Schnucks to Close Store at Delmar and Kingshighway
ST. LOUIS, MO (SLFP.com), March 28, 2004 - Schnuck Markets, Inc. has announced that they will not exercise their option to renew the lease on the 41,000-square-foot Delmar/Kingshighway store acquired in 1995 as part of the National Supermarkets acquisition.
The Schnucks store at 710 N. Kingshighway will close at 6 p.m. on Saturday, April 17. All 80 Delmar Schnucks associates will be transferred to similar positions in other Schnucks stores.
In an announcement, Craig D. Schnuck, chairman and chief executive officer, said, "There simply are not enough customers shopping our store to warrant an extension of the lease. Over the past nine years, we've worked hard to build customer traffic in a variety of ways including providing quality and value in products, extensive remodeling, heavy marketing and promotion and community outreach."
Schnuck said, "While customers have responded positively to our efforts, the store continues to register significant losses. Sales are at a bare minimum and will not offset escalating labor, utility and insurance costs."
Schnuck said that while the recent work stoppage was not a major factor in this decision, it did not help matters. "The financial losses sustained during the recent Local 655 work stoppage were significant and put a strain on our entire company. Year-to-date sales at this store have yet to return to expected, or pre-strike levels. Because our first concern always is for our customers, we put this particular store closing off longer than was prudent from a business standpoint."
According the Schnuck, increasingly heavy competition, rising labor costs and a sluggish economy have forced the company to make tough decisions. Although Schnuck said the company will continue to look for ways to operate more efficiently, no additional store closings have been announced.
Online Newspaper Users Are Younger, Better Educated and and Buy More Online
VIENNA, VA (PRNewswire), March 28, 2004 - People who regularly visit newspaper-produced Web sites are younger, better educated and more likely to be employed than general Internet users, according to a recent consumer study conducted for the Newspaper Association of America by MORI Research of Minneapolis. These visitors are also affluent and more likely to shop for and buy products online.
The study, titled "Power Users 2004: Newspapers' Online Audience in a Broadband World," expands upon a similar study conducted in 2002. Among its key findings:
- The mean age of online newspaper users is 38, compared with 45 for all Web users.
- Forty-four percent of online newspaper users are between 18 and 34.
- Fifty-four percent of visitors to newspaper Web sites have college degrees, compared with 45 percent of general Web users.
- Eighty-eight percent of newspaper Web site users are employed, compared with 73 percent for all Web user
- Eighty-four percent recently researched a purchase online, versus 59 percent for general Web users.
- Eighty-two percent recently made a purchase online, compared with 52 percent for the overall online universe.
"The important take-away here is that online newspaper readers are an extremely attractive audience for advertisers," said John E. Kimball, NAA senior vice president and chief marketing officer. "They truly represent a 'power user' class of Internet media consumers who have made online newspapers an integral part of their daily lives. They are getting the information they need through the newspaper brand -- regardless of the delivery vehicle."
The study results show that online newspaper users spend nearly double the amount of time online in a given week compared with the Internet population as a whole. They also are three times as likely to be online during the workday, twice as likely to have broadband access at work and 43 percent more likely to have broadband at home. They tend to be frequent visitors to newspaper sites with 87 percent visiting three to four times per week or more, including 38 percent who visit several times a day.
While they're affluent -- earning a mean income of $70,000 -- they're also more diverse: 20 percent are minorities and 55 percent are women.
The study drew its conclusions after interviewing 2,000 national Internet users via phone and 23,414 online newspaper users via online "pop-up" survey. Phone responses, representing the general Internet population, were weighted to the U.S. Census for age, gender, ethnicity and census zones. Online newspaper respondents were drawn from a dozen online newspaper sites of diverse sizes and locales. The MORI findings for the telephone and online surveys have a margin of error of 2.2 percent.
Chrysler Plant Recognized for Safety Achievements
ST. LOUIS, (PRNewswire), March 28, 2004 - Chrysler Group and the United Auto Workers (UAW) have been recognized by the National Safety Council (NSC), a leading independent authority, for the company's continued effort to improve its safety record.
One hundred and one Chrysler Group facilities were singled out for significant year-over-year improvements in 2003, contributing to a 70 percent reduction of injury and lost-time cases since 1999.
"With the inception of a joint program in 1999 between Chrysler Group and UAW called 'Bringing Excellence to Safety Teams' -- or BEST -- we've seen commitments from both management and union to deliver results," said Nate Gooden, UAW Vice President and Director of the DaimlerChrysler Department. "We are proud of the outcomes that BEST has helped us to achieve, and remain focused on even greater improvement in 2004."
Chrysler Group's performance in 2003 shows the continued emphasis it places on workplace safety. By delivering improved year-over-year results, 101 facilities earned a "Green Cross for Excellence," "Perfect" or "Significant Improvement" award.
The Green Cross for Excellence award is given to facilities that realized a 50 percent or better rate of improvement by reducing the number of injury- related lost work days, compared to the federal Bureau of Labor Statistics annual average for manufacturing/industrial companies. In 2003, 39 Chrysler Group locations received the Green Cross for Excellence.
In 2003, the Perfect award went to 12 of the company's facilities which had zero lost-work-time injuries at the facility, tripling the number from 2002.
Significant Improvement awards were given to work sites that exhibited at least a 20 percent reduction in lost-work-time injuries from the prior year. Fifty-one Chrysler Group work sites received that award.
The St. Louis Parts Distribution Center in Hazelwood received the Green Cross for Excellence and the Perfect Record. St. Louis North Assembly was honored for Significant Improvement.
Americans Are More Fearful of Fires Than a Terrorist Attack
NEW YORK, NY (PRNewswire), March 28, 2004 - According to the 2nd annual Duracell/Harris Interactive Study of Disaster Preparedness, nearly two-thirds (62 percent) of adults in America's largest cities say that being prepared for a potential disaster is a personal priority, however the same percentage do not have disaster preparedness plans in place.
While the nation continues to face the threat of terrorism, more than half of adult Americans (53 percent) said they are not fearful when the national terror threat level is raised by the Department of Homeland Security. Additionally, more than 80 percent of respondents indicated that they do not alter or change their plans when the national terror alert is changed.
The study also found that the disaster Americans fear most is no longer terrorism, but fire. While last year, Americans ranked the threat of terrorism on a nearly equal level as the threat of fire, 2004 data shows a 39 percent increase in the fear of fire, with nearly twice the number of respondents fearing a fire (39 percent) than fearing an act of terrorism (20 percent). Earthquakes (10 percent), tornadoes (10 percent) and other weather-related disasters rounded out the list of the most feared disasters.
"In an era of changing terror alert status and a year of hurricanes, fires and a major blackout, it's surprising that many Americans are still unprepared for a disaster," said Larry Rockwell, disaster services expert for the American Red Cross. "Our hope is that by raising awareness on this topic, every household will become more prepared for the unexpected by creating an action plan and putting together a disaster supply kit with all the essentials."
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