CSD Staff Jun 13, 2012 Traditional gasoline and c-store brands continue to sell the most gasoline, but consumers are increasing their tendency to fuel-up at grocers or warehouse retailers. A survey of 4,500 consumers, completed by Market Force Information, reports that Costco and Kroger are consumers’ favorite places to fill their gas tanks as of April 2012. The survey found that Shell, Costco and Kroger are top-picks for fuel among Americans. Consumers reported they stop at gas stations and c-stores based on location and availability. Both warehouse retailers and grocers are growing in sales and profits for the gasoline category, creating more competition for c-store and gas station operators. Although 56% surveyed said they visit national gas station brands to fill up, one-third (32%) stop at mass retailers and grocery stores, instead. The survey also found that convenience and price are top drivers for how consumers choose where to get…

Jun 12, 2012 CSNews WASHINGTON, D.C. — When it comes to consumers “following” retailers on social media sites, Facebook and Twitter are not No. 1. Instead, it’s Pinterest, according to the 2012 Social and Mobile Commerce Study. According to the study, a joint research project conducted by Shop.org, comScore and The Partnering Group, online U.S. consumers follow an average of 9.3 retail companies on Pinterest, compared to 8.5 retailers on Twitter and 6.9 on Facebook. “Retailers have done a commendable job embracing social media — engaging their customers where it makes sense while keeping their brand relevant, interesting, appealing and exciting on each platform,” said Shop.org Executive Director Vicki Cantrell. “Specifically, Pinterest has given retailers another channel to ‘listen’ to and interact with both existing and new customers, telling an ongoing visual story through images of their products and their brand ‘spirit,’ a story that customers can then tell again…

STEPHANIE STROM June 12, 2012 New York Times Frito-Lay has long dominated the snack-food business by relentlessly focusing on the middle swath of America that eats chips and pretzels and party mix without regard to the effect on the waistline. Now, though, Frito-Lay, a unit of PepsiCo, is building a “company within a company” to pursue what might be called a 1 percent-99 percent strategy: creating high-end snacks as well as those that appeal to what it diplomatically calls “value” customers. The effort is all about what Tom Greco, president of Frito-Lay North America, has called the “bifurcation” of American snackaholics. By that, he meant that “the rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer,” said Ann Mukherjee, chief marketing officer at Frito-Lay North America. “Demographics, the aging population and changing ethnic mix, and bifurcating income are the trends reshaping the way people are eating,” Ms. Mukherjee said.…

Bruce Kasanoff & Michael Hinshaw 06-04-2012 This article is written by a member of our expert contributor community. Fast Company Massive disruption is coming, and the only question is whether your firm is going to cause it or fall victim to it. Disruption is not easy–either to create or to confront. We have no illusions about that. But in the spirit of helping established firms best serve their customers, we offer seven ways your firm could disrupt its own industry, raising the standards of customer experience and creating new opportunities for growth: 1) Totally eliminate your industry’s persistent customer pain points. Each industry has practices that drive customers crazy. Technology providers drive customers crazy with technical support that often requires long waits on hold and hopelessly complex interactions (“Just find the serial number on the back of your device and type that into the space provided along with your IP…

June 13, 2012 The Age It’s better for businesses to adapt to the way the world now works. ONE of the first lessons economists teach us is that the economy moves in cycles of boom and bust. A second, trickier, lesson is that although most of the changes going on in the economy at any moment are ”cyclical” (temporary), there may also be changes driven by ”structural” (longer-lasting) forces. In a speech last week, Glenn Stevens, governor of the Reserve Bank, implied that much of the ”unrelentingly gloomy” public discussion about the economy may be caused by people mistaking structural problems for cyclical ones. Despite the official statistics saying the economy is quite healthy, people think it is weak and want the economy’s managers to get it moving by such standard remedies as a tax cut or a cut in interest rates. But if the problem is structural – if…

AAP June 13, 2012 A SODA war fizzed in New York as the city health department began to consider a proposal by health-conscious Mayor Michael Bloomberg to ban super-sized soft drinks. Bloomberg’s proposal on May 31 triggered a wave of reactions from the media, shop keepers, anti-obesity campaigners and New Yorkers who say they are tired of the mayor’s alleged “nanny state” tendencies. A full page ad in the commuter free sheet Metro showed a 32 oz soda cup of the kind popular in fast food restaurants and alongside this 26 packets of sugar. “Your kid just ate 26 packs of sugar,” the ad stated, before warning that “sugary drinks can bring on obesity, type 2 diabetes and heart disease.” But in the same paper a letter from a home soft drinks machine company denounced the threat of new rules. “New York doesn’t need this legislation. Let the people choose.”…