Here are 72 captivating facts and statistics that may shed some light on your social media process moving forward.

UPS CEO Scott Davis and UPS Chief Financial Officer�Kurt Kuehn hinted that the troubling B-to-B trends are tied to the weak U.S. economy.

Davis said growth in retail is currently at the lowest levels since 2009, manufacturing is slowing, and in general customers are �nervous�. Both inventory levels and recruitment within U.S. businesses are�at a very low level, which does�not bode well for the�economy.

�We are anticipating some decline in premium product growth, and B-to-B is expected to deteriorate going forward,� Kuehn said. “Growth is mainly in B-to-C.�

The article also states that suspect James Holmes, “had reportedly amassed more than 6,000 rounds of small arms ammunition from online arms merchants and had the bullets delivered by private carriers that may have included FedEx and United Parcel Service.”

There are reports of a surveillance video depicting Holmes picking up ammunition at a FedEx outlet in Colorado. According to the article, FedEx released the following statement, “Our thoughts and prayers are with those impacted by this terrible tragedy in Colorado. We have a long-standing history of close cooperation with law enforcement agencies. Any questions regarding the investigation should be directed to authorities.”

Although there have been no confirmed reports that Holmes received packages from UPS, there were rumors from various media outlets that a UPS driver told authorities that several packages were delivered to the suspect by UPS.

In the article Susan Rosenberg, a UPS spokesman, said “While we are cooperating with the FBI for further investigation, it was erroneously reported (Sunday) that our drivers had been interviewed by authorities.”

“This didn’t happen for any drivers that delivered to either the suspect’s residential or university addresses. If a reporter talked to any UPS driver, then all they heard was anecdotal about our delivery process in general but they wouldn’t have any information to the specific addresses. We’re still reviewing data, so we have no specific confirmation on deliveries or corresponding shippers.”

UPS said the new vehicles, which will weigh 900 pounds less,�can generate fuel savings of 40% compared to the current aluminum body vehicle. For more information on this interesting approach to changing its vehucles to cut costs, read this article.

Amazon is rapidly expanding its distribution and fulfillment network and, according to this article in Slate,�appears primed to vanquish local retail with same-day delivery plans.

Kim Silva, operations team leader at Fairytale Brownies, said if her company had a fresh start planning its warehouse, it would definitely design the dock area with more room for trucks to maneuver in and out.

�The way we originally designed the lot makes it tight for trucks, so they continually hit the bollards,� Silva said. �We’d also leave more space for our forklifts to get in and out of the main freezer. Inside the warehouse we’d likely move some racking for better flow, additional conveyors and more designated space for custom packaging production. Being seasonal is a huge factor for us, so six months out of the year we can function just fine (and even have additional capacity), but when peak season hits space becomes very tight, especially as we continue to add skus. We own our building and have a tenant who occupies the warehouse next door. When the time comes, we’ll expand into that space and as they say, hind sight is 20/20, so we’ll have a much better idea of how we want to set up the additional space. �

Dustin Deno, an account executive at Salesforce.com, said many facilities layouts were designed without hard data from material flow analysis or lean analysis. Data driven decision making mitigates a lot of risk when optimizing your warehouse operations.

John Gillespie, owner of JJG Warehouse/Logistics Consulting, said warehouses become outdated within five years in many distribution businesses. Due to ever-changing SKU mixes, trends and altered velocities of product, a warehouse design has changed significantly from its originally intended flow design, in spite of a great deal of planning and engineered efforts, Gillespie added.

Gillespie suggests eliminating any rack positions within the first 12-14 feet inside the warehouse “box” entrance doors. �I feel strongly that this area should be reserved as a crossing lane across the front of the entire inside of your box, which allows better and safer flow getting through entrance/exit doors. It also eliminates unsafe congestion that can gather just inside doorways, as forklift operators would not be placed in a position to perform a “put-away” or “replenishment” just inside the doorway. It also moves order selectors away from the unsafe opportunity of being injured by equipment entering doorways from the dock, while picking orders just inside dock doors.�

Make sure your dock doors were designed with adequate latitude for the ever-changing aspect of trailer sizes, Gillespie said. �It’s important to design doorways with yielding, yet air-tight dock cushions. This can be achieved by employing adjustable dock head cushions/curtains.

Source: Shopatron

J.C. Penney did it by not only having openly gay comedian and talk show host Ellen DeGeneres as it’s spokesperson but they also printed a photo of both a lesbian couple in their special Mother’s Day ad and a gay couple in a Father’s Day ad.

Target started doing it in June when it began selling greeting cards geared towards same-sex couples and even Macy’s jumped on the bandwagon with several of the department stores decorating store windows with gay friendly decorations during June’s Gay Pride month.

In the article, Bob Witick, a consultant who has studied the gay community for 20 years, said by his calculations there are about 16 million adults within the US who identify as gay with a projected spending power of $790 billion. Yes, billion.

With that amount of money up for grabs, does this mean the future of marketing should become more gay friendly? According to Andy Marra, spokesman for the Gay, Lesbian, Straight Education Network, the answer is yes. Marra was quoted in the article as saying “I think we will see an increase as corporations see the value, both social and financial, in developing these relationships.”

Where do you stand on the issue? Do you foresee your brand stepping out of the straight closet anytime soon? If so, how exactly do you plan on finding your gay audience?

The classic Bean Boot has been transformed into a Bootmobile and over the next few months will be making stops throughout New England promoting the brand.

So, how exactly do you make a Bootmobile? Check out the video below: