Firms Find Fiestas Are Helping Their Bottom Line
As if the high price of electricity wasn’t enough, things are going to get worse.
Consumers and companies will be paying more to heat their homes and businesses this winter, as natural gas and heating oil prices near historic heights.
So said Jack Faris, president and CEO of the Washington, D.C.-based business advocacy group the National Federation of Independent Business.
Faris pointed to Associated Press reports stating that energy markets surged in August after an unexpected drop in U.S. crude oil stockpiles, a pipeline explosion in California, and a hurricane, compounding already-low natural gas supplies.
This jolt will be passed on to consumers, who may end up paying double or triple the previous cost for heat. Experts and the media have been calling the upcoming season one of the most costly home heating seasons ever, even if temperatures aren’t abnormally low, he said.
“If we have a winter that’s just normal, we’re going to see potentially astronomical natural gas prices , much higher than we see today,” he said.
Home heating oil prices surged Wednesday, Aug. 23, to their highest since the Gulf War. Earlier industry surveys showed inventories of U.S. crude oil at a 24-year low, he said.
Since the mid-1990s, low energy prices caused some energy firms to decrease production. This decrease has been blamed for the steadily rising price of natural gas, Faris said.
Faris cited Edward Kelly of Cambridge, Mass.-based Cambridge Energy Research Associates, who said the current market is the most vulnerable it’s been since energy deregulation two decades ago.
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Fiesta Is The Word: For major businesses looking to expand into the local Hispanic community, fiesta seems to be the word of choice.
First came the move by McDonald’s Restaurants premiering their “Fiesta Menu,” seven Mexican-style items ranging from the Torta Guacamole Shredded Beef sandwich to the morning Chorizo Egg Burrito and the Dulce de Leche McFlurry.
Sauces available include red chili, jalape & #324;o, chipolte and pico de gallo, said Amy Jankowsky, spokeswoman for McDonald’s.
The food items, which debuted Aug. 21, are all based on actual sandwiches and sauces in Mexico, slightly altered to suit American tastes, Jankowsky said.
The Fiesta Menu is being offered only in Southern California, at 700 participating restaurants between San Diego and Ventura counties, she said.
Not to be outdone, Yellow Cab of San Diego, Inc. introduced a bilingual service dedicated to serving the Hispanic community.
Taxi Fiesta opened for business Aug. 23 with a ribbon-cutting ceremony attended by Councilman Juan Vargas, and Manny Aguilar, president of the San Diego Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, said Mireya Durazo, spokeswoman for Taxi Fiesta.
Taxi Fiesta is designed to serve the needs of Spanish-speaking clients with bilingual customer service agents and a fleet of 20 bilingual drivers, Durazo said.
E-Solution For Sports Retailer: One of the nation’s largest sporting goods retailers has called on a San Diego-based company to drive the fulfillment engine of its E-tail site, currently under development.
SVI, a global provider of multi-channel software solutions for the retail industry, announced Aug. 24 that its subsidiary, SVI Retail, has signed an agreement to provide Texas-based Academy Sports and Outdoors with its direct-to-consumer fulfillment solution, SVI Direct. Terms of the agreement were not disclosed.
SVI’s platform will help the traditionally brick-and-mortar Academy Sports and Outdoors to use the Internet as an alternate sales channel, said Lynn Caldwell, vice president of information systems for the sporting goods company.
Academy is SVI’s fulfillment engine because it has already been successfully integrated into the SVI merchandising solution Academy is already using, she said.
Mark Wulff, CEO of SVI Retail, said it was a good working relationship.
“We are seeing extensive interest in this solution as retailers face the new challenges represented by their presence on the Internet,” he said.
Other major SVI clients include Home Depot, JCPenney, Kaiser Permanente, The Limited, OfficeMax, the Ohio Department of Transportation, Toys “R” Us, the University of Missouri and Victoria’s Secret.
Please send all small business and retail items to Lee Zion at lzion@sdbj.com.
