Traditional return options just aren’t doing it for shoppers anymore. Consumers want more convenient and flexible choices, including more in-store returns for online purchases and designated locations to pick up and drop off packages, according to a global online survey by Narvar.
Archive for November, 2019
Walgreens, UnitedHealthcare team up to open in-store Medicare centers
Walgreens and UnitedHealthcare have signed a multi-year agreement to open 14 Medicare service centers in select Walgreens stores across five metropolitan areas starting next year. The centers will allow Walgreens customers to inquire about and even enroll in UnitedHealthcare’s Medicare Advantage plans. For those who are already UnitedHealthcare MA members, they will serve as a […]
US life expectancy down in recent years after increasing for decades
Life expectancy in the United States has fallen since 2014 after six decades of increasing. The driving force is in middle-aged deaths from drug overdoses, suicides and organ system diseases, according to a wide-reaching report published Tuesday in JAMA. The findings shows disparities in mortality trends across races and geographic locations. The largest increase in […]
CDC officials worry E. coli outbreak could spread over Thanksgiving
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is warning consumers to check the labels of romaine lettuce and salad mixes they plan to serve at Thanksgiving dinner, worrying that an E. coli outbreak that has made 67 people sick across 19 states could get worse over the holiday. The CDC has identified romaine harvested in […]
U.S.D.A. announces refined sugar import increase
The U.S. Department of Agriculture on Nov. 25 announced that the U.S. Department of Commerce, at the U.S.D.A.’s request, approved an additional 100,000 short tons, raw value, of refined sugar imports from Mexico during 2019-20 (October-September marketing year).
Google Photos finally lets you manually tag people in pictures
Google is finally adding the ability to manually tag someone in Google Photos, as reported by Android Police. Google Photos has always been able to automatically recognize faces and sort them for you, which makes managing your library far easier than having to tag people manually. But the system misses faces sometimes, and there’s never […]
U.S. consumer spending climbs again in October even as incomes fall flat
U.S. consumer spending rose in October for the eighth month in a row, a potentially good sign for the holiday shopping season that gets underway after Thanksgiving with Black Friday specials. Consumer spending increased 0.3% last month, the government said Wednesday. Economists surveyed by MarketWatch had forecast a 0.2% increase.
East Coast Ports Gain Market Share
Ports on the East Coast are enjoying an uptick in volume thanks to infrastructure improvements, expanded sea routes and the positive effects that the United States’ ongoing trade war with China are having for other countries, while these same factors are contributing to drop-offs for West Coast ports that as recently as last year were […]
AAR: U.S. Rail Traffic Sees Huge Gain
The Association of American Railroads (AAR) reported U.S. rail traffic for the week ended Nov. 23, 2019, and for the first time in a long time traffic saw a healthy uptick. For this week, total U.S. weekly rail traffic was 521,927 carloads and intermodal units, up 10.6% compared with the same week last year.
Trucks carried 70% of all U.S.-Mexico freight in September, up $400 million, according to data
Trucks again carried the majority of cross-border imports and exports during the month of September, according to the U.S. Department of Transportation’s Bureau of Transportation Statistics (BTS). Cross-border truck freight between the U.S., Canada and Mexico totaled $64 billion, or 63.1% of all cross-border freight during September 2019.