Centives

Mark Ellwood showed how customers can take advantage of secret discounts that luxury stores offer:

• Stores that sell luxury products want to get rid of old inventory like any other store. But they don’t want to have traditional sales as they’re afraid it’ll affect their brand.
• Instead they’ve come up with creative ways to offer secret discounts.
• Many stores only inform their most loyal customers about clandestine sales. This way the mass public doesn’t know that the store sometimes has low-priced products, while loyal customers are rewarded for their business.
• To join the list of people who are informed of the sales, one merely needs to identify a specific salesperson, visit them regularly, buy a couple items at full price, and then exchange business cards.
• Others have VIP membership programs that offer substantial discounts to the top 1,000 highest spending customers – giving them a reason to spend even more.
• Sales representatives sometimes have the leeway to offer discounts of up to 10%. You’ll have to work to get it though since representatives get to keep the 10% if the customer isn’t offered it.
• Offering to pay in cash can lead to significant savings.
• Knowing former employees of the store can also help. One chain gives those who have worked for the company for over a decade a lifetime discount.

Read more about how to find the furtive discounts, other insider tips, and more over here.

Source: Slate

Room service may be coming to an end but the age of the specialty concierge is upon us writes Catey Hill:

• High end hotels are offering specialized ‘concierges’ or butlers who attend to select requests.
• A bubble bath concierge works with you to select the right combination of salts, oils, and scents to make the perfect 104 degree bubble bath.
• A soap concierge shows up with an assorted variety of giant soap blocks. They include soaps that are made locally and those infused with things such as chocolate and lavender. The concierge will then slice off a piece of your desired soap and give it to you.
• Fragrance butlers show up with a platter of the top perfumes.
• A hangover concierge (or “recovery” concierge) helps you recover from a hangover through massages, fresh fruit, or Bloody Marys.
• A romance concierge helps arrange moonlit beach dinners, and serenaded sunset cruises.

Read more about the types of concierges that hotels are beginning to offer, where you can find them, what they cost, and how much you should tip over here.

Source: MarketWatch

Christopher Mims wrote about the automation of coffee:

• New startups are trying to dethrone Starbucks by taking the barista out of coffee production. Instead machines produce the perfect drink each time, every time.
• The machines themselves are about double the size of a phone booth and can be dropped in places that a Starbucks traditionally can’t go such as hospitals, company campuses, and airport halls.
• The machines were trained by an award winning barista. The barista may well age and die but his expertise will live on through the machine.
• Customers can use the touch screens to make the most decadent cup of coffee without fear of being judged by human baristas.
• A mobile app allows users to order their drink in advance and have it prepared by the time they arrive at the machine.
• Individuals can create their own drink recipes and then share them across social networks.
• The coffee is cheaper than at Starbucks – in part because companies don’t have to pay for overhead such as employees and rent.

The full article talks about the type of coffee that is made, why each cup of coffee is identical, the competitors entering the space, and what Starbucks thinks about this all. Find it here.

Source: Quartz

People are increasingly opting to produce their own eggs writes The Economist:

• As a result of the financial crisis and a general interest in home-grown food people have been purchasing chickens in order to get fresh eggs.
• About 1% of households in American cities appear to have chickens.
• At their peak chickens produce eggs every 25 hours. But they only manage that for a couple years.
• Hens can live for up to ten years though – in fact there’s still a seventeen year old who still manages to pop out an egg every now and then.
• Elderly hens that can no longer earn their keep as well as accidentally purchased roosters have been abandoned en masse and this has led to the rise of shelters that specialize in taking care of the birds.
• Some co-operatives have cut to the chase and are offering chicken-culling classes.
• All in all it probably isn’t worth it for the economics of the egg alone. Between bedding and vet bills it’s cheaper to just buy eggs at the supermarket. But some like it as a hobby.

Read more here.

Source: The Economist

This entire government shutdown business may well have been a plot by the most powerful squirrels in the world writes Eddie Gehman Kohan:

• As a result of the government shutdown the Whitehouse gardens are no longer being maintained and produce is literally rotting on the vine.
• The squirrels have taken advantage of this to have a feast.
• They’ve also invited birds and worms to the party.
• There’s a fox running around that nobody is allowed to catch anymore.
• If things continue as they have it’s possible that the squirrels will feast on the Presidential pumpkins that will no longer be harvested.

See images of the enemy in action here.

Source: Obama Foodorama

Ben Fritz wrote about the insane lengths that movie studios often go to, to prevent their scripts from leaking:

• Christopher Nolan and J.J. Abrams are (in)famous for the secrecy they demand for their scripts. For Star Trek Into Darkness for example, those who wanted to read the script had to find the one physical copy tucked away in a nondescript location and printed on red paper which is difficult to photocopy…and read.
• The script for Pacific Rim could only be read on a special tablet app that would self-destruct after a few hours.
• Even movie adaptions of books – which anybody can read the plot of – command heightened secrecy. Every copy of The Hunger Games scripts have a few words changed. By checking out which version of the script leaks they know exactly who to fire.
• Studios are doing this because often times when a script is leaked critics pan the writing, depressing theater attendance from audiences who never even give the film a chance.

Read more about some of the other measures used to protect scripts, movies that have famously leaked, and more over here.

Source: The Wall Street Journal

One of the perks of corporate travel is that the company often pays for all expenses on a corporate credit card. Catey Hill looked at what business people do with this freedom:

• Despite not having to pay for their own meals, fast food restaurants are the top destination for individuals expensing their meals.
• Starbucks is the number one go to destination for corporate meals. McDonald’s and Subway take second and third place.
• Overall the average corporate meal costs $18.72.
• The amount spent varies significantly based on the restaurant it is spent at. At Starbucks the average meal costs $9.51. At Panera it’s $35.35.
• Other popular eating establishments for those armed with corporate cards include the Cheesecake Factory, and TGI Friday’s.

Read more here.

Source: Market Watch

Ashley Madison is a “dating” service that focuses on facilitating extramarital affairs. According to Lynnley Browning it’s incredibly successful:

• The site made $30 million last year and expects $40 million this year.
• There are now 12.7 million members in the United States and 8.7 million overseas.
• The fastest growing markets are in Japan and Hong Kong.
• It makes its revenues by selling credits that allow male members to use its secure email facilities. People can buy additional services such as a $20 “Travelling Man” program for business travelers.
• There’s also insurance in the form of a $249 guarantee that promises a full refund if a member is unable to set up an encounter within three months.
• Women can use the site’s basic features for free.
• The city with the most infidelity is, of course, the seat of American politics: Washington D.C. 6.2% of all residents are members of the site almost twice as many as second placed Austin.
• Males who work in finance are most likely to use the site. The same is true for females in education.
• Membership spikes after days with celebrations of commitment such as Valentine’s Day and New Year’s.
• There are four times as many 39 year old men as there are 38 year olds. The fear of turning 40 appears to have a weird effect on men.

The full article has many more details, talks about other services that users can purchase, why if it ever has an IPO stocks will likely be a bargain, and the (married) founder of the site and where he got his inspiration. Find it here.

Source: Newsweek

Via: Marginal Revolution

The always excellent Cracked wrote about misidentified national symbols:

• Fortune cookies are actually Japanese. However after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor during WW2, Americans were loath to eat in Japanese restaurants. Chinese entrepreneurs stepped into the breach by offering politically acceptable Asian food – and that had to include fortune cookies.
• Bagpipes were Roman. Ceasar is thought to have marched on Britain with a group of Bagpipers in tow, scaring what would become the Scots. The Scots were so impressed by the instruments that they adopted them for their own.
• Russian nesting dolls. Those dolls you see where progressively smaller versions of the same doll are nested within each other? They’re Japanese, although the Japanese version depicted an old bald man and had so many figurines that the final one was as small as a grain of rice. Russian artists took the concept, slapped a woman onto them, and sold them as their own.

The full list shows why Budweiser isn’t really American and why Pinatas are Chinese (or, at a stretch, Italian). It’s a funny read. Find it here.

Source: Cracked

One of the five pillars of Islam is Hajj where a Muslim is expected to visit Mecca, if they are able to, at least once in their life, during the final month of the Islamic Calendar. The Economist looked at some of the economics behind it:

• Mecca is located in Saudi Arabia and pilgrimages to the site bring in $16.5 billion – 3% of Saudi Arabia’s GDP.
• With the rise of the Middle East trips to Mecca have become increasingly upscale. Luxury hotels have opened as well as souvenir shops who make so much money from the trips that they only bother to open during the Hajj.
• Airlines and hotels jack up their prices during the season leading to fears that the poor are being priced out of the experience.
• However since for many it is a once in a lifetime experience, Muslims save up for years and are willing to splurge on the trip.
• Islamic religious tourism is so lucrative that Dubai is planning to build a Holy Koran theme park to draw some of the market within its own borders.

Read more about the Hajj, and other details about religious tourism – Islamic and otherwise – over here.

Source: The Economist