assist in return, in helping online realise its full potential for suppliers and retailers.

For me this was demonstrated by the fact that each retailer ended their presentation with specific steps on how to optimise the online supplier-retailer relationship, encouraging supplier-colleagues to find ways of innovating within a new online retail environment, signalling a willingness to identify and implement genuine fair-share synergies with like-minded suppliers.

Missing E-opportunities?
To avoid further delay, it is now time to play catch-up by attending events like the IGD digital session, and helping your traditional colleagues come to terms with how fast the E-food train is already travelling...

We may be some years away from a ‘beam me up, Scotty’ facility, but in the meantime, there is little harm in exploring appropriate ‘what-if’s’ for your business model…

Meanwhile, why not go online and have an E-xtatic weekend, from the NamNews team!  

Tesco Want Closer Links With Suppliers – Ready?

The Tesco presentation has been well covered elsewhere, and  Philip Clarke’s full speech is available on the Tesco website.

However, in terms of ‘getting personal’, nothing beats the real thing. Best to have been a member of the audience and to have experienced the passion in person. Straight from the main man, a promise to work more closely with suppliers. These guys are really serious about more collaboration with the right trade partners in order to create a more personalised consumer offer, reflecting the current multi-channel environment and anticipating future demand.

In other words, Tesco feel the need to innovate and believe they can best do that in collaboration with suppliers. 

Keeping the best for Tesco, on condition...
However, I would suggest that they feel the need to such an extent that they will go to third parties should suppliers be found wanting…  This means saving your best ideas for Tesco, thereby potentially accessing 31+% of the UK market.

In return, it is vital to demand a fair-share relationship, based on a robust financial partnership, all wrapped up in a contractual agreement, of equal value to each side, in terms of both letter and spirit of the deal…

Getting there means being able to calculate the real cost to you, and being able to demonstrate the full financial value of your offering to Tesco, convincingly…

This time it is different
Tesco are serious, and they need serious trade partners.  In going for broke with Tesco, you are going to make your biggest UK customer bigger.
It is therefore vital that you also secure a fair share of the action…

Incidentally, participating in the live personal experience is truly incremental.
It probably explains why the IGD Convention is a sell-out every year – a key issue being the location of a venue large enough to accommodate all applicants…! 

Playing with your Clubcard data at Tesco?

                                                                                        pic: Tales from the playroom
Tesco plans to develop 'products and games' to give Clubcard-holders 'simple, useful, fun' access to their own data, to help them 'plan and achieve their goals'. The retailer's aim is to build personalised access to customers' own 'data capability plans'.

The issue for Tesco has to be the impact of this new access and awareness on consumers, negative and positive. Latest legislation gives consumers access to their personal data, but this is inertia territory, with relatively few bothering to check how much a retailer knows about them.
This is a long way from deliberately turning a spotlight on the extent of that data, especially if it hits some of the main stream media on a 'slow news' day....
Making positive use of the insight via permission marketing seems more productive.

Pragmatic use of personal data
Many years ago, when data-storage costs were prohibitive, direct data-based marketing was focused on specialist B2B targets like doctors. At the time we  happened on ‘lifetime value’ by accident, in that medical students were picked up on Day One at medical school, and left the database via the graveyard. Regular visits by medical ‘reps’ coupled with script-tracking gradually enriched the database over time.

Using the insight
This data-source was used as a basis for targeted mail-shots, personalising the message as much as we dared at the time. In order to optimise the persuasive effect, we focused on medical needs both functional and emotional, selected appropriate features of our brands and connected them via a benefit statement. Rep feedback and script-output then validated the process….

This meant making very selective use of the data on record with the sole objective of meeting doctor-needs.
We seldom felt the need, or dared to let the doctor know that we knew he had red hair…

Tesco might benefit from imposing the same self-restraint and emphasis on their use of Clubcard data…

Time & Money - optimising the connection

A client once had the problem of the Board spending too much time in board meetings.
Questioning revealed that having spent an hour deciding whether the outside fire-escape stairway should be painted red or silver, the Board waived through a £1m trade-funding budget in five minutes….

Solution:
Even more time was spent agreeing the total annual cost of the combined annual packages of the Board, and the resulting cost per minute in board meetings. Once agreed, however, the agenda items were prioritised and allocated timings in terms of cost and value, making each session a little more productive.
WalmAsda however, did even better by removing all seats and conducting the board meetings stood up…

M&S Flag-ship floor plan - the real priorities?

Click image for larger copy

You have seen the pics, (if not, Google Images Chester Oaks M&S)
You may have even made a storecheck…
Either way a floor-plan of ground and firsl floors layout will help you appreciate the relative importance of Food vs. Non-food, departmental adjacencies and all the other little things that tell you where a retailer is going…

P.S. If you would like a 3MB pdf of the the above floorplan, please email me on bmoore@namnews.com

Eye-controlled Gaze TV unveiled in Berlin’s IFA Trade show

Viewers that resisted over-dosing on their Olympics viewing can now revert to potato-mode by avoiding unnecessary exercise caused by having to reach out and press the clicker…
Details + pic at BBC

How it works
Viewers control the set by staring at the top or bottom of the screen to activate a user-interface.
The user can then change the volume, switch channel or carry out other functions by looking at icons shown on the display.

Applications
Apart from TV, the eye-tracking technology originally aimed at helping disabled people control computers. Potential applications include gaze-controlled car information systems, surgery room image display screens, and video games.

New levels of viewer engagement?
Whilst still at prototype stage, Gaze TV’s elimination of the remote-control offers potential for whole new levels of family disagreement, apart from the hazard of high-speed random channel switching caused by a family member nodding off during the boring parts…
It is also a step up from attempts to involve family pets in the viewing process

However, the real issue for advertisers has to be the renewed pressure on maintaining viewer engagement, the need to refine the message to a precise and unique fit with consumer need, linked with a solution that delivers above expectation, better than alternatives available, or else…. 

Living above the shop – optimising incremental space in retail

Houses and gardens have been built on top of the eight-storey Jiutian International Plaza in the densely populated Chinese city of Zhuzhou, where residential space is scarce at ground level.

In Brazil, false ceilings within reach of shoppers are used to merchandise Easter-eggs  with shoppers helping themselves (and paying!) during trips in the run-up to Easter.

Making chewing gum more Six-siting 
On a more mundane but equally creative level, unfazed by a dual-siting tradition, Adams gum were able to secure six separate sitings of their medicated chewing gum in Loblaws of Canada  by creating incremental space via blister-packs on walls and columns throughout the store near dental, confectionery, medicine, kids lunch and strong-tasting food categories, each site separately coded to check ROI per location.

In other words, when pressed for space in retail, creating incremental space can be the answer…

Application in the High Street
In the same way, incremental restoration of the living space above the shop could be a way of reviving UK high streets (see High Street revival recipe )

The online space-threat
However, for the truely creative thinker, the real use/threat of incremental space in retail has to be the growth of online in a flat-line market means that with a 13% share and growing at 14%, physical retail space in the UK is already 13% over capacity….
This means that retailers have to be increasingly open to ideas for optimisation of existing and incremental space by imaginative NAMs…

Couldn’t work here?
Perhaps these initiatives need to be forced a little, in these unprecedented times? 

Just a virtual Hut?

Following the success of Amazon, it is unlikely that many will underestimate the potential of The Hut, especially given the direct involvement of Terry Leahy and now Stuart Rose…
For those who may have been a little distracted by the 7 years preparation for the Olympics, The Hut sells fast moving consumer goods that are non-perishable with high levels of repeat purchase, and premium luxury products with higher average unit sales and strong consumer loyalty.

Investment and backing
The business has expanded greatly since their launch in 2004, and with the help of c£75m (raised over three years from both individual investors such as Terry Leahy and financial institutions).

Key websites
This investment capital has funded the organic launch of websites across a number of sectors including clothing, footwear, bags and accessories plus a number of acquisitions including gifts, health & beauty HB1, HB2, HB3  and sports nutrition, a total of 16 web-sites.
The Hut Group’s huge customer base is split between Consumer, Prestige and Lifestyle with fashion falling under both Consumer and Prestige

Making The Hut real for suppliers 
The issue for suppliers is how to justify treating the Hut as a major customer, with a share of attention and NAM-talent far in excess of its actual size, when many suppliers  allocate resource and talent based on historical size of business.
These same suppliers normally have no problem allocating their best brand managers to embryo products, leaving their lesser talent to maintenance marketing of established brands.

Treating retailers and brands ‘equally’
This all goes back to the need to treat customers as equivalent business units to brands of the same size, never forgetting that in the end brand equity is sacrosanct.
However, if a customer generates 10% of sales and profit, and a brand represents 10% of sales and profit, then surely they require equivalent resourcing, at least… The same holds for potential shares of the business
Finally, if anyone at board level lacking a sales background needs convincing, it might be worth pointing out that a major customer represents a gateway to the consumer, and is in a position thereby to concentrate or dilute the brand message, depending on how well it appears to fits with the store offering…

The Hut is already too real to either ignore or short-change in terms of resourcing…  

Olympics brand police - how companies are challenging the limits

A crackdown by 'logo police' on brands being linked to the Olympics without official sponsorship rights have been accused of "lunacy" for ordering shops to remove sausages, flowers and bagels shaped as the Olympic rings.

Some food stalls in the Olympics village are selling chocolate, chewing gum and savoury snacks from under the counter as they cannot display items not produced by key sponsors. However, as always, satire is proving to be one of the unintended consequences of the ban.

• Glasses company Specsavers used a diplomatic blunder by Olympic staff mixing up the North and South Korean flags at a football game to design an ad written partly in Korean with the two flags and a strapline: "Should have gone to Specsavers"
• Oddbins, has offered 30 percent discount to customers with a list of items of non-Olympics sponsors such as Nike trainers, Vauxhall car keys, an RBS MasterCard, an iPhone, a bill from British Gas and a receipt for a Pepsi bought at KFC..
• Bookmaker Paddy Power was told to remove posters advertising its official sponsorship of the "largest athletics event in London this year", referring to an egg and spoon race in London in Savigny-sur-Seille, France. LOCOG backed down and the posters are still up

Have an anarchically Olympian weekend, from the NamNews Team!
...ideally in the  "Capital of England during the Sport Matches that Occur Every Four Years during the Southern Hemisphere Winter, Which Happens to Be in This Year We Are in Now"
OK LOCOG?   (source: Gawker.com)

Need your Amazon delivery yesterday?

With Amazon's increasingly accurate profiling, coupled with its move to same day delivery, how far are they away from being able to so predict your needs and ability-to-pay that they can anticipate your requirement and ship the day before you order…?
With a no-questions-asked returns policy, who cares if they (or you!) get it wrong sometimes?
The ultimate in permission marketing?

Fussy about surrendering so much to a retailer?
Then how about using your favourite grocer as a source for all your groceries (from womb to tomb) and non-food; buying, paying for and insuring your house, undergoing health-checks and sourcing prescriptions, collecting and spending the points, and availing of some cash-back at the checkout?

In fact, just steps away from arranging for your salary to be paid directly to the retailer’s new bank to fulfil all your spending needs…savvy?

Underestimating Amazon?  

Pop-up Britain, an answer for UK High Streets?

                                                                                         pic: Business Matters Magazine

StartUp Britain has today opened the first of its revolutionary PopUp Britain shops, offering start-up businesses a unique low-cost opportunity to experience life on the high street.

This unprecedented scheme will help to revive the UK’s flagging high street by making use of co-funded empty shops. StartUpBritain’s first PopUp, opposite Richmond station, will provide retail space for six start-up businesses. The store will get backing from the scheme's sponsors: John Lewis will fit-out the shop, the businesses will be insured by AXA. Each business will also get a Dell laptop, access to PayPal's online internet payment system and a copy of Intuit's Quickbooks accounting software.
StartUp Britain was founded 15 months ago by a group of eight entrepreneurs to encourage small business startups, winning support from government. However they rely for funding from the private sector via sponsorship.

A great idea in unprecedented times, but as David Prosser in the Independent notes, ‘if the state is going to leave it to volunteers to deliver its stated desire of boosting entrepreneurialism, it must at least have the decency to get out of the way. If local authorities play ball, and the scheme gets a fair wind from other public-sector bodies, StartUp High Street is an idea which might just make a real difference. For example, local authorities will need to be supportive about allowing these retailers to trade — waiving planning permission restrictions, say’.

Facebook, Walmart chiefs 2-day meeting to "deepen" relationship…

In a unique move aimed at adding the biggest retail player to his list of friends, Mark Zuckerberg and his senior management team will spend two days at Walmart’s Bentonville home office this week, meeting with executives of the world's largest retailer and discussing ways to "deepen" their relationship.

Many investors and analysts believe the company could tap into a new source of revenue by playing a bigger role in online retail sales, perhaps taking a cut of transactions generated on its social network.
Walmart's Facebook page has more than 17 million fans and expanding its reach online is key for Walmart as shoppers increasingly shop via their computers, tablets and smartphones.

Implications

1. With each one formidable in its own right, this potential linking has to produce mega-synergies for the two giants, with knock-on repercussions for us all…
2. The move is partly a case of Walmart playing e-catchup with ‘Amazing Amazon’ whose online sales of $48bn last year were, or should have been, a surprise to most rivals, traditional and online…
3. It also strengthens the case for Saturday morning NAM trade-strategy meetings, starting like Walmart at 0730 to maximise output, away from the distractions of a NAM’s Mon-Fri 9-5 weekday-job?

However, supplier-CEOs eager to retrieve this ‘down time’ should bear in mind that since the passing of Sam, even Walmart’s Saturday morning meetings are down to one per month, and the presence of celebrity guests like Harrison Ford, Emilio Estevez and "Twilight" star Robert Pattinson; singers including Sheryl Crow and Jewel; and Steve Jobs’ biographer Walter Isaacson, has been required to add extra appeal…. 

Have a turbo-friending weekend, from the NamNews Team!

Mash vending: 7-Eleven vending machine dispenses mashed potato and gravy

The Maggi mash-dispenser appears to be going down well in Singapore, where potato lovers in the city-state have been enjoying the spud-based snack at 7-Eleven stores for a while now.
Worth keeping in mind that its not about us, its about the consumer...

Doubters might also reflect on the fact that 7-Eleven, the world's most successful convenience operator doesn't carry any product-passengers....  So perhaps it is worth a try?

Next step, single-strand spaghetti?