Retailers Fight Inflation, Rising Fuel and Food Prices
Like most Americans, retailers have been struggling...

with the rising cost of fuel. It now costs retailers substantially more to buy goods from manufacturers whose own costs are rising, and it costs more for retailers to ship merchandise from distribution centers to stores. But retail companies would prefer not to push those cost increases down the chain to customers.
Marketing in the Recommendation Age
As customer review venues and their influence increase,

business owners should capitalize on this trend. If you're still talking about how to market in the Information Age, catch yourself--that was so five years ago. We're now in a booming Recommendation Age. Getting hundreds of search engine results from one keyword loses more of its novelty and efficiency every day as consumers opt for recommendations from real people.
What is the Future of Email Marketing?
An old digital format still has plenty of life left

Compared with today's virtual worlds, e-mail is solidly Web 1.0--an almost archaic communication channel. Yet e-mail works, and marketers and advertisers keep putting it to new uses. Moreover, consumers--whose opinions are the ones that matter--genuinely like e-mail. Nearly three-quarters of adult e-mail users in North America said they used it every day, according to an April survey conducted by Ipsos for Habeas.
Social Networks Offer Demographic Info. on Viral Videos
The website's Insight service gives those who post videos

Three days after Weezer posted its music video "Pork & Beans" on YouTube, 2.2 million people had watched it. And 65% of them were men. The heavily male demographic surprised the band's marketing team, which three months ago wouldn't have been able to find out about the gender, or much else, of the people clicking on one of Weezer's videos. A feature called YouTube Insight, introduced in March, gives YouTube account holders who have uploaded videos...
9 Reasons to Love Credit Cards
Plastic offers an array of protections and sweet perks


A reader recently mistook me for someone who hated credit cards. He wanted to enlist me in his battle against evil plastic and spread the word that credit cards were the gateway to debt hell. But he picked the wrong woman. I hate credit card debt. But I love credit cards.