SunCorp - marketing_sales

Is Made in China a Warning label

noreply@blogspirit.com (SunCorp) — Thu, 13 Sep 2007 13:05:00 +0300

US lawmakers vowed on Wednesday to enact stricter legislation to prevent potentially dangerous Chinese-made toys from being sold in America, as leading toy firms said safety checks were being boosted.

Lawmakers voiced concern during a congressional hearing on recent mass toy recalls by Mattel and other toy companies affecting millions of Chinese-made toys tarnished with lead paint or other safety defects.

"'Made in China' has now become a warning label," Republican Senator Sam Brownback said at a Senate Financial Services and General Government subcommittee hearing.

"Our toy safety system is not as strong as it should be," said Democratic Senator Richard Durbin.

Senators said stricter laws were being drafted, as Mattel chairman and chief executive officer Robert Eckert apologized for multiple recalls initiated by the world's biggest toy maker related to toys tainted with lead paint.

"I want to reiterate my personal apology on the behalf of Mattel," he said.

The US toy industry is vying to ward off a mounting political storm and increasing public fear about the safety of Chinese-made products following a series of mass recalls in recent months.

Some lawmakers expressed disbelief that toys bearing lead paint could potentially end up being sold in US retail stores.

"This just simply shouldn't be happening in America," said Democratic Senator Bill Nelson.

Eckert also pinned blame on Chinese manufacturers. "Our systems were circumvented and our standards were violated," he said. The hearing occurred a day after the US and Chinese governments struck an agreement in Washington aimed at stopping any more Chinese-manufactured toys painted with lead paint reaching US shores.

The Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) said China's General Administration of Quality Supervision had agreed to boost safeguards on Chinese-made toys exported to the United States.

Li Changjiang, director of the General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine, said last month that Mattel's recalls were due to company design faults.

Other officials claim Washington is being protectionist.

The United States banned the use of lead paint on toys in 1978 on health grounds and lawmakers grilled the industry executives over what was being done to stop dangerous Chinese-made toys being imported.

Eckert said Mattel had implemented new protections at its Chinese plants to ensure toys were not coated in lead paints. Plant operators will now have to purchase paint from a certified vendor, he said.

Mattel has cut relations with some Chinese subcontractors and the toy maker is investigating safety procedures at its Chinese facilities.

Concerns have also spiked overseas. The European Commission said last week that it may ban some Chinese-made goods unless Beijing demonstrates it is effectively dealing with potentially dangerous products.

Other executives said the US toy industry would not compromise safeguards. "We will not acquiesce," said Gerald Storch, the chairman and chief executive of Toys "R" Us, Inc, saying his firm had "strict and nonnegotiable" safety protections to guard against rogue toys.

CPSC acting chairman Nancy Nord told lawmakers the safety agency had requested increased funding to boost its operations and said toy companies had to comply with US law.

Sally Greenberg, an attorney with the Consumers Union, said the CPSC's toy testing laboratory "looks like an old college friend's dorm room," saying the agency lacked the resources to carry out its duties.

Mattel has recalled hundreds of thousands of Barbie and Fisher Price branded toys over lead paint fears and 18 million Polly Pocket play sets with loose magnets.

In June a US importer was forced to recall 1.5 million "Thomas and Friends" wooden toy trains because they were finished with lead paint. Chinese made car tire and toothpaste recalls have also unsettled consumer groups.

Of more than 86 million items made in or containing parts that originated in China, which were recalled in the United States over the past two years, nearly 26 million, or 30 percent, were children's toys, according to a count.

China produces most of the world's toys and operates around 20,000 toy-making plants, according to some estimates.

From Hindmarch to Potter - we want Bags for Life

noreply@blogspirit.com (SunCorp) — Wed, 12 Sep 2007 11:15:00 +0300

Beatrix Potter's old walled garden is to benefit from the 'I'm not a plastic bag' craze.

The World of Beatrix Potter Attraction has just launched a Bag for Life, which is made from organic cotton and produced without using any chemicals at all. Visitors to Potter's Monk Coniston garden can buy the bag for 90p with all profits going to the conservation of the garden.

Richard Foster from The World of Beatrix Potter Attraction, said: 'We have been conscious of how many plastic carrier bags we were handing out at the attraction and felt it was time we did our bit in creating a beautiful souvenir of the attraction, which visitors will want to use again and again. The fact that the profits will go towards conserving one of Beatrix Potter’s favourite bits of the Lake District seems very fitting.'

Hope this trend catches on worldwide, where we see less of plastic bags and more of reusable bags, just like the one's we make and promote at SunCorp, want to see our range, please visit http://flickr.com/photos/suncorp

Want one of these?

noreply@blogspirit.com (SunCorp) — Mon, 10 Sep 2007 11:30:00 +0300

Like what you see? It’s a jute bag. If you’ve ever seen any jute bags that have this kind of stiffness and body you probably know that it is achieved by laminating a plastic lining on the inside of the bag. So while jute is a natural, eco-friendly product, the plastic lining renders it less so. We’ve been studying this problem for a while and are now able to offer the world’s first stiff and shaped jute bag without a plastic liner. Write to us at info@suncorp.in to learn more about this nice product.

Everyone wants a bag. Specially an environmentally friendly reusable bag.

noreply@blogspirit.com (SunCorp) — Sun, 09 Sep 2007 11:20:00 +0300

Everyone wants a bag. Specially an environmentally friendly reusable bag.

I remember reading an article in a magazine brought out by the PPAI (Promotional Products Association of America) which concluded that bags are a wonderful promo choice.

“One great thing about bags is that everybody uses them,” says Andrew Spellman, vice president of corporate markets for TRG Group in St. Louis, Missouri. “Since everyone has stuff to hold, there’s not one person who doesn’t have a bag of some sort. Promotionally speaking, there’s an inherent use value for the recipient, and this means, for the advertiser, there’s the frequent opportunity for seeing the company logo.”

Carol Goebelt, in LaPuente, California, adds they go beyond function: “Besides suiting the need for function, people buy bags for style. They are an extension of the person, and different styles may fit one person but not another.

I completely agree. In today’s world one-size-fits-all just doesn’t cut it. That’s why, at SunCorp, we encourage our customers to customize what they are ordering. No fixed notions, no minimums, we don’t put any limits on our customers’ imaginations. It’s our job to make whatever they dream up and we enjoy it.

What goes into choosing a great bag? “Find out exactly who the audience is,” says Mary Jo Welch. “Men are not tote bag people and will use them only when necessary whereas women love them. If kids are involved, a drawstring backpack might do the best job of covering all the bases.”

Not really. There are many tote designs that have a masculine appeal.

One way or the other, there has never been a better time in history to consider an environmentally friendly reusable fabric bag for your next major promotion.

The world is catching on to how much harm plastic bags are doing and people on the street look kindly upon people carrying reusable bags. And if your logo is on the bag, they admire your company for taking visible and tangible action that they approve of.

Bags work. Everyone loves receiving an attractive bag. And we’ve got plenty. See the variety at http://flickr.com/photos/suncorp they are economically priced, and we stand by the quality we provide.

Good looking, economical, something that everybody wants, and admires you for giving away. Isn’t that how you’d like your next promotion to be?

The time has come for reusable shopping bags

noreply@blogspirit.com (SunCorp) — Fri, 07 Sep 2007 16:35:00 +0300

The darndest things happen if you wait long enough. Take the matter of the reusable shopping bag. Sure, whatever goes around, comes around. Reusable shopping bags have long been with us. But not like this.

They are a really big deal now. The national grocery chain Whole Foods began selling good-looking cotton shopping bags by London designer Anya Hindmarch for $15 earlier this month. They carried the message: “I Am Not a Plastic Bag,” and in many stores the bags sold out in a matter of hours.

OK. OK. Maybe it was the cute, environmentally sensitive message that did the trick. Or maybe it was Hindmarch’s name. (Ordinarily her leather purses sell for $1,000 or so.)

Or, just maybe it was the fact that the bags came out in limited edition. It was a case of first come, first serve and only three bags per customer. And if you think that’s amazing, consider this: When the bags went on sale in Taiwan last June, they created a stampede. According to the New York Times, 30 people went to the hospital.

Of course, you don’t have to spend $15 or consult with your health insurance provider if you want to go the reusable shopping bag route. In Western New York the bags, made of differing designs and materials are readily available at Tops and Wegmans as well as smaller outlets for 99 cents and up. And buy as many as you like — the bags are being constantly reordered.

Meantime, the single use, biodegradable-resistant plastic bags are getting a really bad name even though SackingTheEnvironment.org founded by a group of University of Georgia students reports their use is at an all-time high. In the United States, people use 1 million of them every minute. (The same group reports that the average American family accumulates 60 plastic bags in only four trips to the store.) And the Washington, D.C., Worldwatch Institute has reported that Americans annually discard 100 billion plastic bags. It requires about 12 million barrels of oil to make them.

No wonder measures to ban them are being considered all over the country. San Francisco already bans their use in large supermarkets and other stores. Meantime, the single-use bags festoon tree branches and vacant lots, and they interfere with marine life.

The bags are expensive, too. It’s estimated that each and every one costs from 1 to 3 cents;

Still, reusable bags present a problem. How do you get customers in the reusable shopping bag habit, to bring them back to the store every time they shop?

Maybe a magnet on the car dashboard. “Bags in Trunk,” it would read — like “Baby on Board” in more innocent days. How about selling strings to tie around fingers? Or even better — a bracelet like the colorful rubber ones espousing different causes that have become so popular through the years?

Cute, colorful, message bearing, fashion forward. Oh sure, maybe they might not cause a riot in Tapei.

But properly handled, the bracelets could become the next environmentally sensitive big deal. What say!

The global roaming rip-off

noreply@blogspirit.com (SunCorp) — Wed, 05 Sep 2007 17:00:00 +0300

How Operators Run A Cartel And Fleece Customers

Why do you end up with a hole in your pocket every time you travel abroad and use your mobile phone? Why does the phone bill suddenly go through the roof ? It’s because international roaming charges are prohibitively high—each time you make a call from overseas on your mobile, you pay anything between 20-40 times more than what you would if the call was made from your home country.

    This skewed billing pattern is not peculiar to India. In fact, it is universally recognised as one of the biggest uncontrolled globally networked scams, involving selfserving reciprocal arrangements that allow mobile operators around the world to rip off customers on international roaming.
    Global roaming tariffs, say telecom industry analysts, represent a failure supervision by some of the world’s leading regulators. “Regulators have clearly looked the other way while operators join at the hip to openly run a cartel that works on a principle of ‘You fleece my subscriber while I fleece yours’,’’ said Anil Kumar of Telecom Watchdog, an NGO.
    Consider this: While the ISD tariff for calling most countries from India is a flat Rs 6.40/minute (barring the Gulf, for which the rate is Rs 9.19/minute), an international roamer is charged up to Rs 150/minute for the same call.
    Whether you are travelling to the US, UK, Singapore or Dubai—the four most frequented destinations for Indians—or almost any other foreign location, the story is the same. While the average cost to call India from the US is 10 cents or Rs 4.41/minute, Indian roamers are charged Rs 140 or almost 32 times this amount. To call India from the UK is even costlier at Rs 150/minute.

    Even Vodafone’s recent ownership of Hutch Essar has not helped Indians get a better deal in the UK or 64 other countries where the company operates (see chart). In addition, international roaming follows a 60-second call metering, which means if you cross over to the second minute even by two seconds, you are billed for the entire second minute.
    For places like Dubai, where call rates to India are at an average of Rs 16/minute, Indians are charged Rs 120/minute or 11 dirhams.
    There is more bad news. For incoming calls that have been free in India since May 2003, international travellers roaming in India are charged exorbitant rates and in some cases, as much as Rs 143/minute. Similarly, Indians are subjected to an incoming tariff of Rs 75/minute in the US, Rs 27.60/minute in the UK, Rs 34/minute in Singapore and Rs 55/minute in Dubai.

This is in spite of the fact that, with the exception of the US, most countries have a free incoming regime. SMSs face a similar pattern with each outgoing SMS charged at a whopping Rs 15. In addition, many of these already exorbitant tariffs are subjected to many taxes and levies.

“Rates are high, but not much can be done till Trai is able to negotiate global roaming agreements, at least for the Saarc countries,’’ said T V Ramachandran of COAI, a body representing GSM mobile operators, while the spokesman of Auspi, which represents CDMA operators, declined to comment.
“We had asked the European Union four-five months ago to allow India to benefit from the EU roaming rate reductions, but there has been no response. International roaming tariffs need to be brought down, but it is not a subject that can be addressed by a single regulator,’’ said N Misra, chairman, Trai, the Indian telecom regulator.

Grocery style of the future is in the bag

noreply@blogspirit.com (SunCorp) — Mon, 03 Sep 2007 16:20:00 +0300

Plastic or reusable?

Grocery shoppers soon will have that third choice at the checkouts in many Sioux Falls stores.

Sunshine Foods, Wal-Mart and Hy-Vee are beginning to roll out out their new washable, reusable polypropylene bags.

But there's a trick to the new bag: Remembering to bring them back, store managers say. As an incentive, they're offing a nickel per reused bag per visit.

The new bags will be cheaper than previously offered cloth bags at some stores. The new ones will cost between 99 cents to a couple of dollars per bag, managers say.

The push to replace plastic comes down to cost and environmental waste. The average family accumulates 60 plastic bags in four trips to the grocery store.

The United States goes through 100 billion plastic shopping bags annually, according to The Wall Street Journal. An estimated 12 million barrels of oil is required to make that many plastic bags.

Locally-owned Sunshine Foods is going with reusable and began designing bags four months ago, said Brian Monahan, manager of the East 10th Street location. He has one prototype in the store, but hundreds are on the way.

The bags are green with a red "Our Family" brand logo and are made with a blend of poly and cotton for strength, he said. A similar bag will be white, with the Sunshine Foods logo on it.

"It won't be available at all stores at first," Monahan said. "But at 99 cents, I think they'll get used. It holds more than our plastic bags: Two big boxes of cereal, several cans and more. And they won't break."

With the nickel rebate each time they're brought back for use, they will pay for themselves in 20 visits.

Hy-Vee canvas

Hy-Vee has been using a $3.99 white canvas bag for years, and offers a nickel per bag reused rebate at the Minnesota Avenue store. New lighter, cheaper bags are on the way.

"The bag we have now holds many more cans and groceries than the plastic bags, groceries that could break the plastic bag," said Ben Conway, a manager at the Hy-Vee on Minnesota Avenue. "A lot of our walk-in traffic, especially shoppers with homes nearby, use these canvas bags."

The corporate offices are finishing a design on the company's "Bring Your Own Bag" polypropylene sack that will be slightly less expensive than canvas, and is washable with cold water, said Chris Friesleben, Hy-Vee corporate spokeswoman. The chain has 224 stores in seven states.

"I don't have an exact date, but they should be done very soon, for around $2-$3," Friesleben said from the company's west Des Moines, Iowa, headquarters. "People can buy the canvas bag, the new bags, or they can bring in any of their own bags for that matter."

Wal-Mart follows suit

Wal-Mart is testing a new reusable grocery bag in the San Francisco area now, and should have a final version of the bag in all stores soon, said Ted Walnofer, manager of the Sioux Falls westside Wal-Mart.

The move is prompted by San Francisco's Board of Supervisors approving groundbreaking legislation in March to outlaw plastic checkout bags at large supermarkets by next month, and at large chain pharmacies by March 2008.

It's the first such law in any city in the United States and has been drawing global attention.

"After the tests they plan to roll it out for the rest of the nation," Wal-mart's Walnofer said of the reusable bags. "You'll see the entire grocery industry going this way, from Hy-Vee to Krogers."

The challenge to grocery companies is to keep the cost of manufacturing the bag down, so the cost isn't as much for customers, Walnofer said.

A new reusable bag has been well received by customers of the southern United States-based Publix chain, with 908 stores in Florida, Georgia, Alabama, South Carolina and Tennessee.

Publix' reusable polypropylene "green" bags selling for $1.49, have grown more popular since the launch two months ago, said Maria Brous, company spokeswoman.

Reusing a bag meant for just one use has a big impact, according to the Sierra Club. A sturdy, reusable bag needs only be used 11 times to have a lower environmental impact than using 11 disposable plastic bags.

In New York City alone, one less grocery bag per person per year would reduce waste by 5 million pounds and save $250,000 in disposal costs, the Sierra Club reports.

"We decided to offer a reusable bag based on requests from our shoppers," Sunshine Food's Monahan said.

We at SunCorp manufacture and ship our bags worldwide, want to know more about our range of re-usable bags, please visist http://flickr.com/photos/suncorp

The hot new thing is anti-brand activism

noreply@blogspirit.com (SunCorp) — Sun, 02 Sep 2007 16:00:00 +0300

How did anti-branding get to become the new branding? The known facts are these: in March of this year, the ultra-fashionable fashion designer Anya Hindmarch launched a reusable cotton bag by handing out a limited number to celebrities and fashion insiders. The aim was to raise money for charity and awareness of the environmental implications of using plastic bags, but the only result was to encourage gaggles of hip young fashionistas to freeze their midriffs off as they queued to get their hands on the limited edition bag.

That, however, was only the beginning. Next week sees the launch of a similarly confusing experiment when the lifestyle journalist Neil Boorman launches his book Bonfire of the Brands. The book documents a year in which Boorman, after 20 years obsessing about high-end fashion gear, finally fessed up to his addiction, and set about trying to live unsullied by the tyranny of brands. For a project which began with a publicity stunt - Boorman set fire to his clothes and his TV, in front of the cameras - and ends with the publication of a book about how he got on, Boorman can hardly claim to have arrived at a Zen-like detachment from his former self.

But maybe that is the point. The worlds of branding and the rhetoric of anti-branding are now so joined at the hip that it is often difficult to tell them apart. The most commonly found book on any brand guru's bookshelf (with the possible exception of Malcolm Gladwell's The Tipping Point) is the Canadian journalist Naomi Klein's No Logo. When it was published seven years ago, the book told an interesting and thought-provoking story about the growing ability of mere brands to hold captive entire economies.

Today's anti-brand activists, however, overplay their hand when they argue that today's cluttered "brandscape" colonises our minds. Despite many of their assumptions, consumerism is not very new. It is as old as the washing machine, and dates back 50 years to the birth of the welfare state and the onset of the cold war. What distinguishes our own society is less our lust for consumption per se than the diffidence and lack of morale with which we roll up to make our consumer choices. Our decision-making as consumers is often guilt-ridden, paradoxical, inept or plain wrong-headed, which is why astute trend-surfers such as Hindmarch and Boorman can get a hearing for their ideas.

Outside the febrile, solipsistic world of London's media, however, no one really feels oppressed by the branded goods that they happen to buy. Even the Taliban are happy to wear Nike trainers, for example, and no one would accuse them of having sold their souls to the product placement people. Worse, the anti-branders accord too much power to brands, which rather patronises the people who wear them. That branded pair of Nikes is still a pair of shoes, whatever logo happens to appear on its side.

Despite all its inadequacies, the rhetoric of anti-branding makes for an impressive sales pitch. But anti-brand activism might well curry some favour among a minority of guilt-ridden, cynical Generation X-ers. I would tantalise them with the idea that corporations have lost touch with their alienated customers and that they can use the language of anti-branding to cut through layers of cynicism about brands before they can "connect" with people and sell them more stuff. Maybe we really all are brands now, but some of us are better at repositioning ourselves than others.

Reusable shopping bags are in demand

noreply@blogspirit.com (SunCorp) — Fri, 31 Aug 2007 15:15:00 +0300

Reusable shopping bags are a really big deal now. The national grocery chain Whole Foods began selling good-looking cotton shopping bags by London designer Anya Hindmarch for $15 this month. In many stores the bags sold out in a matter of hours.

It may be the cute, environmentally sensitive message “I Am Not a Plastic Bag”, that did the trick or maybee it was Hindmarch’s name. Cute, colorful, message bearing and fashion forward.

The bags came out in limited edition. They were sold on a first come, first serve basis with only three bags per customer. When the bags went on sale in Taiwan last June, they created a stampede.

In Western New York, the bags made of differing designs and materials are readily available at Tops and Wegmans as well as smaller outlets for 99 cents and up.

The single use, biodegradable-resistant plastic bags are getting a really bad name even though their use is at an all-time high. In the United States, people use 1 million of them every minute. The Washington, D.C., Worldwatch Institute has reported that Americans annually discard 100 billion plastic bags.
Measures to ban them are being considered all over the country. San Francisco already bans their use in large supermarkets and other stores. Want to know more about our range of reusable bags, please visit http://flickr.com/photos/suncorp

Plastic or ME?

noreply@blogspirit.com (SunCorp) — Thu, 30 Aug 2007 14:55:00 +0300

How can a shopper easily contribute to saving energy and reducing waste and litter? SunCorp has a simple way to make it happen.

The Plastic or ME? tote is an eco-friendly 100% cotton canvas reusable “grocery bag” that can go everywhere a shopper goes. This will help the shopper reduce waste by not having to select plastic that will most likely be used just once.

The Plastic or ME? tote is 16” high X 18” wide with a 5” gusset and takes the place of approximately 2-3 plastic bags used at the grocery store. Research has revealed that the average individual uses thousands of plastic bags during their lifetime. There are three questions that shoppers should ask themselves when they are automatically handed a plastic bag when they are shopping:

• Do I need a plastic bag for this item that is already well packaged by the manufacturer?

• Do I need to take as many plastic bags in supermarkets?

• Could I bring my own shopping bag when making purchases?

Plastic bags are the cause of major environmental concerns. Somewhere between 500 billion and a trillion plastic bags are consumed worldwide each year. Research shows that millions of plastic bags end up as litter. Plastic bags have been seen blowing down the street or even in trees. Once a plastic bag is in the environment, it takes months to hundreds of years for it to break down. SunCorp suggests that a Plastic or ME? tote is a common sense alternative to plastic and to paper.

A few countries and cities have already taken tangible action to reduce the number of plastic bags used. Ireland, Taiwan, South Africa, Australia heavily tax plastic bags and have banned their use entirely because they have become such an environmental problem. It has been reported that England and some U.S. cities are considering similar actions.

Plastic bags come at a great cost to the environment. Instead of accepting plastic at the supermarket a shopper can now use the Plastic or ME? tote. Any shopper can help make a difference to the environment and to the future of babies all around the world by reducing the number of plastic bags they use.To know more about our range of bags, please http://flickr.com/photos/suncorp