http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/77c0d690-fe3a-11df-abac-00144feab49a.html#axzz1BPK5HgI8
Summary
In the last couple of weeks, Britain has spent more on debit card payments than cash payments for the first time. According to their payment councils, Britain has spent 272 billion Euro on their debit transactions and also spent 269 billion Euro on cash payments. Now even though this isn't a significant difference, perhaps we can tell that the debit transactions will become greater as more years pass by. "Cash is too troublesome for many consumers these days, they would prefer a card for almost anything more than the smallest transactions," although this is a good change in the country, debit cards are still competing against credit cards. Another reason why debit card transactions rise was because consumers were spending too much on credit cards and as a result, consumers were in debt. "Consumers have noticed the need to repay credit borrowed, so consumers are increasingly choosing debit card over credit card," consumers have become more sensitive in Britain? "Contrary to expectation, the possibility of financial stress during recessions and beyond has not driven people to rely more on credit cards," this could mean that credit card companies could lose business with Britain due to consumer sensitivity.
Connection
In chapter 14, we discussed about debit cards and credit cards. The difference with these cards is that debit cards can use as either debit or credit card. Credit cards and only be used as a credit card. Basically you're spending your own money when using a debit card and you're spending someone else's money when using a credit card. However, it seems we have noticed either a technological change in Britain or, again consumer being sensitive now to how much they owe credit cards. As we all know credit cards can cause major debt issues if not aware. Generally speaking, if Britain is changing to debit cards than eventually, other countries will do the same because consumers will end up satisfied when not having to pay debt. For this reason, it could lead to credit card companies not making enough profit and lose against debit cards.
Reflection
In my opinion, let's overlook the advantages of credit cards. Usually, credit card is used to pay luxuries or anything that is really expensive. However, Visa has just made money off you if you did use their credit line due to interest rates. On the other hand, debit cards have a less disadvantage of paying high price items because you're limited to a certain amount of spending in your bank. I recall one time where I wanted to purchase a home theater system as a gift and wasn't allowed to because I was limited to spending and end up using cash which it did occur to me that it was quite troublesome. But, could this eventually lead to a downfall in companies such as Visa or Master? If you would imagine, in the next 2 or 3 years, maybe other countries would develop to not using credit cards because of debt and perhaps fraud. Cause every year, technological changes occur and this could be bad news for credit card companies.
Wednesday, January 19, 2011
Tuesday, October 19, 2010
Impact Of Rising Shipping Costs
http://www.vendingtimes.com/ME2/dirmod.asp?sid=EB79A487112B48A296B38C81345C8C7F&nm=Vending+Features&type=Publishing&mod=Publications::Article&mid=8F3A7027421841978F18BE895F87F791&tier=4&id=D5E6BD86A29144C39E1F85695FA0ABA4
Summary
Sources think that as of today or in the future, vendors will do better than other business'. Prices are changing constantly and probably one of the major factor that affects this, is raise in shipping prices. "Freight charges are skyrocketing" says a supplier, "suppliers have been consuming these charges and struggle to stay at the top". If operators don't agree that major prices in goods will begin to increase, than surely they're wrong. Business' have no choice but to increase their prices. Many obvious reasons why freight costs have been increasing is because ocean carriers began to lose profit in the past two years.
The big question was "How Bad Was It"? Well, according to shipping trade press, this so called "economic crisis" extended to the largest carriers (which makes things even worse). "Last year, almost every business lost money and carriers were in financial crisis, the lost of money ranged from 15-20 billion dollars. As the economy shows some sighs of recovery. carriers raised shipping prices (which is odd). Despite sighs of recovery, this alarmed a increase in freight volume. However, shipping industries were still being cautious and afraid of possible recession could decrease demands...again.
On land and in the air, transportation costs are continued to rise into 2011. In conclusion if demands increase then shipping traders will stay steady. If however, demands decrease then shipping traders will lose money.
Connection
One things for sure is that this is inevitable because it's just how business works. It's literally like a stock market, stocks go up and down, you make inferences, and either lose or gain money. From past experience, shipping rates were very high, companies such as USP charged me about 27 dollars just to ship out goods which is too much. Freight charges vary between demands, let's say if you're merchandise inventory was overstocked. Obviously the company will not order until they have sold a reasonable amount. Hence a decrease in demand will have to lead freight charges to decrease. If it was the opposite way around freight charges will obviously...increase.
Reflection
In my opinion, I think I can judge this article based on my experience with freight charges. Now one big question is, instead of using carriers (I understand thats it's a common way to get goods from third world countries) why not just go straight to the manufacturer and order by using a drop ship? Normally in some cases this isn't affordable but for big companies out there they should think about it. Of course small business' would have to use either cars or carriers to get the goods. Another good way to keep shipping traders to have a stable profit is to advertise goods on the internet. There are tons of online companies that sign a contract with carriers to share profit of the goods they sell. So why not other big companies take advantage of this to save some profit and possibly make more income?
Summary
Sources think that as of today or in the future, vendors will do better than other business'. Prices are changing constantly and probably one of the major factor that affects this, is raise in shipping prices. "Freight charges are skyrocketing" says a supplier, "suppliers have been consuming these charges and struggle to stay at the top". If operators don't agree that major prices in goods will begin to increase, than surely they're wrong. Business' have no choice but to increase their prices. Many obvious reasons why freight costs have been increasing is because ocean carriers began to lose profit in the past two years.
The big question was "How Bad Was It"? Well, according to shipping trade press, this so called "economic crisis" extended to the largest carriers (which makes things even worse). "Last year, almost every business lost money and carriers were in financial crisis, the lost of money ranged from 15-20 billion dollars. As the economy shows some sighs of recovery. carriers raised shipping prices (which is odd). Despite sighs of recovery, this alarmed a increase in freight volume. However, shipping industries were still being cautious and afraid of possible recession could decrease demands...again.
On land and in the air, transportation costs are continued to rise into 2011. In conclusion if demands increase then shipping traders will stay steady. If however, demands decrease then shipping traders will lose money.
Connection
One things for sure is that this is inevitable because it's just how business works. It's literally like a stock market, stocks go up and down, you make inferences, and either lose or gain money. From past experience, shipping rates were very high, companies such as USP charged me about 27 dollars just to ship out goods which is too much. Freight charges vary between demands, let's say if you're merchandise inventory was overstocked. Obviously the company will not order until they have sold a reasonable amount. Hence a decrease in demand will have to lead freight charges to decrease. If it was the opposite way around freight charges will obviously...increase.
Reflection
In my opinion, I think I can judge this article based on my experience with freight charges. Now one big question is, instead of using carriers (I understand thats it's a common way to get goods from third world countries) why not just go straight to the manufacturer and order by using a drop ship? Normally in some cases this isn't affordable but for big companies out there they should think about it. Of course small business' would have to use either cars or carriers to get the goods. Another good way to keep shipping traders to have a stable profit is to advertise goods on the internet. There are tons of online companies that sign a contract with carriers to share profit of the goods they sell. So why not other big companies take advantage of this to save some profit and possibly make more income?
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