Neil Saunders
@NeilRetail
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Managing Director of GlobalData Retail, founder of Conlumino. I analyze all sorts of things to do with retail, shopping, and consumers.
Scottsdale, AZ
Joined February 2010
@Daily_Express It was a throat lozenge. She’s had flu and obviously needed it to ease the pain. Despite being ill she turned up and did a great job. She deserves praise, not gutter journalism with no fact checking or sense of balance. @Pink #Pink.
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In 1985, US department stores took 14.5% of all retail spend. Last year they took 4.3%. The figure is still falling. The internet is often blamed for this. But the blunt truth is that US department stores just aren’t very good retailers. In fact, most of them are abysmal.
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"The bins are collected on Wednesday, you need to put them out by 7.30am. I think that covers everything." #Cameron
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United Airlines is pleased to announce its new head of customer service. #unitedAIRLINES #flight3411 @united
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🇺🇸 Gap stock soars after Kanye West touts collaboration with his brand
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Last week I met with JCPenney CEO, Marc Rosen, and some of his team including Chief Merchandising Officer, Michelle Wlazlo. We walked one of the stores JCPenney has refreshed as part of its $1 billion turnaround program. 🧵
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Hobby Lobby, closed Sundays to allow employees time for family and worship. Open during a pandemic because our morals aren’t really all that great.
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If you're going to hold a writers' protest, this has to be the most poignant place to hold it. @PENamerican #WritersResist
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@BoggoRoad @MrJoeGardner Because NJ is a stupid state that doesn't trust its citizens to go to an unsupervised beach. Or fill their own cars at the gas station. 🙄.
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.@nbc should be throughly ashamed of their complete failure to properly cover the #OpeningCeremony. A national disgrace. #nbcfail.
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@NYDailyNews @IvankaTrump @jaredkushner @netanyahu “We will only have peace with the Arabs when they love their children more than they hate us.” - Golda Meir.
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We’ve just published some new research, supported by Amazon, on shopping habits during the pandemic. It corrects some of the myths and misinformation about how retail is changing. Here are ten highlights. .
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The results from Walmart and Target were very different. But they are not contradictory. They are two sides of the same coin. Target is very exposed to discretionary categories, precisely the area where consumers are cutting back. It is weaker in grocery and essentials where
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Target is the latest retailer to announce it is closing on Thanksgiving. It will also offer deals earlier than ever (starting in October) to try and spread out shopping and avoid crowds.
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Can't be bothered to chop your veg? Don't worry, the 'produce butcher' will chop it for you. Diced, sliced, julienned, minced. #WholeFoods
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The majority of mainstream stores are uninspiring places. Even in good malls, they are dispiriting and dismal. Investment is severely lacking. They are devoid of inspiration. There’s no reason for people to visit.
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US inflation up 8.2% in September. 🥫 Food at home: +13.0%.👩🍳 Food away from home: +8.5.⛽️ Gasoline: +18.2%.💡 Electricity: +15.5%.👚 Apparel: 5.5%.🚗 New vehicles: +9.4%. Still a very costly picture for US consumers!.
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This politically correct nonsense has gone too far, as has the increasing tendency to take offense at everything and anything. The Betsy Ross flag is not a racist symbol; it’s our nation’s first flag.
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@SkyNews @jamescracknell Shameful! NK doesn't have a handle on it: it's the tragic by-product of a vicious, brutal regime where millions have died of starvation.
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@FortuneMagazine US department stores have lost consumers from across the *entire* age spectrum. The failure to adapt and evolve is their own.
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No true patriot would carry flags of fascism and slavery. What they stand for is the antithesis of our founding principles. #Charlotteville
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US department stores can learn a lot from John Lewis. This thread has fifteen simple lessons. Not rocket science, but all essential. Let’s hope 2019 is the year when players like Macy’s start to make a real step change. Their survival depends on it.
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@Alyssa_Milano This is such a privileged view from the bubble of California. No consideration for the people who work in the industry, many of whom may strongly support Stacey Abrams and her ideals. Quite appalling.
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M&S’s success is so well deserved. A food hall packed with thoughtful innovation and incredibly tasty food. I’d give my eyeteeth to have a grocery store as good as this in the US! World class retail. #MandS
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Retail basics are lacking. There’s no care. Standards are low. Is it any wonder market share had fallen off a cliff? Why should customers spend their hard earned cash here?
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Crate & Barrel at Scottsdale Fashion Square - the mall is currently being looted and vandalized. This isn’t a protest, it’s a bunch of (mostly white) people taking advantage of a tragedy as cover for their blatant criminality and reprehensible behavior.
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One. Present things neatly and with some flair. This is basic; it’s retail 101. Even mundane or everyday products should be focused on. A bit of effort in display makes shopping pleasant.
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On this day in 1955, Rosa Parks was ordered to give up her seat on an Alabama bus so that white people could sit. By having the courage to remain seated, she stood up to racism and discrimination. Hats off to this American hero whose act of resistance is an inspiration to all.
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This is what we said about the Kraft Heinz merger in March 2015. Sadly, the combined company hasn't done much innovating.
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Oh dear. Something I said? 😅.Can't have truth permeating into the alternative universe.
With Macy's claiming that they are offering fresh fashion and that scores for the look of the store have risen, I sometimes wonder whether management actually lives in an alternate universe. $M
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Yeah, let’s create a ‘something for nothing’ culture. That’ll really benefit society. If you want to succeed in life, stop whining, stop expecting everyone else to do things for you, get smart, and start working!
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🇺🇸 Online sales for the Ivanka Trump brand fell 26 percent in January.
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Sandwich cream! What kind of stupidity is this? Get a grip Heinz!
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Some Marks & Spencer stores are branded M&S. It makes sense because people have always called it M&S. Very few have shortened WHSmith to WHS, so the rebrand doesn’t resonate. It also looks ugly and is too similar to the NHS logo. Waste of time and money!
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I had fun chatting to CNBC's @AmiLinMcClure about Kanye West and his YZY range for Gap. It will be a success. But, what will it do for the core Gap brand? Also featuring comment from @laurenthomas . #Kanye #Gap #yeezy.
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Ten. Foodservice is growing faster than retail. And you can’t eat out online. Incorporate good dining options into your stores. They draw people in, generate revenue, and make people linger for longer.
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Eight. Allow customers to check stock too. Link online to the store. People shop across channels. Enable them. Oh, yes, and this also means you don’t have to cram every single product into your shops!
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Seven. Make sure registers are clear to see and are manned. Having small podium - hidden like an tiny island in a sea of product - is absolutely no good. And don’t forget, registers are increasingly customer service desks where people query things, want to check stock, etc.
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Four. Do not have a sea of merchandise in fashion. It’s uninspiring, it’s hard to shop, and it’s really not what consumers want. Less is more. Use the freed up space for visual inspiration and to highlight key pieces.
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Three. Create little visual delights. Don’t display everything in a functional way; break it up with interesting fixtures and areas, where people can pause and consider the things you’re offering.
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Abercrombie & Fitch Q3 results:. 💵 Total sales: +20.0%.🧥 Abercombie sales: +29.7%.👖 Hollister sales: +11.1%.📈 Net income: $96m v $2m loss LY. Holy wowzers! Stunning performance. Shows what a clear strategy with a team focused on products and the customer can deliver!.
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New partnership between Amazon and PayPal - merchants will be able to offer Prime shipping directly in the PayPal checkout (starting next year) #AmazonAccelerate
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Fifteen. Care for your people. They are the biggest asset you have. Trust them, empower them, inform them, pay them well. They’re your army and they’ll lead you to victory.
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As it is almost New Year, here are some resolutions that US department stores should be making - looked at through the lens of a company that really does retailing and constantly makes an effort: UK department store, John Lewis & Partners. @jlandpartners.
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Have ditched the shabbiness of Macy’s this weekend to visit a retailer that takes great pride in its proposition, appearance and service! There are very few retailers that do food as well as M&S…
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🇺🇸 Getting Valentine's Day roses? Thank federal inspectors who worked without pay during the shutdown.
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Six. Ditch the carpet. Green carpet is not nice, Macy’s. It wasn’t nice when you fitted it in the 1980s. And it sure hasn’t come back in fashion now. Rip it up and put a modern floor down.
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Two. Offer proper authority in all areas. Most US department stores are not really department stores. They’re big fashion stores with a bolt on of other things. They miss out on high growth categories like homewares.
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@MPSRedbridge @RedbridgeLive @Jas_Athwal @IlfordRecorder @nusound92fm @ELAdvertiser @LocalCrimeBeats @essex_crime I don’t know what’s worse: the petty vindictiveness, the complete absence of common sense, or the gloating about it on social media. Suggest you focus your time and resources on fighting real crime.
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Five. Discount areas do not need to look messy. They don’t need to be piled high with random merchandise. And yes, you need to tidy them occasionally.
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Breaking news from Arizona: The Pima County Attorney's Office has charged Sir Philip Green with four counts of misdemeanor assault.
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Get a senior team that understands retail. Stop setting targets for non-retail activities. Invest in and improve retail basics. Bring back the magic. Protect the partnership model. My message to John Lewis. Thanks to @guardian for including my views.
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The internet will never take off! Response to my suggestion for online selling when I was an intern at John Lewis!
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🇬🇧 From milkshakes to meat: UK businesses battle with shortages
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The idea that this crisis will destroy physical retail is garbage. Sure, some things may change. But we are social creatures. Going shopping is, and always has been, much more than about acquiring stuff. If anything, more people appreciate that now than a month ago.
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Marks & Spencer wants to create 2,000 jobs, make a store more sustainable, and help revitalize one of the UK's main shopping streets. But no, we can't have that. Because, despite it being approved by the planning inspector, @michaelgove doesn't like it. This kind of ridiculous.
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Thirteen. Service, service, service. Really good customer service is all. Help people, they won’t forget it. (And make sure the letter ‘c’ doesn’t fall off your display)!
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To address extreme levels of data scraping & system manipulation, I’m limiting photos of Macy’s to one per weekend…
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Only 5 days into 2023 and we've had massive Amazon layoffs, a bankruptcy warning from Bed Bath & Beyond (though has been brewing for ages), 20% of staff laid off at Stitch Fix, Walgreens posting a $3.7bn quarterly loss, Victoria's Secret CEO exiting, Macy's announcing closures!.
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Nine. You need your own brands. US department stores are so poor at this. John Lewis is so good! If you don’t have own brand you can’t differentiate and it’s more difficult to protect margins.
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Here’s my top bit of retail analysis for the day…. When you go into a store you might find products that are not to your personal taste. But that’s OK, because you don’t need to interact with or buy them. You can just mind your business and go about your day!. #Target
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.@NYDailyNews Mindless zombies, says the newspaper of the least free state in the union - the overtaxed, debt-riddled state of New York!.
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John Lewis is a great retailer. They don’t get everything right and they are not without problems. But they understand the basics. They care. And they invest. It’s why they’ll survive.
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Eleven. Think of other services you can offer. Many people don’t just want to buy goods, they want to buy experiences and expertise too. Capitalize on their needs.
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🇬🇧 End the war on pubs — hospitality isn’t to blame for the Covid crisis
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Today has been a brutal one for retail: hundreds of thousands of workers furloughed, families up and down the country now worried about their futures. Good, hardworking people. My thoughts go out to them. We all look forward to the brighter days that lie somewhere ahead. ❤️.
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Twelve. Partner with big brands to create strong displays. Use their expertise and knowledge to help you sell. Work together.
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Total US retail sales are down 7.7% in May over the same period last year. Not great, but not a disaster either and shows that retail is on the road to recovery after a horrible April.
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@Verizon Sorry Verizon, but your coverage is absolutely awful. Disjointed, boring, little actual content, and constant interruptions to tell us how great your 5G is. You’ve done yourself and Macy’s a disservice.
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There’s an interesting article in the Wall Street Journal in which the new CEO of Macy's, Tony Spring, recognizes that shopping at Macy’s stores isn’t fun. It’s one of the first admissions we have had, in a very long time, from the executive suite that the way stores look and.
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Given the nature of the touching, this is likely to be a Class 3 misdemeanor. That carries a potential jail sentence of up to 30 days per charge - so a maximum of 120 days in jail if Sir Philip is found guilty of all charges against him.
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The first Ulta mini shops have just opened in Target. The fit out is great. Very visible. It’s open, but also feels like a genuine shop-in-shop. It feels a distinct from the rest of the beauty offer.
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Store manager in Walmart approached and asked why I was talking pictures. I explained and waited for the usual “you’re not allowed to do that.” Instead, he said “anything I can help with or that you’d like to know? Here’s my card, always feel free to ask for me” Good old Walmart!.
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Some photos of Walgreens' new concept in Chicago where you order most products via a kiosk and pick them up at the counter. The biggest question is: what problem is this solving for the customer? The honest answer is: none. It's likely solving a problem for Walgreens - theft.
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Sir Terence Conran leaves behind a vast legacy. He influenced retail, he influenced home design, he influenced dining, and he influenced culture. It’s fair to say he reshaped lifestyles and living spaces like few others have done. A life well lived. RIP, Sir Terence.
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This “Amazon killed…” narrative is lazy analysis that is not grounded in truth. It certainly didn’t kill Bed Bath & Beyond. Did Amazon make BBBY spend over $11 billion on share buy-backs rather than investing in stores and its proposition? Nope.
🇺🇸 What Bed Bath & Beyond, Toys 'R' Us and RadioShack have in common
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As smart as Sharon White is, she was the wrong person to chair JLP. She didn’t cause all of the issues the company faces, but she’s also done much damage. Her ill-advised, and now backtracked on, view that outside equity might be brought in, hurt the morale of partners and showed.
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@PDSutherlandUN @katerwalsh This basically boils down to: we don't like what the democratic process decided, so let's ignore it. Disgraceful.
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I have never, in the whole of my career, seen evidence that Amazon is destroying other retailers. What I have seen evidence of is other retailers not evolving and letting Amazon take their market share.
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Fourteen. Be a destination. You can’t make a huge space work without catering for lots of needs. Focus on your customer, get them to shop across various departments.
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Target CEO, today we’re not competitors - our competitor is the virus. Great to see retailers playing a role.
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This is a terrible take from the Daily Telegraph! There is zero evidence to back this assertion; indeed, there’s significant evidence to the contrary. And online and stores are not, as this hints at, mutually exclusive!
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“Tarquin, I’ll be late home tomorrow. I’m going on a protest about this climate thingy. It’s only in Waitrose so I can grab the brioche and olives after. I’m taking baby Annabelle in her push-chair so the au pair can have the afternoon off. Think I’ll wear my Joules coat. ”.
Current scenes:. #ExtinctionRebelion protesting by lying on the floor of the UK’s biggest @waitrose in Kings Cross! . Had to carefully navigate through the fruit and veg aisle to get my cucumber like lol . #waitrose .#london.#breakingnews .#protest
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It took me about 2 minutes to straighten up this fixture. All it needs is a little time and effort. You’re welcome, Macys.
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Please remember that Bed Bath & Beyond has spent around $11.73 billion buying back its shares over the past 10 or so years.
🇺🇸 Bed Bath & Beyond shares plunge after retailer warns it doesn’t have the cash to pay down debts.
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This Macy’s in Burlington, VT has been turned into a high school … and it looks way better than it ever did as a department store! 🤣
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There is much greater emphasis on visual merchandising, including way more mannequins showing off outfit suggestions. These break up the previous monotony of the sea of merchandise and, at the entrance, are quite impactful.
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Reports of the death of physical retail have always been greatly exaggerated. Not so long ago, thanks to the temporary pandemic-fueled spike in online sales, some were predicting the demise of physical retail. More recently we had the absurd prediction that we’d all be shopping
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Every holiday season Deloitte puts out some absolutely ridiculous numbers. Apparently, 57% of spend will be online. Please! Last year they said 51% of holiday spend would be made online. The reality: 9.8% was online. I thought auditors were supposed to be good with numbers!
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Any CEO of a non-essential retailer that is remaining open right now should be out on the shop floor serving customers. If you expect your employees to put themselves out there at this time, you do the same!.
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The CEOs of retailers should do this too … especially those from certain department stores!.
🇺🇸 Starbucks CEO says he'll work a shift at the company's cafes once a month
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Commentators: "physical retail is dead".Amazon: "we're opening department stores". I know who I'm betting on. .
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