Hints and tips:
...Muscling in on their smaller brewing rivals, whose beers command higher prices and greater margins, was the obvious place for big beer to shop for growth. AB InBev has been particularly acquisitive....
...And mid-market grocers are in a crisis of their own with volumes and profitability falling as customers shop online and spending polarises between the discounters, such as Lidl or Aldi, and upmarket grocers...
...Americans are also using alternative financial services more, including payday loans, check cashing, money orders, pawn shops, and so on....
...The busiest period of the pawn shops is thus right after the Spring Festival, i.e. the New Year holiday....
...The shadow banks are more akin to pawn shops or loan sharks for small companies and start-ups....
...Middle-class Americans driving through seedy neighbourhoods express bafflement at seemingly ubiquitous cheque cashers, pawn shops and payday lenders....
...During the decade since the film’s release, Monsters Inc, The Incredibles, Ratatouille and Up have come along to show us what digital animation can really do....
...“Apple doesn’t have an ad platform,” JJ Richards (pictured) told me at this week’s Game Developers Conference in San Francisco....
...Unlike Direct Gold and Diamond customers in Flint, most guests at Gold Party Princess events “are people who wouldn’t dream of walking into pawn shops”, she says. “They’d be embarrassed.”...
...Visiting the local GameStop on San Francisco’s Powell Street has aspects of going to a pawn shop and an under-the-counter porn store rather than the expected video-game retail experience....
...The £32m acquisition of Herbert Brown in July last year, with 26 shops, had helped the group increase revenue 43 per cent to £46.9m. There was a 57 per cent rise in the pawn loan book to £24.8m....
...Dave Adelman, president of the National Pawnbrokers Association, said the number of loans at US pawn shops had risen 15-20 per cent since October....
...Online marketplaces such as Ebay are being used as internet pawn shops, and are largely unregulated,” he said....
...Take off your gold-plated watch and go down to your local Cash America pawn shop. They will be happy to loan you the money at a high interest rate. They are like the Starbucks of pawnshops....
International Edition