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Department stores invest in loyalty strategies that largely focus on retaining current high value customers in response to increasing competition in retail shopping. In this study, we examine the contribution of the top 20% customers for transaction frequency and value ("heavy buyers") to the total sales, and the consistency of this contribution across departments within a store. We also investigate the heavy buyer stability over time across 3 years, from over 550 million transactions from a department store chain in East Asia. The results show that the Pareto ratio of the top 20% spenders account for 71% of revenue (and 52% of the total transactions), and the top 20% transactors represent 58% of revenue (and 62% of total transactions), which may signal the role of such heavy buyers to overall stores sales. At each department level, the heavy buyers (by value) contribute from 65% to 86% of the department revenue. Despite this, the stability of the top 20% segment over time varies greatly by department from 11% to 74%. Finally, whether high value customers in one department store also translate across departments, depends mainly on the department size in terms of its shopper penetration. The research furthers our knowledge on Pareto Law, with important implications for customer retention strategies and loyalty programs especially for retailers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An advanced solvent has been developed for application in the extraction of cesium from alkaline nuclear waste. Four lipophilic guanidines have been compared to arrive at a more hydrolysis-resistant suppressor component of the solvent. Plans call for deployment of the Next-Generation Caustic Side-Solvent Extraction (NG-CSSX) process at industrial scale for separation of radioactive Cs-137 from the legacy salt waste stored at the US Department of Energy Savannah River Site (SRS). In the solvent used in NG-CSSX, an alkyl guanidine "suppressor" component facilitates efficient stripping of the loaded cesium from the solvent. However, as typical of guanidine compounds, the suppressor previously used in the NG-CSSX solvent, N,N',N"-tri(3,7-dimethyloctyl)guanidine (TiDG), suffers from hydrolytic degradation under process conditions. Recently, the sterically hindered alkyl guanidine N,N'-dicyclohexyl-N"-(10-nonadecyl)guanidine (DCNDG) has been found to offer 8 to 44 times greater hydrolysis resistance than TiDG. Here, the process performance characteristics of the NG-CSSX solvent incorporating DCNDG are determined in comparison with TiDG and two other guanidine suppressors. The solvent has been adjusted in density to accommodate use in the SRS Salt Waste Processing Facility and tested under aggressive bench-scale conditions intended to increase plant throughput. Experiments include the effect of ageing at normal and off-normal temperatures of the distribution of Cs+ through the NG-CSSX process, the fate and effects of guanidine degradation products, suppressor capacity, coalescence times for aqueous-solvent dispersions, tendency for emulsification, third-phase formation, and degree of protonation of the guanidine in stripping. While the chosen structures of the four compared guanidines mainly effect differences in stability, subtle differences in other system properties such as emulsion formation and suppressor capacity provide insight into the function of this important solvent component. In comparison with TiDG and two other guanidines, DCNDG provides greatly increased stability while not compromising the excellent functional properties of the NG-CSSX solvent. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It is sometimes said that we cannot revisit the special places of our younger years without experiencing some regret, or at least a slight lament for what could be an [...]

A hypermarket is a combined supermarket and department store that carries a large range of products. Since the opening of the first hypermarket in the US in the early 1930s, this concept has spread globally. Nowhere is this trend more visible than in India, now the world's most populous country with a middle class that will expectedly grow to 800 million in 2030. This paper coins the theory of hypermarketization to explain why and how the hypermarket as a globalized form signifies the full integration of liberalization, retail and middle-class consumer culture in emerging markets. The argument that hypermarketization marks the point when successful economies in the Global South mature and then qualify as emerging markets is based on empirical material from fieldwork on vegetarianism and meat in hypermarkets and among middle-class groups in South India, namely participant observation and interviewing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The period between the two world wars was a time of development and growth for department store libraries in the United States. While scholars have explored corporate libraries, those at department stores remain understudied. This investigation finds that these libraries, like those at other corporations, served to educate employees but also sought to improve them. Exploring the Schuster & Co. library in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, this article employs the company's archival records, contemporary periodicals, and business literature to illustrate how the library facilitated the store's business mission and identifies three distinct periods of the library's work. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

South Korea has faced many social issues due to long working hours, lack of rest areas, and poor rest facility environments for cleaners, security guards, department store workers, etc. Discussions have been ongoing about mandating the installation of rest facilities. From August 18, 2022, Article 128–2 of the Occupational Safety and Health Act, concerning the installation of rest facilities, was enforced. Consequently, employers in all industries are required to install rest facilities, and laws have been established to ensure these facilities meet certain standards. Accordingly, this study investigated the current status of rest facility installations and the awareness of the law's enactment in Korean industrial sites. The results, analyzed by gender, age, managerial status, industry, and size of the business, indicated that younger people were less satisfied with the rest facilities. Managers were more knowledgeable about the legal regulations than workers. In the service industry, compared to other industries, smaller businesses were less likely to have rest facilities and were less aware of the legal regulations. The results of this study are expected to be used as basic data to help establish the rest facility installation laws in Korea. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The UCLA Folklore & Mythology Group inspired the author plus afellow alumna to plan daunting media projects. As older students, they were totally accepted and empowered by faculty and classmates involved with innovative projects. The two women contacted mothers of Steven Spielberg and Vidal Sassoon; they conducted interviews in a department store window at Hollywood and Vine; the NEH and NEAfunded them. They demonstrated how formal training infolklore can lead to myriad and unexpected career trajectories. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This essay examines the promotion of Twentieth Century–Fox's production of The Robe (1953)—which exhibited Dean Cornwell's oil paintings in local department stores in Detroit—in relation to the city's sociocultural context and racial tensions. It argues that ongoing issues in the city such as property ownership, racialized topographical boundaries, and class aspiration can be traced across Detroit's film culture in the postwar period, particularly in the burgeoning middlebrow culture of materialistic consumption. The promotional campaign's use of art exhibitions in department stores represented a significant moment for new ideas about class, culture, and racial identity in the city, contributing to the formation of the white suburban middle class and functioning as an example of racialized tastemaking. Accounts of this postwar cultural shift, particularly as it pertained to film culture, have underemphasized the importance of racial identity and exclusion to such formations. Adopting an interdisciplinary approach that integrates film history, material culture studies, and cultural history, this essay uses the Cornwell exhibition as a case study for understanding the impact of racial tensions on class identity in 1950s Detroit. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

During the 1930s, Hollywood enticed women to purchase film costume replicas and product tieins in their local department stores via a cooperative marketing campaign. Hollywood replication gowns were inexpensive, available to consumers of modest means, and offered a way to explore the glamour of stardom through dress. They were available in a variety of styles, but the Letty Lynton dress was the most famous of its genre, and its success solidified the wide-shouldered look of the 1930s. The prevalence of similarly designed gowns establishes it as a cultural sub-meme of Hollywood replications. One example, housed in the Alameda Historical Museum (AHM), was analyzed using the material culture methodology of E. M. Fleming. The study presents a case in which women of this era experimented with the percolating sense of self-determination through Hollywood dress replications, unique to how women express that today. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]