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Early Shoppers
Michigan retailers began the holiday shopping season with a head of steam caused by shoppers starting early. Page 3
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Marketing to Smartphones
Isn’t it time to increase your business by marketing to the mobile phone device in just about everybody’s hand? Page 8
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Bounty Hunters
The old item pricing law is gone, but the wrong-price bounty remains. Learn how to protect against bounty hunters. Page 9
® December 2012 Vol. 37 No. 6
More than $30,000 available for 2013-14 scholarship awards Michigan Retailers Association’s annual competition is expected to award $34,000 in education scholarships in the spring for the 2013-14 academic year. At least 34 one-year scholarships will be available. The scholarship program benefits the employees and families of MRA member businesses. It is funded by the Michigan Retailers Foundation, which pays for the awards out of the earnings on foundation assets. The competition runs from January to April 1. Information will be sent to Association members, high schools, colleges and business groups in mid January. New for 2013 are the Barb Stein Legacy Scholarship, established by past MRA Board of Directors chair Barb Stein, and a second legacy scholarship for board member Joe Swanson. That brings the total number of legacy scholarships to 17. Legacy scholarships are named for Foundation contributors of $10,000 or more over their lifetime. Again this year, the program is trying to increase awareness that scholarships are available to students of the Gemological Institute of America (GIA) and other approved education and training institutes. Recipients are selected for their average to above-average academic performance and extracurricular activities, which can include part-time employment. Financial need is not a consideration. Those eligible to apply are high school seniors and college freshmen, sophomores and juniors who are dependent sons and daughters of owners or full-time employees of MRA’s nearly 5,000 member busiContinued on page 4
The official publication of the Michigan Retailers Association
www.retailers.com
Retail crime bills get past lame duck
One of the largest Capitol crowds in Michigan history made its voices heard as lawmakers acted on Right-to-Work legislation. Photo by Patrick Kerwin
Wireless world at center of energetic retail career by Doug Henze
When Brian Ducharme started in the wireless industry, it was almost another world. “Text” wasn’t a verb – it was something found in a book. Brian Ducharme No one considered a phone to be smart. “Tablets” were used to relieve aches and pains. That was 1987 and Ducharme,
now vice president/general manager of retail sales and services for AT&T’s Michigan and Indiana territories, worked for Cellular One in Milwaukee. The company, one of the first to offer wireless service, later was absorbed by AT&T. “New hires ask me which store I started in,” said Ducharme, who oversees sales at 108 companyowned stores with 1,100 employees, as well as 150 authorized retailers and 500-plus national chain stores that sell AT&T products. “I smile and say, ‘When I started, there weren’t stores.’” Board member That’s because the wireless industry wasn’t targeting consumers then, explained Ducharme, who was elected to the Michigan RetailContinued on page 5
The Michigan Legislature, meeting in a protest-filled lame-duck session before adjourning for the year, adopted a two-bill package that gives law enforcement officials better tools to go after organized retail crime. The legislation was a top priority for Michigan Retailers Association, which worked with Governor Rick Snyder’s office and State Rep. Joe Graves (R-Argentine Twp.) to put the legislation together and get it through the legislature. A l t h o u g h t h e re w a s s t ro n g bipartisan support for the anticrime measure, the legislation almost fell victim to the calendar and the 11th hour introduction and passage of highly contentious Right-to-Work legislation pushed by majority Republicans in both the House and Senate and supported by Gov. Snyder. The legislation, prohibiting companies from requiring workers to pay union dues or join a union in order to get or keep a job, won approval on Continued on page 2
Mutual to expand by adding dental Retailers Mutual Insurance Company will add a second line of insurance on January 1 when it takes over MRA’s dental insurance program. The move will be seamless and members enrolled in the dental insurance plan will see no change in benefits, rates or administration, said Jean Sarasin, MRA executive vice president and chief operating officer. Delta Dental will continue to administer the program. The move follows state insurance regulators’ approval of MRA’s request to dissolve its MEWA (Multiple Employers Welfare Arrangement Trust), which currently operates the dental insurance program, and move the program and MEWA assets to RMIC. MRA established Retailers Mutual in 2006 as a single-line company providing workers’ compensation insurance to a wide variety of businesses.