INDIANAPOLIS -- A coalition of small-business owners will march on Washington this week to make a plea for credit-card-fee reform. Big and small businesses alike were hopeful when the proposed Credit Card Accountability, Responsibility and Disclosure Act was signed and set to take effect mid-February. The ruling was designed to reign in the worst practices of the credit-card industry. All but one: interchange fees.

LAKEWOOD, Colo. -- Convenience store shopper needs can be looked at as having five tiers, according to a recent study conducted for the NACS/Coca-Cola Retailing Research Council by Lakewood, Colo.-based The Integer Group. According to the study, the bottom tiers of shopper needs—safety, cleanliness and hospitality—include some basic thresholds. “If you’re not at parity with your competition in those three areas, you’re tending to create negative value for your consumers,” Paul Ballew, vice president of insight and strategy at Integer, told CSP Daily News.

DEARBORN, Mich. -- Following on President Obama’s 10 references to “clean energy” in his State of the Union speech, and a desire to create “a comprehensive energy and climate bill with incentives that will finally make clean energy the profitable kind of energy in America,” alternative-fuel businesses made waves this past week with a string of unveilings and announcements that suggest the new decade could bring about major changes to the way consumers travel.