Greetings, everyone! I am back from vacation!

It may take me the better part of the day to catch up on mail, blog comments and other items, but bear with me...

I hope you found some amazing deals while I was gone! I am sure I will be jealous...

It's no secret that I love my coffee. Most days, I can't function without at least two cups. Many days it's three. And it appears I'm not alone.

Food industry research firm Packaged Facts reports that in 2007, coffee sales overtook soft drink sales for the very first time. This probably has to do with our increasing worry over sugar and high-fructose corn syrup as well as people loving coffee. But still, I think it's really interesting, especially considering that Packaged Facts predicts sales of coffee to reach $59 billion by 2010 (they were $44 billion in 2007). That's a whole lot of coffee beans...

One of my chief complaints about shopping online is that you can't touch, feel or smell the items you are thinking about purchasing. My other chief complaint is lack of variety.

But soon that second one may change. A recent study of e-tailers from the Acquity Group found that 82 percent of merchants expect to add more SKUs (short for stock-keeping unit, or the code given to an individual product to identify it). And 41 percent reported a likelihood of adding "significant" SKUs. To me, the more variety the better. But online merchants will also have to figure out a good way to organize their new larger inventories so that online shoppers can easily find what they need.

I wrote a few weeks ago about a prescription transfer offer I got from Harris Teeter — the first one I've ever gotten from Harris Teeter. Kroger also offers prescription transfer coupons occasionally, and if I had to guess, I'd say we may see more grocery stores get into the pharmacy competition.

The reason is simple. Filling prescriptions offers grocery stores another source of revenue and one that is more steady and more profitable than the actual groceries they sell. The Food Marketing Institute put out some new numbers on this topic a few weeks ago. Among 55 food retailers operating nearly 5,000 stores, the median number of prescriptions dispensed per day was 126 in 2007, comparable to 125 in 2006 and up from 120 the previous two years. And the median weekly prescription sales per store rose to $46,000, from $42,000 in 2006. With that kind of growth in a business that often has profit margins of about 1 percent, it's easy to see why they grocers are ramping up that part of their business...

There have certainly been plenty of complaints about Wal-Mart's customer service. But I don't know that the retailer's latest idea in the CS arena is going to solve the problems. According to the Wall Street Journal a few weeks ago, Wal-Mart Stores and Dell are going to test service kiosks in 15 Dallas-area stores. I wonder how it's going...

In most cases, the store brand products are seen as inferior to the brand name items they mimic, but that is not the case for Northeastern grocer Wegmans. Mary Ellen Burris, senior vice president of consumer affairs for the chain, reported on the company's Web site that several Wegmans brand products actually outsell their brandname counterparts. Those products include cereals, salsa, ice cream, frozen vegetables, yogurt and frozen self-rising pizza. Not surprisingly, the chain attributes the success of these products to strict quality standards. You can read more in Supermarket News here.

And before you ask, no... I do not know of any plans to open a Wegmans store here any time soon (too bad, though). 

There are roughly 200 coupons expiring today, so it's a good time to check through your stash to pull out expired coupons and make sure you didn't miss any good ones you wanted to use! 

There's some ridiculous statistic about the amount of time the average person will spend waiting in line over their lifetime. I forget the number, but it's measured in days. It's no wonder some customers who are forced to wait in abnormally long lines give up. A recent Martiz poll revealed that 72 percent of customers have left department stores due to long wait times.

72 percent?

Perhaps more worrisome, though, at least if you're a retailer, is the fact that the same poll showed that 32 percent of customers will share their experiences with others. Word of mouth can make or break you in retail. You can bet that if I were a retailer, I'd make sure I had short lines.

I am on vacation from July 24 through Aug. 10.

I will return to work on Monday, Aug. 11.

But that doesn’t mean you should stop checking in here. Thanks to the magic of technology, there will still be new posts here every day. As always, I welcome your comments, though I won’t be able to respond to any of them until I return. On Wednesdays, there will be a post calling for your Wednesday deals. I won’t be here to generate my weekly list, but I’m hoping some of you may take the initiative to post your own good deals. And of course, this means the database of coupons won’t be updated until I return.

Thanks, everyone for your understanding and your loyal readership. I wish you happy shopping until I return!

This week's edition of Newsweek magazine had an interesting feature that estimated what would happen if oil hits $200 a barrel. Among the predictions:

*The cost of gas would go up 53 percent. (Diesel would go up to $5.55 a gallon.)

*Energy stocks would rise in value 12 percent.

*Hummer sales would go down 13 percent.

*Corn prices would go up 25 percent.

*Sales of hybrids would skyrocket by 40 percent.

*Pregnancies would rise by 1.2 percent.

*And, quite correctly, the story predicted that voter anger would go through the roof.