Concern about payday loans has previously focused on storefront payday lenders where, according to the responsible lending center, fees can translate into annual interest rates of more than 400 percent.
The one-year undercover inquiry, dubbed Operation Pill Nation, focused on storefront clinics in Miami-Dade, Broward and Palm Beach Counties that the authorities say have become a national clearinghouse for illegal prescription drugs and highly addictive painkillers like oxycodone.
Amid a bevy of Amazon-related announcements surrounding Kindle – some intentional (the arrival of Kindle MatchBook), some not (news of an updated Kindle Paperwhite leaked a bit early) – Amazon has also quietly launched a new storefront focused on Home Automation products, including things like programmable thermostats, smart locks, sensors, video monitors, and more.
"I think there's enough business in town for both, especially if they focus on storefronts, but they're spending tons of money marketing and undercutting price," Mr. Runyan said.
Although there are several Internet auction sites, the new storefront businesses are focused on eBay, and most have designed their technical operations to interact with it.
It may also be a substitute for donation buttons that are occasionally used by bloggers as well; Paypal admits that some of their previous embeddable shopping options haven't been as user friendly as they'd hoped, where as the Storefront widget is focused on being simple to use for everyone.
This program, called Little Italy Risorgimento, focused on the design of storefronts along Mulberry and other streets in Little Italy.
Zaarly, which launched in 2011 as a "reverse Craigslist" for outsourcing odd jobs to neighbors, has since ditched that business entirely to focus on virtual local storefronts; TaskRabbit, which for years focused solely on errand-running for consumers, now also caters to businesses looking for legitimate temp workers.
Participants may have noticed the flowers, but did not give the landscaping consideration in their assessments of the storefronts, perhaps because they were focused upon other atmospheric elements, such as the products displayed in the store windows.
Rather than set up storefronts itself, Covered California has focused more on training people who then go out to farmers markets and health fairs to promote the exchange and do enrollment.
