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?	Retail Facts & Figures: ?Only 12% of stores checked by the State of Arizona Department of Weights and Measures had 100% accurate prices at checkout scanners. Fines are given to stores that fail accuracy tests. For example, Circle K was fined $43,800. (The Tucson Citizen newspaper December 23, 2000 reporting on 187 inspections between 12/1/99 and 12/00 in Department Stores, Food Stores, Toy Stores, Home Improvement Centers and Pet Stores) ?Each week Target delivers three planeloads of signs from the company's production center for distribution to individual stores. (Doug Daniels, Xerox Account Manager for Target Stores, December 2000) ?Home Depot carries 5 million sku's; 14,000 of these items change prices on any given day. Two years before it ran into trouble in Massachusetts, Home Depot was served with a $250,000 civil penalty in Michigan in connection with violations of the state's item-pricing laws. (Chain Store Age, September 1, 2000) ?One of every 30 items checked was mispriced among over 100,000 items inspected for accuracy in 37 random retail locations around the country in 1998. (Federal Trade Commission report, December 16, 1998) ?"It's [item pricing laws] especially troublesome during the current tight labor market when the business would rather have employees serving customers instead of going around mindlessly putting stickers on items." says Tom Scott, Michigan Retailers Association's VP of Public Affairs. (Chain Store Age, September 1, 2000) ?In, November of 1999, JC Penney incurred a $100,000 penalty for checkout scanner error rates up to 61% at one Michigan store. (PR Newswire November 28, 2000) ?Point of purchase is an integral element in the advertising arsenal of major brands and retailers and is growing in importance. According to the most recent industry forecast from Veronis, Suhler & Associates, 1999 spending on point of purchase materials (including permanent and temporary displays, in-store media and signage) was estimated to have increased 5.1 percent over 1998 and accounts for $14.4 billion in annual spending by brands and retailers. For 2000, the growth is projected to increase to 5.2 percent and represent a $15.2 billion industry - and this doesn't even include in-store sampling or demonstrations. (Point of Purchase Magazine) ?"Slotting fees," long extracted from foodmakers just to get their goods on the shelf, are running at a level of $1 billion a year. On top of those, manufacturers pay some $25 billion a year in "trade dollars" to get retailers to promote and discount their products. In 1978 manufacturers spent 5% of sales on trade promotions; today it's up to 13%. (Forbes, June 12, 2000) ?Displays tested in retail stores achieved up to 317% sales gains compared with no display and up to 147% from the same display when motion was turned off. A display with an image of a hand loading and unloading camera film had the highest values. Average for 9 motion displays: 83% and 44% respectively. (Point-Of-Purchase Advertising International, August 1998) ?70% of retailers surveyed prefer advertisers to provide a display with motion over the same display without motion. (Point-Of-Purchase Advertising International, August 1998) ?Approximately $250,000 per week is spent on changing signs at each individual major U.S. department store. Three part time workers are exclusively charged with changing the signs at these individual stores and approximately $1 million a month is spent on their wages. (U.S. Department Stores) Environment Facts - Paper Production: ?The United States consumes 30 percent of the world's paper. (World Watch Institute, 1999) ?In the United States, the average office worker uses some 12,000 sheets of paper per year. (World Watch Institute, 1999) ?Each year the United States uses 335 kilograms of paper per person. (One kilogram of paper is roughly equal to two daily New York Times.) (World Watch Institute, 1999) ?Each year the United States sends more paper to the landfill than is consumed by all of China - the world's second largest paper consumer. (World Watch Institute, 1999) ?In the United States, paper accounts for nearly 40 percent of all municipal solid waste. (World Watch Institute, 1999) ?Global paper use has grown more than six-fold since 1950. (World Watch Institute, 1999) ?One fifth of all wood harvested in the world ends up as paper. (World Watch Institute, 1999) ?Pulp and paper is the 5th largest industrial energy consumer in the world, using as much power to produce a ton of product as the iron and steel industry. (World Watch Institute, 1999) Back to Press Kit