stlplaceLast Updated on January 19, 2007 by stlplace
It seems like it. I noticed the Crocs Kiosk (pavilion) in the malls before Xmas. Now it looks they are going to open stores. The following is what I saw from Chesterfield Mall today.
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Update (19Jan07) I went to the mall again tonight, and found out they changed the display of the “store”. Obviously they are not going to open a Crocs store. This is just a place for display. Sorry for “pull the trigger too early”.
Last Updated on January 14, 2007 by stlplace
Because of the weather. Just when I felt I was lucky last night (this morning) my condo did not lose power this time, oops, the storm hit us. So next time I should not feel too good about it. Some of the Panera Bread stores also lost power, e.g., the one at Old Olive (where I usually go) and the New Ballas store, finally I set down at the Olive and Woodsmill store. You can imagine this is a very crowd place. Because I am not the only unlucky person.
Interestingly, at Panera I noticed there are three young kids wearing Crocs. I remember the article at fool.com in which the author tried to count the Crocs and Heelys at Disney World in Orlando: an informal way to gauge the popularity of those products.
While power outage bring inconveniene to ordinary people, how will it affect the business? Obviously not good for retailers, restaurants and hotels, because they lose business on this. Some grocery store has backup generator (Schnucks) but they can not generate enough power for the freezers. I can only think of one business currently benefit from this: the tree and limb services companies. They are probablly the busiest people besisdes Ameren UE people.
Last Updated on January 13, 2007 by stlplace
Are on sale, online or in the store. I bought one pair last weekend at Nordstrom West County store. Drive carefully if you go there today amid all the freezing rains.
Note the MSRP of Lucky Brand is usually more than $100, now you can get it about 50% off. I know it’s a bit expensive, but hey I would rather “being lucky” than “being good” 🙂
Last Updated on January 12, 2007 by stlplace
I noticed this a short while ago. Basically, if there is a valid US address in the Yahoo Mail, it will be shown underlined (dotted line). And if you move cursor to it, it will be highlighted. Then if you click on it, it will pop up the menu asking you if you want to see the Yahoo Map of that address. From there you can get the driving direction and alll the good stuff. Suddenly, Yahoo is cooler than Google 🙂
Last Updated on January 12, 2007 by stlplace
Because I found those so-called experts are not real “experts”, I am talking about many “experts” appeared on CNBC, the business cable channel. Actually one of my friend who studied in Finance had a worse comment on CNBC (he heard it from his professor). But lately I started to appreciate what he meant. For instance, the wild popular “Mad Money” show done by Jim Cramer, a statistics shows if you act according to his recommending, basically you are stand still because 50% of his recommends turn out to be true. Considering there are people actually act after watching his show, his actual performance is not even 49%. But I do like his straight talk style and some of his analysis though.
Last Updated on January 12, 2007 by stlplace
I don’t know the rationale behind this, but Cingular wireless is going to change back to AT&T name. I am not brand expert, nor marketing major, but this is a dumb move. A little background: when Southwest Bell (SBC) and Bellsouth created this wireless joint venture, they created this cool name “Cingular”, I remember my first wireless carrier was SBC Wireless, which is the ancester of Cingular. For a while I was puzzuled when my cell phone screen changed from “SBC wireless” to “Cingular”, wondering whether my phone is being hacked.
Last Updated on January 12, 2007 by stlplace
I mean not just my Heelys shoes, but also the HLYS stocks I bought at the its IPO. I borrowed this title from Rick Munarriz at fool.com, here is his article. In summary, here are what he said:
1) Heelys is going to have a blow out fourth quarter.
2) They may guide a little higher for Q1 2007, and beat it eventually. From my observation some Sports Authority stores are low on inventory. Note Q1 is usually the slowest season for Heelys.
3) Expand into other products, helmet, T-shirts, caps, etc.
Last Updated on January 11, 2007 by stlplace
I listened to some sessions the Ninth Annual Integrated Corporate Relations (ICR) yesterday and today. This is a series of company presentations to the investing community usually attended by financial analysts. I listened the web cast through this link (they put achive there too). I noticed this event from Yahoo Finance (CROX).
Besides learning more brands (apparel, footwear and restaurant), I also learned more about how business grows. Most participating companies are young, growing companies. By the way, those kind of investor conference call and company quarterly earning calls are excellent oppertunities to learn what’s going with a company. We can not do “store checking” for every company like I did with Heelys and Crocs 🙂
Last Updated on November 29, 2024 by stlplace
(Update 11-29-2024 Black Friday) A few months ago, my 14 year old told me the 4 brands and her feel (sports) about them.
Lululemon – tennis 🎾 || Personally I like its growth (stock: $LULU).
Nike – running 🏃
Aerie – pilates (note Aerie is a spin off brand from the American Eagle brand below)
Atheleta- yoga (note Atheleta is a spin off brand from Gap)
Also, recent shoe (sneakers) brands that teen likes: HOKA and On Cloud. To be precise, I saw older people are increasingly wearing those two brands too: in addition to the traditional brands – Adidas, Ascis, Brooks Running, New Balance, Nike and Saucony. I guess similar can be said about sports apparel in general, e.g., I saw a gentleman who is a bit older than me was wearing this brand provizsports yesterday at the Olivette Turkey Trot.
I am also aware of two luxury brands Alo and Vuori and they have stores in the Plaza Frontenac.
(04/04/2023 | 10:00:00 AM) Piper Sandler Completes 45th Semi-Annual Generation Z Survey of 5,690 U.S. Teens
(Original 2007) Got it from American Eagle ICR Xchange Investors conference call. Note Nike is the No. 1 brand in American teenagers, which made me recall the comment of salesman at Dick’s Sporting Goods “Nike, the best marketing company in the world.”
Last Updated on January 11, 2007 by stlplace
It looks like it. The unusually warm Winter in the US. The continuing cut of OPEC’s crude production. The change of hands in US congress (oil companies’ friends are no longer in charge). The emerging of alternative energy: solar is reality now, just by looking at the solar Panel manufacturers’ IPOs on the Nasdaq lately. Not surprisingly, some of those are from China.
I am not going to speculating on the oil price for the near term or long term. That’s not my specialty. But on a related issue, I am going to predict consumers are continuing to spend, whether in US or China. They will continue to buy cars, dresses, electronics, music, shoes, and going out for movies, latte and dinners. My problem is trying to figure out which company will get sustainable growth/profit out of this 🙂