A move by a Canadian chocolate maker to produce packaging for blind and partially sighted people is one of several campaigns this year by companies trying to make their products more accessible to people with disabilities (PWD).
Purdys Chcolatier created a holiday box of chocolates this Christmas with both a braille label and a braille legend for the chocolates inside.
“When it first launched online and in select shops, it sold out within a matter of hours,” Julia Cho, the brand’s marketing manager, said from its Vancouver factory.
“I know the box is not perfect and we have so much to learn, but to me, it encourages me that this is a step in the right direction.”
The company, which has 80 stores across Canada, rushed to produce more braille boxes, and Cho says another run will come in the new year.
‘There is a lot of work to be done’
Some big-name companies put a spotlight on inclusive products and packages in 2021, says Christina Mallon, the head of inclusive design and accessibility at Wunderman Thompson, a creative agency in New York City.
“There is a trend towards inclusive product design, and I see that in 2022, it’s going to get even larger,” said Mallon, whose clients include the fashion label Tommy Hilfiger, tech giant Microsoft and consumer goods brand Unilever.
Still, Mallon, who is disabled, says the movement is painfully small, compared to the needs of the PWD community.
“There is a lot of work to be done,” she said.
According to Statistics Canada, 6.2 million people, or roughly one in five Canadians, have a disability. About 1.5 million of them identify as having sight loss.
Purdys designed its braille box and legend in consultation with members of the blind and partially sighted community. The National Federation of the Blind in the United States estimates that only one in 10 blind people can read braille.
WATCH | Companies use accessible packaging to promote inclusivity:
Companies pursue inclusivity with accessible packaging
2 days ago
Duration 2:03
Canadian chocolate maker Purdys is the latest company to use accessible packaging, with a new chocolate box that features braille lettering for people who are blind or have low vision. It’s a growing trend aimed at making products more inclusive and user-friendly. 2:03
“This is rare to find braille on a product,” said John Rae, a retired Toronto man who has been blind for most of his adult life. He says he was happy to be able to buy a braille box.
“Many products or services are not constructed or built with blind people in mind.”
An online video from the company features emotional reactions from members of the community to the box.
Companies adopting inclusive design
When it comes to packaging, creating more inclusive or accessible designs has several elements.
“It’s ensuring that you can easily open the packaging. And then it’s ensuring that you can easily manipulate the product to make it work,” Mallon explained. “And that’s ensuring that easy grip, easy tear, open, perforated edges; ensuring that someone with a visual impairment can actually identify the product.”
Mallon, who has paralysis in both arms, has struggled as a consumer with packaging and difficult-to-handle products, as well as with clothing.
Her personal experiences helped her guide Unilever through creating a more accessible design for its deodorant brand Degree.
Earlier this year, a new container for Degree was tested with 200 Americans who have disabilities.
A team of experts, including Mallon, and others with disabilities were part of the design process.
Unilever has not announced when the product will be launched, but Procter & Gamble is selling Oil of Olay face creams with an “easy open lid” online.
WATCH | Christina Mallon on the trend toward inclusive product design:
Christina Mallon on the trend toward inclusive product design
2 days ago
Duration 1:27
Christina Mallon, the head of inclusive design and accessibility at creative agency Wunderman Thompson, explains how packages and products can be made more inclusive. 1:27
The company also did not patent the design and published it on the internet so other manufacturers could use it.
Some beauty brands have been providing forms of accessible packaging for years.
Mallon celebrates these high-profile efforts but says people with disabilities are still all too often low-priority customers.
“I’ve been doing this for about seven years,” she said. “And I can name all the accessible products and the mainstream brands on both of my hands.”
People with disabilities are a huge market
Mallon points out that people with disabilities are a huge market.
According to the World Health Organization, roughly 15 per cent of the world’s population, or about 1.1 billion people, identify as having some form of disability. WHO says this makes people with disabilities the world’s largest minority group.
Return on Disability, a Canadian research and advocacy firm, found that the number of people with disabilities around the world represents an emerging market the size of China plus the European Union, with $1.9 trillion in disposable income every year.
Add to that estimate an aging population in many counties, which will mean more consumers with disabilities in the future.
Yet Mallon says she still encounters company executives with doubts about the value of this market.
“I think some brands are still hesitant because they believe that it’s still a niche market that doesn’t have the money,” she said.
Peter Athanasopoulos says companies are not moving fast enough to make packaging and products more accessible for people with disabilities. It’s been estimated that people with disabilities have $1.9 trillion in disposable income every year. (Submitted by Peter Athanasopoulos)
Peter Athanasopoulos agrees that doubting the disabled shopper is a mistake.
He suffered a spinal cord injury in a diving accident as a teenager and has limited use of his fingers.
Today he’s the director of public policy for Spinal Cord Injury Ontario and lives independently in Bluewater, Ont.
He says people with disabilities are excellent customers for companies that make their products and packages easier for them to use.
“I become super loyal when I see a company doing that. When I find something that works, I stick to it,” Athanasopoulos said. “So there’s a value for that company.”
He also thinks that it’s time for companies to pick up the pace of change. “Are they getting better fast enough? I would say not.”
Young designers being taught inclusivity
At design schools across the country, the product and packaging designers of the future are being taught to bring the values of inclusivity and accessibility into their work, says Donna Saccutelli.
Donna Saccutelli, a graphic design professor at Seneca College in Toronto, helped the school launch a targeted Inclusive Design for Business program. She says inclusivity is just as important in design as environmental sustainability. (Paul Shecter)
Saccutelli said that “there’s been a lack of awareness in companies with decision-makers” about accessible design.
Now, she’s training designers to think about inclusivity as being just as important as environmental sustainability.
“Where the world is today, we need to be doing that.”
TOKYO (AP) — Japanese technology group SoftBank swung back to profitability in the July-September quarter, boosted by positive results in its Vision Fund investments.
Tokyo-based SoftBank Group Corp. reported Tuesday a fiscal second quarter profit of nearly 1.18 trillion yen ($7.7 billion), compared with a 931 billion yen loss in the year-earlier period.
Quarterly sales edged up about 6% to nearly 1.77 trillion yen ($11.5 billion).
SoftBank credited income from royalties and licensing related to its holdings in Arm, a computer chip-designing company, whose business spans smartphones, data centers, networking equipment, automotive, consumer electronic devices, and AI applications.
The results were also helped by the absence of losses related to SoftBank’s investment in office-space sharing venture WeWork, which hit the previous fiscal year.
WeWork, which filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in 2023, emerged from Chapter 11 in June.
SoftBank has benefitted in recent months from rising share prices in some investment, such as U.S.-based e-commerce company Coupang, Chinese mobility provider DiDi Global and Bytedance, the Chinese developer of TikTok.
SoftBank’s financial results tend to swing wildly, partly because of its sprawling investment portfolio that includes search engine Yahoo, Chinese retailer Alibaba, and artificial intelligence company Nvidia.
SoftBank makes investments in a variety of companies that it groups together in a series of Vision Funds.
The company’s founder, Masayoshi Son, is a pioneer in technology investment in Japan. SoftBank Group does not give earnings forecasts.
Shopify Inc. executives brushed off concerns that incoming U.S. President Donald Trump will be a major detriment to many of the company’s merchants.
“There’s nothing in what we’ve heard from Trump, nor would there have been anything from (Democratic candidate) Kamala (Harris), which we think impacts the overall state of new business formation and entrepreneurship,” Shopify’s chief financial officer Jeff Hoffmeister told analysts on a call Tuesday.
“We still feel really good about all the merchants out there, all the entrepreneurs that want to start new businesses and that’s obviously not going to change with the administration.”
Hoffmeister’s comments come a week after Trump, a Republican businessman, trounced Harris in an election that will soon return him to the Oval Office.
On the campaign trail, he threatened to impose tariffs of 60 per cent on imports from China and roughly 10 per cent to 20 per cent on goods from all other countries.
If the president-elect makes good on the promise, many worry the cost of operating will soar for companies, including customers of Shopify, which sells e-commerce software to small businesses but also brands as big as Kylie Cosmetics and Victoria’s Secret.
These merchants may feel they have no choice but to pass on the increases to customers, perhaps sparking more inflation.
If Trump’s tariffs do come to fruition, Shopify’s president Harley Finkelstein pointed out China is “not a huge area” for Shopify.
However, “we can’t anticipate what every presidential administration is going to do,” he cautioned.
He likened the uncertainty facing the business community to the COVID-19 pandemic where Shopify had to help companies migrate online.
“Our job is no matter what comes the way of our merchants, we provide them with tools and service and support for them to navigate it really well,” he said.
Finkelstein was questioned about the forthcoming U.S. leadership change on a call meant to delve into Shopify’s latest earnings, which sent shares soaring 27 per cent to $158.63 shortly after Tuesday’s market open.
The Ottawa-based company, which keeps its books in U.S. dollars, reported US$828 million in net income for its third quarter, up from US$718 million in the same quarter last year, as its revenue rose 26 per cent.
Revenue for the period ended Sept. 30 totalled US$2.16 billion, up from US$1.71 billion a year earlier.
Subscription solutions revenue reached US$610 million, up from US$486 million in the same quarter last year.
Merchant solutions revenue amounted to US$1.55 billion, up from US$1.23 billion.
Shopify’s net income excluding the impact of equity investments totalled US$344 million for the quarter, up from US$173 million in the same quarter last year.
Daniel Chan, a TD Cowen analyst, said the results show Shopify has a leadership position in the e-commerce world and “a continued ability to gain market share.”
In its outlook for its fourth quarter of 2024, the company said it expects revenue to grow at a mid-to-high-twenties percentage rate on a year-over-year basis.
“Q4 guidance suggests Shopify will finish the year strong, with better-than-expected revenue growth and operating margin,” Chan pointed out in a note to investors.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 12, 2024.
TORONTO – RioCan Real Estate Investment Trust says it has cut almost 10 per cent of its staff as it deals with a slowdown in the condo market and overall pushes for greater efficiency.
The company says the cuts, which amount to around 60 employees based on its last annual filing, will mean about $9 million in restructuring charges and should translate to about $8 million in annualized cash savings.
The job cuts come as RioCan and others scale back condo development plans as the market softens, but chief executive Jonathan Gitlin says the reductions were from a companywide efficiency effort.
RioCan says it doesn’t plan to start any new construction of mixed-use properties this year and well into 2025 as it adjusts to the shifting market demand.
The company reported a net income of $96.9 million in the third quarter, up from a loss of $73.5 million last year, as it saw a $159 million boost from a favourable change in the fair value of investment properties.
RioCan reported what it says is a record-breaking 97.8 per cent occupancy rate in the quarter including retail committed occupancy of 98.6 per cent.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 12, 2024.
