Interesting and Humour - page 2223
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Mystic Asia: 5 sacred places
Lhasa (Tibet).
Valley of the Jugglers (Laos)There are legends about Lhasa: supposedly there are monks living there for 5000 years, supposedly some of them are able to rise into the air during meditation and fly
In Siangkhuang province, at the foot of the Annam Range separating Laos and Vietnam, is one of the strangest and most mysterious places on earth - a valley dotted with thousands of enormous stone pots.
Varanasi (India)Untouched India, not touristy, shocking and surprisingly poignant. One of the oldest cities in the world - Varanasi is about 3,000 years old.
Duntse Lakhang (Bhutan).Opposite the city of Paro, at the junction of two valleys, a somewhat unconventional temple was built on a hill in 1421 by the famous lama Tangtong Gyelpo.
Lake Salpa (Nepal)Salpa is located in an area called Solukhumbu in the mountains at an altitude of over 4,000 metres. The lake is said to be capable of enhancing magical powers and is a gateway to the netherworld.
Groupon lost
Groupon, the world's largest discount service, recorded a net loss of ten times more than last year in the first quarter of 2014: $37.8 mln versus $3.9 mln in the first quarter of 2013. At the same time, quarterly revenue increased by 26% to $757.6 million. The operating loss for the first quarter of 2014 was almost $20 million against a profit of $21.2 million for the same period in 2013.
Groupon warned investors when summing up the results of 2013 that the profit for the first quarter of 2014 "will be eaten up" by the cost of the recent acquisitions of Ideeli and Ticket Monster.
Groupon's global network has 40 million users in 35 countries, including Russia. In August 2010, the company bought a similar project in Russia, Darberry, and turned it into Groupon Russia.
In Russia, Groupon has many competitors who offer discounts. The company's problems are, in fact, common to the whole Russian coupon market: discount programmes do not prove their effectiveness and rarely pay off. Many companies have already had the chance to get burned and no longer turn to this promotional tool again.
"The former novelty is gone, discounts are not so great to check, and the majority of offers hang on the site long enough or appear very often", - Elena Komkova, managing partner of Retail Training Group, explains the problems of discount sites.
Not everyone is satisfied with the level of service and the work of Groupon itself. Buyers are not satisfied with "formal answers to people's questions in comments, publishing only flattering reviews and other non-customer-oriented communications", Komkova specifies. In addition, rival services have a fairly clear positioning and specialization (fashion, beauty, etc.). "Against their backdrop, the advantages of Groupon are not obvious," concludes Komkova.Analysts of research centre Superjob.ru in their survey of 6000 respondents from all regions of Russia found out that although about 38% of Russian residents now have an account on discount sites, 22% of them have never bought anything. 13% buy something on an ad hoc basis. Only 3% of respondents actively use the opportunity to get a discount.
Oleg Anisimov, a member of the board of directors at the online accountancy firm My Business, explains in three charts why a dollar at 35 roubles looks cheap. The bottom line is this: The exchange rate has risen by only 29.6% over 14 years, while prices have risen by 364%. As a result, dollar prices for the same goods in Russia are often substantially higher than in the US, and the income level of the population across the ocean is several times higher.
Everything in life tends towards "electroneutrality":