Forget Home Furnishings, IKEA Enters The E-Bike Market

IKEA has certainly surprised us with many clever home-furnishing solutions. Most importantly, IKEA, with its roots in the super “green” country of Sweden, could not leave its homecountry’s highly socially conscious citizens disappointed. When it comes to act environmetally friendly, IKEA comes right up in the top list worldwide as leader of clean technology. In fact, IKEA has big goals for 2020 that includes a plan to obtain 100% of the energy it consumes in its stores and buildings from clean energy and to grow more wood than it uses.

Plastic bags were far gone six years ago, CFLs and LEDs were introduced as replacement for high-energy consuming incandescent light bulbs back in 2010, affordable home solar panels were recently made available in the UK, a number of electric car stations were installed at stores across the world and now IKEA has entered the electric bike market.

Yes, e-bike FOLKVÄNLIG can be found in two IKEA’s retail stores located in Vienna, Austria. Still in its inception phase, the e-bike is expected to become viral and shortly reach out to many different stores. The electric bike’s design has already received various awards at the Taipei Cycle Show, Eurobike and the IF Design Award.

FOLKVÄNLIG in Swedish means ‘user- friendly’, which is probably what IKEA is trying to address here with its sleek e-bike that could take you anywhere within a distance of 60 to 70km, aided by a powerful electric motor of 250Watt that could get you a total pedal-assisted range up to 45mi/72km per charge.

The e-bike also features an easy rechargeable system to its removable in-frame lithium-ion battery pack that takes about five hours to recharge, as well as a Shimano transmission that provides six different driving modes.

Should it prove successful, IKEA’s FOLKVÄNLIG e-bike must also come in a foldable variant, which gives the market even more room for growth.

Shanghai Metal Corporation offers a wide range of metals such as aluminum, widely used in beer can manufacturing. To find out more, please visit our Website or send your inquiry here. Our English speaking personnel will be more than pleased to help you. Follow us on  LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and don’t forget to subscribe to our YouTube channel. Or you could try our new mobile app by scanning our QR code.

Source and photo credit: technologicvehicles.com, treehugger.com, greenoptimistic.com, ubergizmo.com, cleantechnica.com, flickr.com

Camilla G.//SMC Editor

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Dream Home Furnishing With IKEA’s Very Affordable Little Helper

If you ask any present college student or graduate where they bought their furniture while at school, odds are IKEA is high up on that list. As of January 2008, IKEA became the world’s largest furniture retailer thanks to their product management, placement and quality given to their customers. IKEA’s product lines range from your everyday table spoon and doorknobs to larger media furniture, sofas, and full furnished kitchens. With style and functionality at it’s forth front, IKEA needed a material that would both look aesthetically pleasing with their items and durable-stainless steel was the answer.

Using China as the main example; out of their 2615 products on sale, 544 have in one way shape or form stainless steel. With over 20% of their products in China containing stainless steel, it’s a great thing that most of IKEA’s stainless steel articles are sourced from Asia, including China at 90%, Taiwan and Korea with the final 10%. The ability to adapt stainless steel on their existing products gave them that hint of style they needed.

With IKEA’s popularity at a world’s recognition, they have attracted new and modern designers. The ability for these designers to use stainless steel in their products has helped promote IKEA product as not just functional but stylish, as well as potentially raise their revenue. With some products, consumers have a choice of whether or not to include stainless steel in their product. For example, you could buy a bed frame and keep the wooden legs that it comes with, or opt to spend $20 more on those stainless steel legs which makes your bed look better. At the end of the day more people choose to spend just a little bit more to make their bed look sleeker and better looking.

The example of the bed legs is just one small one, but it shows the significance a small change can make. Stainless steel has absolutely helped IKEA pave the way to different markets with their high quality and affordable products.

It is this same idea of affordability and quality that we here at Shanghai Metal Corporation bring to the table with your stainless steel needs. To find out more, please visit our Website or send your inquiry here. Our English speaking personnel will be more than pleased to help you. Follow us on  LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and don’t forget to subscribe to our YouTube channel. Or you could try our new mobile app by scanning our QR code.

Sources: Ikea, Stainless Steel Report  SMC stainless steel pipe

Mario B.//SMC Editor

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Money Is So Over: Pay With Tweets

Hub of a number of astonishing fashion and high-tech trends such as CityCharger, New York City has once more set a new thing: the pop-up tweet shop. At the Marc Jacobs Tweet shop in SoHo at 462 West Broadway customers could pay in tweets at the check-out counter. The shop in NYC was the first one to successfully create a social buzz around fashionistas and media-savvy shoppers, followed by a Convent Garden pop-up shop in London last month.

Put up to last a couple of days the lounge-inspired pop-up shop features apart from a lounge area, photo booth, vine booth, food, drinks, free Wi-Fi, and nail bar, all accompanied by the skills of DJ Jilly Hendrix. Goodies such as mini-fragrances, clothing and accessories could be purchased and paid in form of tweets, Facebook or Instagram posts followed by the hashtag #MJDaisyChain. To enhance the social campaign MJ store is also giving handbags as rewards to best Instagram photos.

This is not the only social marketing campaign to use exquisite forms of currency in exchange for goods. McDonald’s Stockholm has also set a new trend by accepting recycled cans as payment for burgers. Linked to a more “proud” cause, McDonald’s social campaign can be said to have a deeper purpose behind it unlike MJ pop-up stores that mainly aim at creating a social buzz among their consumers and admirers.

Shanghai Metal Corporation, a specialist manufacturer and trader of metal products, doesn’t accept social currency for the moment. But you can find us on WordPress, LinkedIn , Twitter , Facebook  and Instagram. To find out more, please visit our Website, Or you could try our new mobile app by scanning our QR code. Moreover, we sell directly from Alibaba , EC21, Tradekey or directly at sales@shanghaimetal.com.

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Sources and pictures: fashionista.com, timeout.com, psfk.com, graphiquefantastique.com, simplyq.com, mdgadvertising.com, mdgadvertising.com, luxury-insider.com

Camilla G.//SMC Editor

 

Container Greenhouses – The Urban Organic Heaven

What if you wanted to eat locally produced and reasonably priced fresh organic fruits and vegetables during cold winter? Now it is possible, thanks to shipping containers.

Companies such as Freight Farms and PodPonics have introduced a new business model that converts second hand shipping containers into high-quality greenhouses that can be relocated almost everywhere. Every shipping container is manufactured according to ISO standards and they are also designed to be stacked into multiple layers. This enables the establishment of even bigger greenhouse complexes.

One major advantage of container farms is that now farms can be located closer to the places where the food will be eaten. Thereby, say, restaurants can minimize their shipping costs and still offer their customers fresh and high quality food. Also the technology associated with the business ensures a safe plantation of fruits, herbs and vegetables.

Damien Chivialle‘s model of urban farm units (UFU) has a system that uses live fishes and to to fertilize and recycle the farms water. Every container has a fish tank whose water flows in a closed circuit. The fish feces are broke into pieces that are utilized as fertilizers. The system also produces some methane for the farms secondary energy source. (source)

Also PodPonics’ solution is said to use 90 % less water because the water is recycled. The roots grow in water, not in soil. This solution minimizes the use of fertilizers and enables the adding of nutrients only as needed (source). PodPonics’ and Freight Farms control systems can both be operated with a smart phone.

The use of shipping containers as green houses seems to enhance the nutritional values of vegetables, herbs and fruits. It also enables companies to produce them closer to the people who end up eating them. Because of a really low Co2 footprint and lack of pesticides, urban farms create ultimate food safety. Now this food safety can also be enjoyed by average consumers because the cost of maintenance of urban farms seem to be feasible. For example PodPonics’ containers cost US 1800 to 2800 depending on their condition (source).

In order to establish an urban farm, shipping containers need to be purchased. Shanghai Metal Corporation is a reliable provider of internationally standardized shipping containers. More information can be found on our website (http://www.smccontainer.com). Please also follow us on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and Instagram. You can also download our mobile application by scanning the QR code below.

Tuomas P. // SMC Editor

Pictures and original articles: Singularityhub, Designboom, Forbes, Overgrow the System, Pando Daily, Motionpictures blog

The Cure that Lowers Aggression Caused by High Temperatures

Many philosophers, writers and narrators have for ages shared a common belief that hot temperatures increase violence and aggression. Even in the English language we use expressions such as “hot tempered” or “hot headed” to describe the character of an aggressive person. Scientists have also been interested in this connection for years, and through various studies, they have also found evidence for the correlation.

Many laboratory, field, correlational and archival studies give an unanimous result: hot temperature causes violent crimes. The emphasis is on the word violent, because contradictional  studies show that crimes also do occur in lower temperatures but they are most commonly non-violent. Also archival studies show that when the weather is hot e.g. a baseball player is more likely to hit the pitcher with a bat (source).

Still, the correlation between high temperature and violence is not flawless. For instance, what if everybody stayed at home on a hot day? Wouldn’t that prevent at least some occurrences of violence? Time is also a critical factor in this sense. Most of the violent crimes occur during the time when masses of people are most likely to engage in activities at the same time. In general, when a third variable changes the correlation between two variables so remarkably, we are talking about the Simpson paradox. In this case time changes the situation so that the relation between temperature and violence needs some modification.

Scientists have redefined the correlation and state that when the temperature rises above an uncomfortable level, the probability for aggression and violence rises as well. Therefore it is really important to ensure that especially public places such as schools,  shopping malls and even prisons have an enhanced air conditioning system. A research also shows that drinking cold beverages will decrease the probability of becoming angry (source).

Especially today, during the times of increased global warming, it is really important for countries and cities to keep their citizens cool. Today when we discuss global warming, the emphasis seems to be on natural disasters or effects on agriculture. What we are very likely to forget that because global warming raises temperatures, the crime rates will also increase. Most global warming experts predict that if temperatures rise between  2°F and 8°F (1.1°C to 4.4°C) the rates of violent assaults will also increase by approximately 80,000 annually.

A new business idea for areas suffering from global warming (which by the way means everywhere on the planet) is to establish pop-up cooling rooms, places where temperature is substantially low and where people can spend a short time to cool down. This can be easily implemented with refrigerated shipping containers whose temperature can decrease drastically (on extreme even below zero). In order to decrease crime rates and increase public safety we really need to keep even the common people cool and prevent their blood from boiling.

Shanghai Metal Corporation is a major supplier of high quality refrigerated containers that are equipped with fresh air conditioning system and have a low Co2 footprint. More details about our reefer containers can be found in our website (www.smccontainer.com). Please also follow us on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and Instagram. Try also our mobile application by scanning the QR code below.

Tuomas P. // SMC Editor

Pictures and original articles: Psychology Today, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, Sage Journals, Livestrong.com, Usmra.com, Kingwood.com, Everykidwins.com, Photobucket, Crazycreolemommy.com

What most of the newly built houses might have in common?

Can Container Pop-up Shops Challenge e-Commerce?

E-commerce enables new innovative retailers to a start a business with a relatively small initial capital. As it is easy for new businesses to emerge and new products to be offered with affordable prices, e-commerce can benefit the sellers, buyers and societies. Still, the advantages of traditional retailing exist and, luckily, the cost-related disadvantages might  be diminished with the use of shipping containers.

The use of shipping containers in retail real estate can break most of the disadvantages related to traditional retailing. By default traditional retailing suffers from high fixed costs, long leases, expensive rates and inflexible terms to name but a few. Also, as setting up a store takes forever, the costs tend to add up. Even though shipping containers are not originally designed to be used as real estate, they still are the most optimal solution.

Shipping containers are designed to be shipped in extreme weather conditions in rough seas. Therefore they offer the best protection towards any weather, even against hurricanes. They are built of durable material and are sized according to international standards. Therefore they are also modular and stackable allowing retailers to compile a retail center according to her own taste in a very short time period. Even a shopping mall can be built in three to four months from scratch. Containers are also affordable, say, a used container may be sold by about US$1000.

E-commerce can not fight back traditional commerce in certain areas. Security issues are always on top when establishing an online store. Possible credit card frauds might scare the customers away which forces businesses to invest a lot of money to buy expensive information security services and develop a a secure payment infrastructure. Also it is very likely that an online retailer might suffer major goodwill losses as customers become disappointed when the received products do not match with the products viewed online.

Containers shops as a form of traditional commerce enable face-to-face communication with customers and thereby better possibilities to create mutual trust between sellers and buyers. It will also be possible for sellers to present more expensive alternatives and thereby collect bigger profits. Container shops are not also tied to a fixed location but can be relocated many times.

By default, container shops can not get to the same cost category with e-commerce. Nevertheless, in a long term even maintaining an online store raises its maintenance costs and online retailers will be forced to start reaching for the advantages gained only via traditional commerce. The good thing is that, one is not forced to choose only one option. One can have them both, and create a combined retail infrastructure that has all the advantages of both online and offline retailing.

The suggested hybrid solution can only be implemented with shipping containers. Shanghai Metal Corporation has a long experience in offering shipping containers for the use of housing, hotels and offices. To learn more about our container solutions and how to order, please view our website. Please also follow us on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and Instagram. You can also download our new mobile application by scanning the QR code below.

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Tuomas P. // SMC Editor

Pictures and original articles: Wikipedia, Academia.edu, Treehugger.com, Dutchcorner, Stumuxlow, Remodelista, Archdaily, WordPress, Peggychow.com, Tourismtrends