Sunday, March 07, 1999
TIPSHEET
Cut-rate food cheaper here
Sure, Ohio may be nothing more than a fly-over to sophisticated New Yorkers, but at least we're paying less for even life's simplest pleasures, including cut-rate meals.
According to research from management consulting firm Runzheimer International, a fast-food meal costing about $3.25 in Cincinnati goes for an average $5.68 in the Big Apple — and that's without an apple pie. Wire reports say Runzheimer surveyed prices in cities across the country for a meal of a quarter-pound cheeseburger, large fries and medium pop. Those items happen to make up a value meal in Cincinnati.
The second-most expensive city was Honolulu, where the same meal costs an average $5.16, and No. 3 was Washington, D.C., where the price was $4.97.
The $3.25 price in Cincinnati — for take-out fare — may vary a few pennies from store to store.
— Lisa Biank Fasig
Greenspan warning
Federal Reserve Board Chairman Alan Greenspan has a message for consumers before the next millennium comes: Watch out for pickpockets if you panic.
The Fed chief told American Banker that he figures Year 2000 computer uneasiness will cause folks to rush banks and withdraw cash because they fear global computer breakdowns will keep them from their money when Jan. 1 comes.
But he said the Fed will keep “enough currency for any conceiveable demand” to ensure banks have cash on hand for depositors, despite their concerns about a computer bug.
Mr. Greenspan also suggested consumers would be a lot wiser to keep their money in banks instead of walking around with $100 bills in their pockets to protect their stash.
—Jeff McKinney
Affair grounded in Cincy
Is the love-fest between Comair and Delta Air Lines enough to make the major airline monogamous, dropping its relationships with other regionals? Some industry types think so.
It all started when SkyWest dropped its Delta Connection flights between six California cities and Delta's hub in Los Angeles in December. Rumors abounded that SkyWest also would phase out ferrying Delta passengers to the Salt Lake City hub in order to align itself more closely with United Airlines.
On its Daily Banter Web site, industry publication Plane Business mused, “Who would take over for SkyWest at Salt Lake City? I'd place bets on the airline that begins with "C' and ends with "air.'”
Thanks for the vote of confidence — but no thanks — says the Erlanger-based Comair. Spokeswoman Meghan Glynn said Comair is focused on its Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky International Airport hub, where its Delta Connection flights carry 5.5 million people a year, and on continuing to expand closer to home.
— Amy Higgins
Dial "I' for Irony
The call came from a reporter for a trade magazine. He wanted to know if hobby shops should set up Web pages. Business expert Mark Weaver, director of the entrepreneurship program/small business institute for the University of Alabama, gave a straight answer.
Mr. Weaver suggested that business owners should dress appropriately, maintain a clean business, advertise in the Yellow Pages, keep in touch with customers and sponsor community activities long before creating a Web page.
The Denver-based Yellow Pages Advertising Council lost no time. A news release went to 250 North American media outlets touting — what else — the power of Yellow Pages advertising and blasting newspapers, archrival of the Yellow Pages.
“Unlike newspaper ads, Yellow Pages ads deliver ready-to-buy customers,” the press release intoned.
Would this rapid dissemination of information — ironically to newspapers — have happened without the Web? “No, probably not,” acknowledged Leslie Goodman, account executive at Martin Public Relations, a division of Martin Advertising, which counts the Yellow Pages Publishers Association as a client and produced the release. “It would have taken quite a bit longer.”
— John Eckberg
Items for Tipsheet are gathered by Enquirer business reporters and compiled by Lisa Biank Fasig of the business staff.
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