STORES Magazine - February 2008 - (Page 24) fullprice/markdown Little Pink Stun Gun THE UBIQUITY of the phrase “don’t RK- taser me, bro” underscores just how MA WN pervasive electronic shock weapons DO have become. Still, news of women hosting home Taser parties and buying $350 weapons as if they were fashion accessories is a bit unsettling. At last month’s International Consumer Electronics Show, Taser officials announced that the Taser C2 is now available in leopard print, ‘’fashion’’ pink and ‘’red-hot’’ red. The company also debuted a new product — the Taser MPH (music player holster). The unit holds 1GB of music, allowing wearers to listen to a variety of songs while carrying stun guns on their hips. The C2 consumer-level Taser gun requires buyers to undergo a background check before the weapon can be unlocked for use. Still, treating a weapon like a fashion accessory seems to trivialize the power it has to inflict harm. & RETAIL HITS MISSES and they’re willing to help by selling reusable bottles. Advertising Age reports that the environmentally themed campaign is in the process of collecting one million used water bottles. Each will be stuffed with pro-tap water messages and sent, en masse, to incoming CocaCola CEO Muhtar Kent. The overarching theme of the campaign is “Think Global. Drink Local,” and the goal is to have the bottles delivered by July. Tappening was recently named a hot item for 2008 by trendwatcher Jane Buckingham on ABC’s “Good Morning America,” suggesting this may be something retailers should keep tabs on. Some 39,000 reusable, bottles imprinted with the “What’s Tappening?” logo were sold within a few days of the campaign’s November launch. Wegmans Kicks the Habit AS OF FEBRUARY 10, Wegmans is stamping out sales of cigarettes and other tobacco products at its supermarkets, becoming the first grocery chain in New York State to do so. “As a company, we respect a person’s right to smoke, but we also understand the destructive role smoking plays in health,” CEO Danny Wegman said in a statement. In a letter to employees announcing the decision, Wegman also outlined plans to introduce a voluntary smoking cessation program. Wegmans’ cigarette sales have declined over the years, but the category has remained profitable for the chain. It did not accept promotional dollars or displays from tobacco companies, and thus did not discount tobacco products. Target Corp. halted system-wide cigarette sales in 1996. L FULCE RI P FreshDirect Pumps Biodiesel ONLINE FOOD SELLER FreshDirect expects to have converted its 150-vehicle delivery fleet to biodiesel by the end of this month. In December, the New York-based retailer signed a contract with Tri-State Biodiesel to begin the conversion process. By the end of February, the entire fleet will have switched over to B5 biodiesel — a blend of 5 percent biodiesel and 95 percent regular diesel. FreshDirect has been donating cooking oil from its kitchen for use in Tri-State’s nontoxic diesel fuel. Fresh Direct is in good company. Safeway has converted its entire California and U.S. truck fleet, more than 1,000 trucks, to cleaner-burning biodiesel fuel. FreshDirect will also begin testing idling-reduction technologies to allow truck engines to be turned off automatically after three minutes during loading and delivery. L FULCE PRI WWW.STORES.ORG Something’s Tappening Here THIS MAY BE hard to swallow for Americans who’ve had a decades-long love affair with bottled water. Still, a new marketing campaign, called Tappening, is urging consumers to give up those sports bottles and go back to drinking tap water – L FULCE PRI 24 STORES / FEBRUARY 2008 http://WWW.STORES.ORG
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