Tallahassee Democrat from Tallahassee, Florida • Page 46

2ETallahassee Democrat Sunday, September 5, 2004 Business m.Tl.l.llSSi:K.rom Online travel shopping is more than the big three ON 3 www.expedia.com THE www.orbitz.com WEB GLJ www.travelocity.com www.sidestep.com www.qixo.com www.yahoo.com www.mobissimo.com www.priceline.com www.hotwire.com Of course, there are limits to the benefits of SideStep and its rivals. They are not built for one-stop shopping like Expedia, Travelocity and Orbitz, which promote package deals as a way to save and give customers who are booking flights, hotels and cars just one company to deal with in the event that any itinerary changes need to be made. "Frankly, it comes down to convenience'," said David Dennis, product manager at Expedia. Perhaps the best course of action for penny pinchers is to search multiple sites, including at least one traditional online travel agency and one aggregator. If price is the only important factor, make-your-best-offer companies such as Priceline or Hotwire are also worthwhile, though these sites do not offer information up-front about what airline or hotel is being offered.

options that are as cheap, or cheaper, can be found on the Web sites of the airlines and hotels supplying the services. Moreover, consumers who have used supplier sites consider them more reliable and easier to use than the third-party sites, according to PhoCusWright. But because bargain hunters like to comparison shop, they go to Expedia, Travelocity and Orbitz to get a long list of the inventory available from all the major airlines, hotels and car rental companies, rather than visiting hundreds of individual Web sites. Trouble is, there are some gaps in what's available at Expedia, Travelocity and Orbitz, particularly when it comes to the low-cost airlines such as JetBlue, Southwest and others that do not sell their tickets through third-party sites. (They do this to keep recently bought the aggregator FareChase.

"Yahoo's acquisition of Fare-Chase indicates that the potential value of these travel meta-search engines is becoming stronger," said Henry Harteveldt, an analyst at Forrester Research. Once visitors to these sites find a flight or hotel room they want to book, they are redirected with the click of a mouse to the supplier's site, where the transaction is completed and ariy loyalty points are rewarded. "I think this is the direction online travel is heading," said Phil Carpenter, vice president of marketing at SideStep, whose software also allows customers to conduct side-by-side flight comparisons with other sites including competing aggregators. "With the travel search engine model, we can offer the best of both worlds," Carpenter said. By Brad Foss THE ASSOCIATED PRESS Q.

I've been booking travel online for years, but I keep going back to the same sites. Am I missing out on potentially better deals and services and, if so, where might I find them? A. Of the roughly $40 billion spent online for flights, hotel rooms, rental cars and cruises in 2003, more than 75 percent of this shopping took place at three sites: Expedia, Travelocity and Orbitz, according to Pho-CusWright which tracks the industry. The reason for this, Pho-CusWright surveys have found, is that a majority of consumers consider online travel agencies the best places to find the lowest prices and the widest range of choices. In truth, flights and lodging their distribution costs and ticket prices low.) Fortunately, there is an easy way to fill in this incomplete picture: Just visit one of the growing number of travel search engines, or aggregators, whose software scours the offerings on thousands of airline, hotel and car rental Web sites.

Some well-known travel search engines include SideStep, Mobissimo, Qixo (which adds a $20 fee) and which SAFETY FRESH' From Page IE rzzfry rrt a a Hi it From Page IE I i ff I i. mil 1 1 CARRIE NILAND Democrat The new Fresh Market sits In what was once a Wal-Mart store on Thomasville Road. way of shopping." In the Fresh Market, customers won't find large quantities of dog food, health foods or baby diapers. They won't see pre-packaged meats or many well-known staples such as Ragu pasta sauce, Wesson cooking oil or Heinz barbecue sauce. Those brands in limited quantities tend to sit on the store's bottom shelves.

At eye level, customers will see "hard-to-find" brands such as Rao's Homemade pasta and sauces, Bone Suckin' Mustard Sauce for barbecue, and grapeseed and almond cooking oils. This is the store, Towery said, for those who "enjoy eating well, love to entertain and are looking for high quality merchandise. There are things we carry that scream Specializing mainly in perishables, the Fresh Market is where customers can find more than 100 types of spices and about 200 varieties of cheeses as well as fresh-cut flowers, fresh fruits and vegetables, seafood, and beef that is aged at least 14 days before its sold. Like other local grocers, the Fresh Market will offer taste tests, cooking tips and prepared foods, such as whole chickens, cold salads and deli sandwiches. The Fresh Market isn't like typical big-box grocery stores with wide aisles of products under bright lights.

Instead, its stores particularly, began to become more stylish." The new safety glasses are selling at twice the rate of traditional safety glasses, she said. Lowe's sells Fuel protective eyewear, made by AO Safety, a division of Indianapolis-based Aearo Corp. Pete Murphy, vice president of marketing for AO Safety, said retail sales of safety products in the hardware industry climbed from $99 million in 1999 to about $137 million in 2002. "I think the look of this stuff has had something to do with it," he said. Eyewear is the most popular safety item, but as both AOSafety and MSA make ear muffs and ventilators that are more consumer-friendly, sales of those products also are rising, retailers say.

MSA entered the market by working with major retailers and getting its product on shelves in 1998. The company this summer began airing TV ads, one with images flashing back and forth between a person mowing a lawn and a rock, along with the words, "Lawnmower. Stone. 911." The campaign increased brand awareness by 70 percent in the Pittsburgh market, MSA officials said. "Those results were startling to us and a real eye-opener," Quinn said.

The company took its campaign a step further this summer, sending a "safety squad" around the city in a van to hand out equipment to people working in their yards without protective gear. "This category has already changed drastically, and it could very well resemble what happened with bike helmets," said Greg Quebbeman, a merchandizing manager for TruServ, which supplies True Value Hardware. "These new glasses on display change every nine months, so in a way they are a bit more like the fashion industry, which is a far cry from where we were." out of 10 thinking about protecting their eyes or ears like they should, we could double the size of this market," said John Quinn, marketing manager for MSA Safety Works, the consumer division of the company. MSA has hired designers to make rakish protective eyewear with hopes that the new glasses can make safety a little more snappy. According to the National Safety Council, which tracks injuries, thousands of people are hurt each year undertaking home projects.

"There aren't any scientific studies that would show how many of these injuries could have been prevented with the right protective gear, but the injury patterns on the body the eyes, the face, the loss of hearing suggest that many of them could have been, prevented," said Meri-K Appy, the council's president. Safety gear companies estimate the size of the current market for eye, ear and lung protection is less than $140 million annually, but the" market has been growing at a steady 8 percent a year, Quinn said. Economic indicators bode well for MSA and other companies in the market. Sales of previously owned homes remain strong. Meanwhile, home-improvement retailers' business is growing Home Depot Inc.

has raised its full-year earnings outlook, while rival Lowe's reported that its quarterly earnings rose 18 percent. Chris Ahern, a spokeswoman for Lowe's, said the retailer displays safety items next to the tools they should be used with. "The increased popularity of personal safety gear for the do-it-yourselfer is a trend we've been seeing for the past five years or so," Ahern said. "That's about the time eyewear, are more intimate. They're often no larger than 18,000 square feet decked out with antique furnishings and tiled floors.

Shoppers are wooed with the sounds of classical music and bathed in incandescent lighting. "What we wanted to bring to this market is a refreshing shopping environment," Towery said. "We want it to be a like a trip to Disney World." Concentrated growth Since the privately held company was founded in 1982, it has grown to 41 stores, located through the Southeast. The Tallahassee store will be its 42nd. A new location is under construction near Coconut Grove, in South Florida.

Company officials will open two more stores this year, one in Nashville, and another in Birmingham, Ala. "We're in a substantial growth mode," Towery said. "We have plans to continue Locations are also planned for Columbus, Ohio, and Chicago. According to company officials, annual sales which are growing by double digits are now more than, $300 million. Four years ago, sales totaled about $193 million.

"Because of our smaller footprint, we don't have to do the same volume as that of big-box stores to be successful," Towery said. He added that, over the last few years, television networks such as the Food Network have sparked a greater interest in cooking. Sheila Quintero is one customer who's looking forward to seeing what the store has to offer. "IH check it out," she said last week. "I hear they have specialty stuff.

I'm sure once I get inside, I'll find something I want to buy." Contact reporter Juana Jordan at (850) 599-2321 or jrjordantallahassee.com. ABOUT FRESH MARKET Founded: By Ray Berry in 1982 in Greensboro, N.C. Number of stores: 41 in Alabama, Florida, Kentucky, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia. Plans to open six to eight new stores each year. Employees: About 3,500 In Tallahassee: 1390-4 Village Square in the Village Square Plaza.

Hours: 9 a.m.-9 p.m. 10 a.m.-8 p.m. Sun. 3 at a fairly rapid rate." The Fresh Market has a goals of opening at least 10 stores a year. Contracts are already signed on locations in North Naples, and a deal on a site in Bonita Springs is close to being sealed.

"We are looking in areas like Destin, like Wellington (in the Palm Beach area)," said Eric Blaesing, company spokesman. And the Fresh Market is sliding toward the Midwest. Delta to outline restructuring plan that has been developed over the last several months. Delta, the nation's third-largest airline, has warned about the possibility of bankruptcy if it doesn't get deep wage cuts from its pilots. The company is seeking $1 billion in concessions; the union has offered up to $705 million.

Delta also is seeking to restructure its more than $20 billion in debt. The airline has extended until Thursday, the day THE ASSOCIATED PRESS ATLANTA Delta Air Lines Inc. will outline details of its closely guarded restructuring plan at a meeting Wednesday that will be broadcast on the Internet. Chief executive Gerald Grinstein will announce the initial phase of the Atlanta-based carrier's strategic review, the company said last week. Details were not provided, and officials have been tight-lipped about the plan after Grinstein's Webcast, a deadline for creditors to respond to a request by Delta to give it more flexibility in restructuring its debt.

Some creditors have refused to consent to the request without more information on the turnaround plan. A few details of Delta's turnaround plan have already been released. Earlier this summer, Grinstein told employees Delta plans to seek new markets, domestically and internationally, and new customers either alone or in a partnership. In addition, the airline will look to leverage assets and to deploy them in more profitable ways, he said. Last month, Grinstein said the airline plans more job cuts, though he did not say how many.

Delta already has reduced its work force by 16,000 since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. As of June 30, the company and subsidiaries employed 70,300. Your Tk 0' i (V 14 Month CD" 23 Month CD 'AI'V i AnnnJ IVirnirw VttH. $fi minimum Afinn rUia as of f-'limi, anil air jcti duBjW.

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