Besides cleverly managing inventory and location, Feinstein and Eisenberg credit their success to low prices and spending little of their sales on advertising--1.5% versus 3% for their peers.

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People on the ground can also use a geographical information system that displays farmer contact data, farm size and location, tree inventory and price information, which makes it easier to forecast and optimize cashew collection.

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Square Register serves as a full point-of-sale system for businesses to accept payments, track inventory, and share menu and location information.

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Increased availability of information about local product inventory, coupled with smartphone access and location data, is helping retailers forge new customer relationships and bring unprecedented relevance to consumer messaging.

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Snyder's modeling shows that multiple stores need to stock more combined inventory to satisfy consumer demand than one location would, given the vagaries of more or fewer customers to patronize any one store.

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But the companies defend their narrowing of options by saying that if they included thousands of hotels, users would have tough time searching the entire inventory by rate, star rating and location on a tiny smartphone or tablet screen.

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Under the prior process, inventory specialists sometimes had to return three or four times to a location to verify results for a single piece of equipment.

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