John Lewis, one of the leading chains of department stores in the UK, is set to become the first UK department store to adopt a minimum two-year guarantee on all it electrical products. Other major department stores such as Currys have stayed with their standard one-year guarantee on their products.

John lewis’s decision to adopt a two-year warranty policy reflects its intentions in establishing a strong value proposition within the UK market. Whenever people think of the terms security , long term use and reliably in terms of any electrical appliance, ‘John Lewis’ will be department store that first pops into their minds. Through this strategy, John Lewis is also able to close the gap between costumer and seller. This is because the cosutmer is not only impressed with John Lewis innovations in costumer service but they are also confident that for a long time period, his/her damaged or malfunctioning product will be fixed or replace.

In light of the current financial crisis, John Lewis has been able to do enough research and forecast by looking at other major European department stores. This Unique strategy to UK department stores has emerged as a point of difference for John Lewis.

Source: http://www.theguardian.com/money/2013/oct/05/john-lewis-two-year-electricals-guarantee

Twitter, arguably the biggest social media network behind Facebook, is set to make its entrance on wall street. It has however found itself having to fend off up and coming social outlets such Instagram, Snap Chat, Pinterest, Kakao, line, Tumblr and Reddit. This is highlighted by twitter’s recent loss in money and its competitors attracting followers at a greater rate.

Though these social outlets all have a point of parity in terms of the fact that they all are developed to enable, speed up and facilitate connectivity between people around the globe, they also have very distinct points of difference. Snap chat, for example, allows it users to create and send videos/pictures that disappear after they are viewed. Pinterest allows people to collect and share pictures of any interests with friends. Instagram, which started off only allowing people to share pictures, has now integrated the ability for its users to share videos.

Though twitter is still significantly dominant in terms of revenue, it will need to adapt to the newer forms of communication which involves the exchange of pictures and videos in a cool and innovative way that is more appealing than its predecessors if it wants to retain that spot.

Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/07/technology/awaiting-ipo-twitter-must-deal-with-horde-of-younger-rivals.html?ref=technology

In the near future, Euro MPs will vote on new measures which have been designed to reduce smoking among the youth. The draft legislation from the European Commission consists of making e-cigarettes a medicinal product, potentially banning menthol and other flavoured cigarettes, banning the sale of packs of ten as well as slim cigarettes, as well as a ban on chewing tobacco.

Europe is known throughout the world for its lenient attitude towards smoking and such laws could cause unrest amongst the civilians of the countries. The high demand for the product will also eventually cause a black market which will lead to low quality cigarettes being sold illegally at high prices. In addition, these countries will also loose a lot of taxation being collected from tobacco. The UK for example generated about 9bn in taxes from tobacco in 2009-2010.

Despite the potential negative effects of implementing this law, there is a major potential positive which is a reduction of healthcare cost. The less people that have to be treated for smoking related illness, the less money has to be spent on healthcare.

Source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-24439474