The logo from a shopping bag transferred to my hardwood floor in the heat. I have tried scrubbing and mopping to remove it, but no luck. I have seen suggestions for removing from a linoleum floor, but none for hardwood. Anyone had any experience with this?
It is real wood, not laminate.

you can try this stuff called HOWARDS. its like a stain. you find the color close to your floor
color. rub it on with very fine steel wool. wipe off the stain with a rag. is this laminate or real
wood? i’ve used it on both. if its real wood and this doesn’t work, you can sand the stain out
and re stain. laminate you can’t sand you would have to replace that piece.

Are you a retailer who is currently running a successful, profitable retail store or chain of stores? If you are, is your business currently using POS systems? POS, which is the abbreviated term for point of sale, systems are important to the success of a retail business, particularly in today’s retail industry. If you are aren’t already running POS systems, which include POS cash registers and POS scanners, you will want to look into making a POS investment, as it is one that will likely pay off.

As it was previously mentioned, POS systems commonly include POS cash registers. POS cash registers are vital to the success of any business, especially one that relies on the tracking of inventory. Whether your retail stores sell clothing, food, home and garden products, or even pet products, you likely want, as well as need, to track your inventory. By having a POS cash register, it is relatively easy to do so. With the correct POS software and the knowledge of how to run the cash registers, you can track the inventory inside one or all of your stores, with little effort required on your part or the part of your employees.

As important as it is for your business to have POS systems, including POS cash registers, you may be wondering about the cost of doing so. Yes, POS systems may be considered fairly expensive, but it is important to remember what you are getting. Many business owners fail to realize that POS systems, including POS cash registers, can cut costs. For instance, by having a POS cash register with a built in scanner, your cashiers can easily save time by scanning all purchases, instead of entering each purchase in by hand. When the correct POS software is installed in your registers, you should be able to track your inventory for each of your stores, making it easier to know what to order. In fact, many POS systems automatically know what needs to be ordered. In many instances, you will find that POS systems pay for themselves, in no time at all. This is essentially considered getting a return on your investment.

Despite being able to pay for themselves overtime, there are many business owners who don’t want to incur more debt or expenses than they need to. If you are one of those retailers, you may want to examine certified pre owned POS systems. Certified pre owned POS systems are ideal for all retailers, but partially those who are looking to profit and stay in business for years to come, while successfully limiting the amount of money spent on equipment at the same time. Of course, saving money is the greatest reason as to why you should at least look into buying certified pre owned POS systems, but there are additional reasons, which are briefly touched on below.

In addition to being able to save money or cut costs, purchasing certified pre owned POS systems is ideal because the products actually work. In fact, they work like new. While this may seem silly to mention, it is important to remember. When many of us, particularly those looking for the best, think of pre owned POS systems, cheap, poor, or secondhand comes to mind. Yes, you will want to use your best judgment when purchasing certified pre owned POS products, but you shouldn’t have a problem. By purchasing your certified pre owned POS products from a well-known and reputable POS supplier, you should get a certified pre owned POS system that is like brand new, yet for a fraction of the cost.

If you are interested in modernizing your businesses, to keep up the ever changing, fast paced retail industry, you will want to examine POS systems and their many benefits, all of which can help to improve your business. As previously stated, certified pre owned POS products are just as good as brand new POS products and they make it easier to get a return on your investments. For affordable certified POS systems, including POS cash registers, POS scanners, and much more, contact VisionPOS.com. VisionPOS.com is not only well-known for their large selection of certified pre owned POS systems, but their amazing customer service, technical support, and much more.

George Finnerin
http://www.articlesbase.com/business-articles/benefits-of-buying-certified-pre-owned-pos-systems-for-your-retail-business-131822.html

I’ve checked out a few popular meal planning sites, but none of them are quite what I’m looking for. I’m looking for an automated meal planner (so that it populates itself based on my preferences) which allows me to swap out meals that I’m not too keen on, provides a shopping list, and considers dietary information (such as calories per day). Ideally, the shopping list would be optimized for the week (so I’m not buying groceries that are completely separate from each day’s meal recommendations). I’m willing to pay for such a site.

Give All Recipes a try. They have Weight Watchers and diet recipes on their site They also have when you chose a recipe it can be converted into a shopping list. I hope this is what you’re looking for.

The retail business has been grand, absolutely peachy. What a great time to be in retail and especially juicy if you were lucky enough to have been selling, non-essential, tariff-free imported bargains to endless lines of over-extended, credit card junkies. Ahh, those were the days my friend, we thought they’d never end.

Now, I’m not saying that it been easy. Business is never easy; still you’ve got to admit it’s been a wide open shopping spree for last decade. It looked like there was no down side. I’m sorry to point it out, but, weather we’ve been aware of it or not, we have all been complicit in the biggest “easy credit rip-off” in the history of the planet and in the following nose-dive and belly flop of the world economy.

For several years now, the wealth of our county, the true base of our economy, the savings and equity of the American people has been quietly pillaged. With the implicit encouraged by the government, wall-street, the banking system and the credit card companies, the American public has been gleefully charging itself into the poor house. Many or more honestly most of us have been enthusiastically involved in the scam.

We have, all of us, to great extent, been living beyond our means; too many have been maxing out our credit cards and getting caught in the dreaded minimum payment undertow. And then, Brainstorm! To get out of the credit card trap, why not take a “leader” loans on our real estate. That’s the ticket, then either not read the fine print {shame on you} or hope we’ll get lucky before the roof falls in, but then what? Of course, max out the credit cards again. Gee, it just sounds too good not to go on forever.

If you have recently been revived from an extended coma resulting from looking at your 401k statement, you may still be too disoriented to have notice that the world has changed, and that it may never be the same again. 
Where did all the money go? Who is that guy headed for the ranch? No wait a minute that’s for another article.

To tell the truth, we, as retailer got some of the booty, just the crumbs, of course, for doing the heavy lifting. Now we need to find ways to hold on to our pittance and how to prosper into the future. Last year’s retail business model may be as dead as a door nail. Many of you have notices the changes in the wind, smaller crowds, smaller tickets and old customers not coming around as often. There is no end in sight. The credit card business will surely be in decline for some time to come for most segments of the retail world.

Well, here we are sport fans, so what now?

Well one of the things I just loved about this whole fiasco was the way the credit card companies start off charging us, the retailers, a Healthy chunk of every transaction, it’s been like having a second landlord sucking on your neck. Then they follow your customers’ home and rifle their pockets, so they can’t afford to come back very often. Ideally they would like to continue this until our customers can only afford to stay home and pay the minimum for the rest of their lives. Even though this arrangement is oh so nice for them, it just doesn’t work out too well for the rest of us. 
Don’t start looking for the exit. I’m not going to suggest that you go cold turkey on the plastic. But the truth is, many of your customers will have their limits reduced or their accounts closed and of course foreclosure and bankruptcy tends to slow down the shopping for non-essentials and let’s face it, non-essentials are some of our favorite things to sell.

So what can be done? Well there is one form of the luscious plastic that will not be going away, Thank goodness. More and more people will be using debit cards, it’s already more popular than cash in Canada and soon will be in the U.S. There are already 300 million debit card holders in the U.S and an increase of 160 million a year is projected, 30 percent of these customers have no other card.

So, we are all safe and sound right? Well, except for one little thing. The credit card companies discovered that with debit cards they didn’t get to mug your customers latter and that just didn’t seem right to them. They got sad and cranky. Then they decided that we retailers should be made to pay for this non-muggable transaction.

Did you know? if you run debit/bank/ATM cards though your credit card machine you are charged a premium rate for an absolutely risk free transaction. That’s right, there is no risk in an ATM transaction, if the money is in the account, it is transferred instantly, no chance of a charge-back or anything else, no risk at all. Even so, the credit card companies charge you an extra fee on every debit card transaction.

Drat, cut off at the pass again, so I guess we just bend over and touch our toes and take our medicine, I mean we wouldn’t want to be responsible for making the credit card companies sad. Would we? Sound like the perfect solution, right? The customer doesn’t get mugged, doesn’t cost them a cent and the credit card companies get to slam us twice, so they won’t have to be sad. Only we have to take it in the shorts. Sounds like the perfect plan for everyone…except us. Maybe it’s time we get sad and cranky. You think?

Well there is an answer; it’s time to let the customer help pay for the convenience of using ATM/bank cards. This can be accomplished with an inexpensive cashless or scrip ATM machine. Many large nationwide companies are already doing this. The new generation of these machines are the same size as your credit card machine, do not need a dedicated phone line and make a transaction fee for the merchant on every transaction. Yes, you heard me right, after all these years you can actually make a bigger profit on a card sale than a cash sale.

In Canada, Atm/debit card transactions have recently exceeded cash and credit cards for retail purchases. This will soon be the case here in the good old USA. There are more than 300 million ATM/bank cards currently in the US. For 100 million this is the only card they have. ATM/bank cards are expected to increase by 150 million new cards a years. These cards can either help your bottom line or hurt it depending on how you process them.

A study by AT&T Global and Visa recently reported that an ATM machine was the most profitable footage in any business, even businesses with gaming machine. The average ATM in America makes a profit of $20,000.00 per year. You can add to that 15 to 25% savings on credit card charges, elimination of bad checks and an increase in gross sales of 20% average.

So, here’s the story; let’s say you have a ten or twenty dollar sale and the customer hands you a visa or mastercard, that is actually a debit card, if you run that card though your credit card machine you will be charged your regular rate plus a surcharge for processing a debit card. This transaction could cost you between .85 and $1.50.

If you run that same transaction through a debit card machine, you receive a surcharge that averages $1.50 so the difference on that ten or twenty dollars transaction is $2.45 to $3.00. On these small ticket sales that can mean the difference between a tidy profit and losing money. You’ve put your blood, sweat and tears into building a successful business. Giving the lion’s share of your profits to the credit card companies is not something you can afford to do. In today financial climate you just can’t afford to let an average of more than $20,000.00 per year slip through your fingers. Even if it makes the credit card companies sad.

Alan Goldsmith
http://www.articlesbase.com/strategic-planning-articles/can-your-retail-business-survive-the-coming-credit-crunch-709625.html

I’m moving into a new home with my husband and kids. I want to make a shopping list of the food I need to remember to buy basically.
Stuff that last long and isn’t really high cost but good.

This one is hard to answer without knowing you and your family’s likes and dislikes. Staples are good to start with otherwise.

Salt
Pepper
Mustard
Ketchup
BBQ Sauce
Hot Sauce
Steak Sauce
Worstershire Sauce
Soy Sauce
Sugar
Flour
Baking Soda
Baking Powder
Cornstarch
Spices (whatever you like)
Vanilla
Cocoa Powder
Chocolate Chips
Koolaide, Tea, Coffee (coffee filters)
O.J., Apple Juice, Cranberry Juice
Hot Chocolate
Cereal, Oatmeal
Syrup, Pancake Mix
Butter
Snack Bars, Granola
Fruit Snacks, Raisins
Nuts (whatever you like)
Popcorn
Vitamins
Ibuprofen
Toothpicks
Cupcake Cups
Pet Food (if needed)
Macaroni, Spaghetti, Zitti, Rotini, Egg Noodles, etc…
Rice
Canned Milk
Spaghetti Sauce
Sloppy Joe Mix
Pizza Sauce
Mushroom Soup
Cheese Soup
Tuna
Velveeta
American Cheese
Cheddar Cheese
Mozzarella Cheese
String Cheese
Salsa, Chips
Dill Pickles, Sweet Pickles, Pickle Relish
Green Olives, Black Olives
Peanut Butter, Jelly
Honey, Molasses

These are just a few ideas depending on your needs and likes. When you first move in take paper plates, napkins, plastic silverware, plastic cups and trashbags. Save yourself work and get frozen pizzas, frozen lasagnas, frozen fried chicken, pot pies or t.v. dinners. You can add a salad, frozen bread sticks, frozen garlic bread and some fruit to round out the meal. You will be working hard enough with the move and unpacking to not have to worry about cooking as well.

Good Luck!

I hate going to the grocers. It takes me about 1.5 hours to do the shopping. If they didn’t have this loud music at the stores, I would take my MP3 player. Any ideas or tips?

I actually really LOVE to go grocery shopping, but maybe that’s because I am trained as a chef. Having come thru some really difficult times in my life, I feel incredibly greatful to have enough money to buy Healthy foods that are good for me and my family. I also appreciate air conditioning when it’s 80F or higher outside and so muggy that I feel I’m swimming in my clothing. For me, produce is incredibly beautiful to look at and to touch. I find it completely inspiring to imagine what meals I’ll make with it for the ones I love when I get home. I find that if I can focus on beauty, gratitude, inspiration, art and wonderful food, that these things make all the difference in my world. If I could just find some inspiration in the huge pile of dishes in my kitchen, the beds that need to be made every single day of my life, the bathroom that keeps needing to be cleaned or the piles and piles of laundry my kids seem to keep making, I would be in a much better head space…Yeah, having to do the same things over and over again can be an extreme pain, but there can be joy in it, too.

Display ready packaging, sometimes called retail ready packaging, represents the future of retail storage, display, and transport. Display ready packaging not only saves retailers money, it helps them track products during shipping, save time on display setup, and better protects products during shipping and storage.

Display Ready Packaging Saves Money

Display ready packaging saves money in several ways. One way that it helps save money is in labor costs. Before display ready packaging products were shipped on pallets that had to be unloaded, placed in storage and then unpacked. The products would then be moved from storage to the sales floor and set up on selves to display for shoppers to choose. This system used lots of manpower, and retailers were forced to spend loads of money on labor. Display ready packaging is not a new idea, but now it is available to everybody. One reason that warehouse stores can offer such low prices is that they drop a pallet full of products into the middle of the floor with minimal labor for setup and storage. Display Ready Packaging follows the same idea only with retail ready packaging the displays are stronger than previous materials and are designed to be more aesthetically pleasing. Labor costs are cut because there are no unloading or storage issues to be dealt with. The products are displayed nicely inside their shipping containers so that they can be placed directly on the sales floor.

Retail Ready Packaging Transport and Tracking

RFID is the new tracking tool being used by all industries to track products. For those who do not know, RFIDs are small microchips with radio frequency identifiers which are low cost and easy to mass produce. Display ready packaging is built to easily add RFIDs making the integration as easy as possible. With the old wooden pallets there was no place to put an RFID, new plastic retail ready packaging is made to accommodate both barcode scanners and RFIDs. Retailers can now track products along the supply chain and find out were and why holdups occur. Display ready packaging is made of recycled plastic which is more durable than wood. It also will not absorb orders, allowing them to be reused more easily. Plastic retail ready packaging is also impervious to acids and other abrasives, allowing shipper and retailers to move products with security.

Retail ready packaging or display ready packaging has many benefits, only a few were covered in this article. For more information on switching to display ready packaging please visit PolymerLogistics.com

Dana H
http://www.articlesbase.com/business-articles/display-ready-packaging-the-next-generation-in-retail-shopping-62007.html