World's First Diamond-Dispensing ATM Launches in India

The Gitanjali Group, which claims to be the world's biggest integrated manufacturer of branded jewellery, opened the machine in a luxury shopping mall in Mumbai last Sunday and said that it already served a "substantial number of customers."

It hopes to roll out 75 more of the ATMs -- which also sell gold and silver coins -- in shopping malls, airports and at Hindu temples.

A pointer for other countries and categories?

"NAM-flu" is real to a fifth of British women!

One in five British women believe that the debilitating "NAM-flu" disease which temporarily leaves male sufferers prostrate on the sofa watching televised sports is real, according to a new study.

The survey, which questioned 2,000 British adults about health and wellbeing, showed that misconceptions and old wives' tales, including the myth that eating carrots improves night vision, prevail among the population when it comes to beliefs about common illnesses.

More than a third of people said that sugar makes children hyper, and 37 percent said they believed we lose most of our body heat through our heads -- the most popular misconception of the survey, despite millions spent on consumer health and education.

However, the survey is weakened somewhat by its endeavours to show that when illness strikes, almost half of people agreed that men exaggerate their symptoms to get attention, with 38% also believing that men take longer to recover from illness than women.

NB Additional indepth research on man-flu diagnosis and treatment now available

Have a gentle, comfy weekend. From the Namnews Team! 

Waitrose & Co-op demand price-cuts from suppliers

The retailers’ recent demands for up to 5% reduction on future payments has major implications for suppliers’ profitability following years of absorbing energy and ingredient cost increases.

A supplier with sales of £1m to a customer, on a net profit of 7.5% needs incremental sales of £666k to fund the reduction….

i.e. 5% of £1m = £50k = 7.5% of the incremental sales required to generate £50k. i.e 50k/7.5 x 100 = £667k

A retailer on 4% net profit receives a benefit equivalent to incremental sales of £1250k i.e. £50/4 x100.

It can therefore be seen why they do it, and why it will be difficult to insist upon fair share negotiation.

The numbers may help…

NamCalc shows how…

Sharks make Aussie golf course lake a real hazard

KAMs not wishing to lose contact with day-job sharks might wish to consider a weekend round of golf in Brisbane Golf Club?

Following flooding in the 1990s, the new lake was found to contain six man-eating bull sharks, each over 2.5m long, making ball-recovery a hazard.

The sharks have become renowned in the region and there is even a monthly tournament called the "Shark Lake Challenge."

Have a swinging Jaws weekend, from the Namnews Team!

Adding value to Sainsbury's instore braille initiative

Having becomethe first British supermarket to incorporate Braille signage, Sainsbury's could perhaps move further ahead by linking with Nokia’s touchscreen device that puts braille at the fingertips of the visually impaired.

Nokia and collaborators at the Tampere University in Finland have come up with a braille app for the blind and visually impaired.

It captures received SMS messages and brings them to the foreground for reading using braille and tactile feedback

An opportunity for all retailers to provide real value to disadvantaged customers?

Literary Giant rates grocery trade journalism

                                                                                   pic by Jason Carlin

Recently discovered letters of Samuel Beckett (Waiting for Godot) reveal that in 1946 he considered applying to RGDATA in Dublin

“…. I see advertised in to-day’s Irish Times an editorial vacancy on the staff of the RGDATA (Retail Grocery Dairy and Allied Trades-Association) Review at £300 per annum. I think seriously of applying. Any experience of trade journalism would be so useful.”

As you might expect, the entire Namnews team have taken this very much to heart as encouragement in pursuit of their literary endeavours….

Paypal helping to exploit “new normal” of seamless shopping

Shopping is now 24×7 and it happens everywhere – not just in a store or website. The intersection of smartphones, social media, online and offline shopping has put the consumer squarely in control.

The payment services firm plans to add several new features in the coming months, including mobile payments, barcode scanning using handheld devices, store inventory lookup, virtual wallet and location-based offers.

In other words, an opportunity for retailers to engage their customers directly during every part of the shopping lifecycle –  generating demand from consumers through location-based offers, making payments accessible from any device (not just from the mobile phone), and offering more flexibility to customers even after they’ve checked out

In effect, PayPal is re-imagining money and making it work better for retailers and consumers – whatever device they are on, wherever in the world, and however they prefer to pay (whether cash, credit, or instalments), making it fun to pay…..

The company reports its new services will help drive its volume of transactions in 2012 beyond the $100bn forecast for 2011, up from $92bn in 2010.

Have a fun-payment weekend, from the Namnews Team!

When ‘Every little may not help…’

News that Sainsbury's is dropping its "try something new today" positioning after six years in favour of a "live well for less" commitment to its customers reflects both the pressures being put on its customers, and takes the company back to its roots, which is great quality food at great prices.  

However, a US study in the Journal of Consumer Research reveals a strange facet of consumer behaviour: people behave differently when they encounter companies' brands than they do when they encounter their slogans. In one example, exposure to the retailer brand name Walmart, typically associated with saving money, reduces subsequent spending, whereas exposure to the Walmart slogan, (Save money. Live better.) increases spending, In another study, consumers who were subliminally exposed to the word "slogan" wanted to spend more when exposed to a savings message and less when exposed to a sentence that encouraged luxury spending.

Fortunately retailers can rapidly change stance based upon immediate sales performance, whilst  brand owners are locked into change for at least a year..