CPSC, Honda Recall Honda and Columbia Brand Walk Mowers

January 15 -- Honda has recalled about 20,800 Honda brand and 48 Columbia brand 21-inch walk lawnmowers in the U.S., along with 3,000 in Canada.

The Honda mowers are red and silver (HRR) and red and gray (HRX). Both have “Honda” on the engine cover. The model and serial numbers are located on the certification label that is affixed to the cutter housing deck behind the engine.  Honda recalled lawnmowers are:

Honda Models ….. Serial Number Range

HRR2169VLA ….. MZCG-8764914 - MZCG-8824353

HRX2174VLA ….. MAGA-2255148 - MAGA-2260227

The Columbia brand lawnmower, model number 12ALD33Q897, comes in orange and black. “Honda” is printed on the engine cover. The Honda engine serial number is located on a label on the back of the engine. It is also stamped into the engine block adjacent to the oil filler cap/dipstick. A range of affected Honda engines installed in Columbia brand lawnmowers sold in the U.S. follows:

Columbia Model ….. Honda Engine Serial Number Range

1A313KC0835 ….. GJARA 3641724 through GJARA 3642215

Incidents/injuries. Honda has received 11 reports of the lawnmower’s blade continuing to rotate after the handlebar control lever was released. No injuries were reported.

Remedy. Consumers should immediately stop using the recalled lawnmowers. Honda model owners should contact a Honda Power Equipment dealer to schedule a free repair. Columbia model owners should contact a Honda Engine dealer to schedule a free repair. American Honda is contacting all registered customers directly. 

Places Sold. Honda brand lawnmowers were sold at Honda Power Equipment dealers and Home Depot stores nationwide from January 2013 through December 2013 for between $580 and $780. Columbia brand lawnmowers were sold at Beaver Valley Supply in Denver, CO; Lawn Equipment Parts Co, Inc. in Marietta, PA, and at Smiths South-Central Sales Co. in Spring Hill, LA, from January  2013 through December 2013 for $500.

Echo Incorporated Announces Tim Dorsey as New President

Chicago, IL – January 6 -- Effective January 1, 2014 Tim Dorsey becomes the second American President of outdoor power equipment manufacturer ECHO Incorporated, a subsidiary of Yamabiko Corporation of Japan. He replaces retiring President Dan Obringer.

Dorsey has worked for ECHO for 18 years in a variety of positions including the last seven years as Vice President of Systems and Logistics.  As a member of the Executive Team, Dorsey played a key role in the company’s growth and profitability over the years.

“The transition in leadership to Tim will be seamless,” says Obringer. “We have a great Executive Team and Tim has been a key member for the last seven years.  Our business has grown tremendously and I expect this momentum to continue and ECHO to grow and prosper under Tim’s leadership.”

Obringer, who has served as President for the past five years, will remain in an advisory capacity for the next year.

Dorsey and his family live in Cary, IL.  He is a graduate of DePaul University.

ECHO Incorporated is a leading manufacturer of professional-grade, high performance outdoor power equipment for professional and residential use. The corporation markets its products through independent dealers under the brand names ECHO, Shindaiwa, ECHO Bear Cat, and Crary. It also markets the ECHO brand through The Home Depot. The company is based in the Chicago suburbs.

Horst Pudwill Emerges as U.S. Housing Recovery Boosts Techtronic Industries Exports

May 22 -- Horst Julius Pudwill, chairman of Hong Kong-based Techtronic Industries, has emerged as a new billionaire as shares of the power equipment supplier surged by more than 100% in the past year. With the bulk of its manufacturing facilities in southern China, the company delivered record revenues and profit in 2012, boosted by strong sales of power tools and floor care products in the U.S. and European markets.

Benefiting from a nascent recovery in the U.S. housing market and strong cost controls, Techtronic’s group sales increased 8.4% to $3.67 billion in 2012. Profit grew 32% to $201 million.  The share price has climbed 111% in the past twelve months. Pudwill, 69, who owns a bit more than 20% of the company, has seen his net worth jump to over $1 billion, Forbes calculates.

Pudwill first visited Hong Kong from Germany in the mid-1970s as a sales and marketing representative promoting Volkswagen vehicles. In 1985, along with business partner Roy Chung Chi-ping, he founded Techtronic Industries in Hong Kong, which had six employees and focused on producing rechargeable battery packs in hand tools. It later assembled tools for overseas brands. In the 1990s, it began buying up consumer brands. Today, the company has grown to be one of the world’s largest suppliers of cordless power tools and floor care appliances. It employs over 20,000 people worldwide.

In 2000, Techtronic purchased North American power tool operations previously owned by Japan-based Ryobi Limited. It acquired Milwaukee power tools along with AEG, from a Swedish group in 2005 for $626 million. In 2007, Techtronic bought the ailing Hoover brand from Whirlpool WHR -0.34% for $107 million, and turned around the money-losing business.

Pudwill retired as CEO in 2008 but remains chairman of the company.

Techtronic is best known for brands like Milwaukee Electric Tools, Homelite outdoor products, and Dirt Devil and Hoover vacuum cleaners. Consumers in Europe and Australia might be more familiar with its Ryobi and Vax brands. Some 74% of revenues come from the U.S. market and 20% from Europe.

Product demand in the US is benefiting from a recovery in housing and from the reconstruction efforts following Hurricane Sandy., J.P. Morgan Hong Kong analysts Leo Chik and Andrew Hsu said in a recently-released report.

Fueled by the housing market growth, Techtronic’s largest customer, Home Depot HD -1.44%, just reported higher-than-expected results for the first quarter of 2013, and raised its sales and profit outlook for the year. Similar to Home Depot, Techtronic has seen increased demand for tools and power generators after Hurricane Sandy.  Power tool sales in the U.S. grew 10% in the first half of 2012, the analysts said. Milwaukee, the primary professional brand for Techtronic, grew by 23.7% driven by strong demand from U.S. contractors for its new “Fuel” line of brushless motor products launched recently. In Europe, professional tool sales also grew double digits.

The analysts expect lower material costs and an appreciating Euro could help raise 2012 and 2013 EBIT (earnings before interest and tax) margins to a five-year high of 6.7%, rising to 9.7% by 2015 with increased sales growth. However, the key risks to its businesses are rising cost of production in China and a slower-than-expected recovery in US demand.

Headquartered in Hong Kong, Techtronic maintains manufacturing and research facilities in Asia and North America, as well as a customer servicing network in North America, Europe and Australasia.  But the bulk of its manufacturing is in southern Chinese city of Dongguan.

Pudwill holds a master’s degree in engineering and a general commercial degree. He is married to Barbara Pudwill. Their son Stephan Horst Pudwill, 37, joined Techtronics in 2004 and now serves as president of strategic planning.  Pudwill lives in Hong Kong and enjoys golf and tennis.

www.forbes.com     

Websites Vary Prices, Deals Based on User's Information

December 24 -- It was the same Swingline stapler, on the same Staples.com website. But for Kim Wamble, the price was $15.79, while the price on Trude Frizzell's screen, just a few miles away, was $14.29.

A key difference: where Staples seemed to think they were located.

A Wall Street Journal investigation found that the Staples Inc. website displays different prices to people after estimating their locations. More than that, Staples appeared to consider the person's distance from a rival brick-and-mortar store, either OfficeMax Inc. or Office Depot Inc. If rival stores were within 20 miles or so, Staples.com usually showed a discounted price.

"How can they get away with that?" said Ms. Frizzell, who works in Bergheim, Texas.

In what appears to be an unintended side effect of Staples' pricing methods—likely a function of retail competition with its rivals—the Journal's testing also showed that areas that tended to see the discounted prices had a higher average income than areas that tended to see higher prices.

Presented with the Journal's findings, Staples acknowledged that it varies its online and in-store prices by geography because of "a variety of factors" including "costs of doing business."

For years, the Internet, with its promise of quick comparison shopping, has granted people a certain power over retailers. At the click of a button, shoppers could find a better deal elsewhere, no travel required.

But the idea of an unbiased, impersonal Internet is fast giving way to an online world that, in reality, is increasingly tailored and targeted. Websites are adopting techniques to glean information about visitors to their sites, in real time, and then deliver different versions of the Web to different people. Prices change, products get swapped out, wording is modified, and there is little way for the typical website user to spot it when it happens.

The Journal identified several companies, including Staples, Discover Financial Services, Rosetta Stone Inc. and Home Depot Inc., that were consistently adjusting prices and displaying different product offers based on a range of characteristics that could be discovered about the user. Office Depot, for example, told the Journal that it uses "customers' browsing history and geolocation" to vary the offers and products it displays to a visitor to its site.

Offering different prices to different people is legal, with a few exceptions for race-based discrimination and other sensitive situations. Several companies pointed out that their online price-tweaking simply mirrors the real world. Regular shops routinely adjust their prices to account for local demand, competition, store location and so on. Nobody is surprised if, say, a gallon of gas is cheaper at the same chain, one town over.

But price-changing online isn't popular among shoppers. Some 76% of American adults have said it would bother them to find out that other people paid a lower price for the same product, according to the Annenberg Public Policy Center at the University of Pennsylvania.

"I think it's very discriminatory," said Ms. Wamble, an insurance account manager in Boerne, Texas, who priced the Swingline stapler for the Journal this month. She was just 10 miles or so down the road from Ms. Frizzell, but she saw higher prices on the Staples website than Ms. Frizzell did for all five products tested. Items tested included a pack of Bic pens, a case of orange masking tape, a set of crimped-end mailing tubes and a big safe.

It remains unclear precisely what formula Staples used to set online prices. Staples declined to answer detailed questions about the findings. It told the Journal that "in-store and online prices do vary by geography due to a variety of factors, including rent, labor, distribution and other costs of doing business."

It is possible that Staples' online-pricing formula uses other factors that the Journal didn't identify. The Journal tested to see whether price was tied to different characteristics including population, local income, proximity to a Staples store, race and other demographic factors. Statistically speaking, by far the strongest correlation involved the distance to a rival's store from the center of a ZIP Code. That single factor appeared to explain upward of 90% of the pricing pattern.

What economists call price discrimination—when companies offer different prices to different people based on their perceived willingness to pay—is commonplace and can be beneficial. Movie theaters give senior-citizen discounts. One traveler's willingness to pay top dollar for an airplane seat might mean other people will pay less.

In other cases, though, shoppers can be the loser. That same airline might easily just pocket the big spender's extra money and leave other prices unchanged.

Of course, not all price differences are instances of price discrimination. Prices driven down by competition wouldn't generally be considered discriminatory, for example.

Basing online prices on geography can make sense for various reasons, from shipping costs to local popularity of a particular item. Some retailers might naturally cluster in specific areas as well—a prosperous suburb, say—boosting the competitive pressure to discount.

But using geography as a pricing tool can also reinforce patterns that e-commerce had promised to erase: prices that are higher in areas with less competition, including rural or poor areas. It diminishes the Internet's role as an equalizer.

In the Journal's examination of Staples' online pricing, the weighted average income among ZIP Codes that mostly received discount prices was roughly $59,900, based on Internal Revenue Service data. ZIP Codes that saw generally high prices had a lower weighted average income, $48,700.

Staples didn't comment on the income split beyond saying that the company offers a low-price guarantee.

Online businesses have experimented with tailored offers since the dawn of the Internet era. In 1997, a startup called Personify sold software that tried to personalize Web pages for shoppers. For example, people taking a certain path through a site could be tagged as price-conscious and be shown low-end items, said Eileen Gittins, Personify's former chief executive.

"The idea was more advanced than the technology could support at the time," said Ms. Gittins. Today she runs an online company, Blurb, that lets people make books using their own photos.

In 2000, Amazon.com Inc. infuriated many customers when it sold DVDs to different people for different prices. Amazon called it merely a test and ultimately refunded the price difference to people who paid more.

In 2010, the Journal reported that Capital One Financial Corp. was using personalization technology to decide which credit cards to show first-time visitors to its website. Recent Journal follow-up testing indicated that Capital One was showing different users different cards first—either those for "excellent credit" or "average credit."

Capital One says it gathers data about visitors while they are on its website and uses this information to suggest different products to them. "We do not use any of this data in credit decisioning or underwriting," a Capital One spokeswoman said. "We're making an educated guess about what we think consumers will like."

This year, researchers in Spain studied more than 200 online retailers and found a handful of examples of price differences—including at Staples within Massachusetts—that appeared to be based on location and other factors. Those findings suggest that Staples' price adjustments have been present at least since this summer.

It is difficult for online shoppers to know why, or even if, they are being offered different deals from other people. Many sites switch prices at lightning speed in response to competitors' offerings and other factors, a practice known as "dynamic pricing." Other sites test different prices but do so without regard to the buyer's characteristics.

To find differences that weren't purely the result of dynamic pricing or randomized tests, the Journal conducted preliminary scans by simulating visits from different computers to a variety of e-commerce sites. If a website showed different prices or offers, the Journal then analyzed the site's computer code and conducted follow-up testing.

The Journal's tests, which were conducted in phases between August and December, indicated that some big-name retailers are experimenting with offering different prices and products to different users.

Some sites, for example, gave discounts based on whether or not a person was using a mobile device. A person searching for hotels from the Web browser of an iPhone or Android phone on travel sites Orbitz and CheapTickets would see discounts of as much as 50% off the list price, Orbitz said.

Both sites are run by Orbitz Worldwide Inc., which in fact markets the differences as "mobile steals." Orbitz says the deals are also available on the iPad if a person installs the Orbitz app.

"Many hotels have proven willing to provide discounts for mobile sites," said Chris Chiames, Orbitz's vice president of corporate affairs. Hotels on Orbitz mobile sites also offer discounts "that might target shoppers in a specific geographic region," as determined by the physical location of the user, as well as "other factors."

Often, sites tailored results by geography. In the tests, Discover, for instance, showed a prominent offer for the company's new "it" card to computers connecting from cities including Denver, Kansas City, Mo., and Dallas, Texas. Computers connecting from Scranton, Penn., Kingsport, Tenn., and Los Angeles didn't see the same offer.

A Discover spokeswoman said that the company was testing the card, but that for competitive reasons, it wouldn't comment further on its "acquisition strategy" for new customers.

At home-improvement site Lowe's Cos., prices depend on location. For example, a refrigerator in the Journal's tests cost $449 in Chicago, Los Angeles and Ashburn, Va., but $499 in seven other test cities. Lowe's said online shoppers receive the lower of the online store price or the price at their local Lowe's store as indicated by their ZIP Code.

Home Depot's website offered price variations that appeared to be based on the nearest brick-and-mortar store as well. A 250-foot spool of electrical wiring fell into six pricing groups, including $70.80 in Ashtabula, Ohio; $72.45 in Erie, Pa.; $75.98 in Olean, N.Y and $77.87 in Monticello, N.Y.

The company said it uses "IP address," a number assigned to devices that connect to the Internet, to try to match users to the closest store and align online prices accordingly.

Location also seemed to be important for some international companies. The Journal saw Rosetta Stone, which sells software for learning languages, offering discounts of as much as 20% for people who bought multiple levels of its German lessons from certain locations in the U.S. or Canada, but not others from the U.K. or Argentina.

Rosetta Stone said it sometimes tests and offers different product "bundles" in different places. It also personalizes its suggestions based on how the visitor gets to the site, Rosetta Stone said—whether from a search engine, a social-media link, a mobile device or a PC. "We are increasingly focused on segmentation and targeting," a spokesman said. "Every customer is different."

The differences found on the Staples website presented a complex pricing scheme. The Journal simulated visits to Staples.com from all of the more than 42,000 U.S. ZIP Codes, testing the price of a Swingline stapler 20 times in each. In addition, the Journal tested more than 1,000 different products in 10 selected ZIP Codes, 10 times in each location.

The Journal saw as many as three different prices for individual items. How frequently a simulated visitor saw low and high prices appeared to be tied to the person's ZIP Code. Testing suggested that Staples tries to deduce people's ZIP Codes by looking at their computer's IP address. This can be accurate, but isn't foolproof.

In the Journal's tests, ZIP Codes whose center was farther than 20 miles from a Staples competitor saw higher prices 67% of the time. By contrast, ZIP Codes within 20 miles of a rival saw the high price least often, only 12% of the time.

Staples.com showed higher prices most often—86% of the time—when the ZIP Code actually had a brick-and-mortar Staples store in it, but was also far from a competitor's store. In calculating these percentages, the Journal excluded New York City and used the more than 29,000 "standard" ZIP Codes in the 50 states and District of Columbia. This meant things like ZIP Codes with only post-office boxes weren't counted.

Prices varied for about a third of the more than 1,000 randomly selected Staples.com products tested. The discounted and higher prices differed by about 8% on average.

There were a few areas of the U.S. and its territories that offer exceptions. The Journal found that Puerto Rico was generally shown the higher prices no matter how close the ZIP Code was to local OfficeMax or Office Depot outlets. For Guam, on the other hand, tests of Staples.com almost always returned the lower prices, even though the nearest U.S. OfficeMax or Office Depot is listed online as being in Hawaii, nearly 4,000 miles away.

New York City, too, appeared to be a special case. Tests of Staples.com using ZIP Codes in the boroughs of the Bronx, Manhattan and Staten Island consistently saw higher prices, while Brooklyn and Queens saw almost only the discounted prices. This despite the fact that all parts of New York City look to be within 20 miles of a Staples competitor, according to the websites.

As a final test, the Journal ordered two separate Swingline staplers from Staples.com, from two nearby ZIP Codes—one costing $14.29 and the other one $15.79. The staplers arrived the same day. They appear to be indistinguishable from one another and do an equally thorough job of stapling.

 www.professional.wsj.com   

How U.S. Retailers are Building Up Their Online Muscle

MARTINSBURG, West Virginia – December 24 - The brave new world for U.S. retailers can be found in small cities like Martinsburg, West Virginia.

That's where department store chain Macy's Inc recently opened a facility the size of 43 football fields - big enough to stock 1 million pairs of shoes - just to fulfill orders made online.

The $150 million building, its third one dedicated primarily to supporting macys.com, has already been handling 60,000 orders on a busy day this holiday season. Macy's expects that figure to triple in two years.

"The customer is increasingly voting that she wants to shop both ways," said RB Harrison, Macy's executive vice president in charge of integrating e-commerce and store operations.

From Macy's to Home Depot Inc and Best Buy Co Inc, retail executives are racing to speed up order delivery and improve inventory management, which if done well, can help profit margins.

Many chains are also hiring staff, or even buying firms in Silicon Valley, to get the edge in technology.

"Today, tomorrow and going forward, you are comparing the experience in our store to the experience of sitting in your living room, in the comfort of your home, ordering something on your laptop, your smart phone or your iPad," Home Depot Chief Executive Frank Blake told Reuters.

"Your willingness to put up with rude associates, dirty stores and out of stocks is just going to go down and down and down. Our bar on performance in our stores is going to go up and up and up," he said.

To be sure, online sales to date account for just 7 percent of retail sales, according to Forrester Research. But the firm expects online sales growth to rise 45 percent to $327 billion and account for 9 percent of overall sales by 2016.

Retailers are realizing they must respond to that kind of growth.

"When I was meeting with brick-and-mortar retailers 24 months ago they weren't thinking about online," said Carlo Bronzini Vender, a senior partner at New York-based investment bank Sonenshine Partners who helped advise Drugstore.com when it was bought by Walgreen Co in 2011. "Now people are being more proactive about it."

Even if some retailers like Macy's are less exposed to the threat from e-commerce's 800-pound gorilla Amazon.com Inc than a company like electronics chain Best Buy Inc, they are all under enormous pressure to offer faster delivery times, better service and an array of products.

Already armed with 40 e-commerce fulfillment facilities, Amazon is set to open another 7 centers next year.

And by next year, Amazon could offer cost-efficient same-day shipping to every customer in the 10 largest U.S. cities, according to RBC Capital Markets.

This year, Saks Inc, Dillard's Inc and Kohl's Corp are among retailers that opened the biggest online fulfillment centers they have ever had.

And those without much of an online presence are moving quickly to get one. For example, T.J. Maxx parent TJX Cos Inc, which sells designer clothing and home goods at discounted prices, said on Friday it bought off-price Internet retailer Sierra Trading Post for about $200 million.

NOT-SO-SECRET WEAPON

Most national retailers have largely stopped opening new stores as same-store sales growth has slowed compared to online.

But the stores can be a major weapon for companies like Macy's and Home Depot as they fight Amazon.

Since this summer, 292 of Macy's 800 stores have been doing double-duty as mini-fulfillment centers that assemble, pack and ship online orders, up from 23 stores a year ago. It plans to add this function to 200 more stores next year.

Nordstrom Inc has been doing this for years, giving it a big lead over other department stores.

At Macy's, already 10 percent of orders placed online have been dispatched through stores this holiday season.

"It's a natural extension for us because of our ability to leverage the 800 stores' inventory," said Harrison of Macy's. He noted that the cost for equipping a store for e-commerce is relatively small, requiring a small space in the docking area for tables, scales, and room to pack boxes.

Saks is testing "ship-from-store" and expects to roll it out next fall. Wal-Mart Stores Inc and Kohl's are also testing it.

"Fulfilling online orders from the store is the most important thing that will change physical retailers over the next five years," said Matt Nemer, an e-commerce analyst at Wells Fargo.

The strategy is aimed squarely at boosting profit margins.

Saks CEO Stephen Sadove envisions a scenario in which a pair of shoes sitting unsold at his Saks Fifth Avenue flagship could be used to fill an online order and sold at full price, instead of ending up being sold at a discount, hurting profit.

Macy's computers have complex algorithms that scour companywide inventory, factor in distance and shipping costs to come up with an optimal way to assemble and ship an order.

Despite higher shipping costs, Macy's shipments are often split between locations if a computer determines that the benefit to margins from selling an item that a store doesn't need or has too much of outweighs the extra expenses.

Stores are also serving as pick-up spots for online orders, and many retailers are finding this a boon.Wal-Mart says customers spend about $60 in a store when they pick up items ordered online.

In November, Best Buy decided to assign additional employees to deal with in-store pick-ups since 40 percent of bestbuy.com orders are now picked up.

DANGER OF MISSTEPS

Even Amazon sees the benefits of a physical presence. Staples Inc said last month it will install "Amazon Lockers" at its stores, allowing customers to have packages sent to Staples stores to avoid delivery hassles.

The biggest reason many retailers are only now offering 'ship-from store' and in-store pick-up is that the traditionally managed store and e-commerce inventory had been handled separately.

That is changing rapidly. Saks is spending about $40 million this year to update its computer systems in part to integrate databases. Industry experts say Nordstrom's e-commerce lead over department store rivals stems in large part to technology investments it made years ago.

But there are risks.

Computer systems and staff have to be ready or else retailers can face disaster, said Forrester Research analyst Sucharita Mulpuru. The use of stores is pointless if, for example, an inventory system gives the stockroom person collecting an order incorrect information about where a coat is located, leading to wasted time.

There is also a big risk of an item in store being "shopworn," or unsuitable to be sold.

"It's smart to fulfill from stores if you can figure out a way to get your operations right," Mulpuru said, noting the potential for human error is another concern. Such problems are limited at fulfillment centers because the systems are highly automated.

Executives agree. Harrison said stores are not meant to replace fulfillment centers, with their much greater breadth and quantity of products, but are there to supplement them.

"It's always going to be more efficient to ship from a fulfillment center," Saks' Sadove told Reuters. "You're never going to be perfect in 'ship-from-store'."

SILICON VALLEY APPEAL

To support its e-commerce strategy, retailers are aggressively hiring in Silicon Valley. Nordstrom took on more than 400 new employees with software engineering and website development experience, including Kirk Beardsley, an e-commerce executive from Microsoft Corp who had been a director of business development at Amazon for over seven years.

Retailers hope to take this even further by analyzing online data. Macy's executive Harrison said data collected this holiday season will help prepare for the next steps in its online push.

Last year, Wal-Mart acquired California-based start-up Kosmix, which developed technology to filter data from social media networks. As a result, Wal-Mart's San Bruno, California-based e-commerce offices now house more than 1,000 staff.

Getting hold of the technology to back up these efforts is driving acquisitions. They are frequently small ones, driven by retailers' attempts to master the online sales process, rather than immediately boost sales.

Home Depot, which bought tech start-up Redbeacon earlier this year, is looking to acquire or partner with more companies in the Valley, according to CEO Blake.

Redbeacon, founded by a trio of Google Inc veterans, matches homeowners with the best contractors for jobs such as cleaning and home repair. That kind of innovation will send shock waves through the sector, Blake said.

"I think there is going to be as much change over the next 10 years in retail as in the last 50 years. So if you're prioritizing where you put your best people, your best resources and all the rest, for us it's on inter-connective retail," said Blake.

 Reuters

Powermate Generators Recalled by CPSC and Pramac America

WASHINGTON, D.C. – November 13 -- The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission, in cooperation with the firm named below, today announced a voluntary recall of the following consumer product. Consumers should stop using recalled products immediately unless otherwise instructed. It is illegal to resell or attempt to resell a recalled consumer product.

Name of Product: Powermate Sx 5500 portable generators

Units: About 7700

Importer: Pramac America LLC, of Kearney, Neb.

Manufacturer: Am Pride Chongqing Senci IMP and EXP Trade Co., of China

Hazard: The fuel filter on this generator allows gasoline to leak, posing a fire hazard.

Incidents/Injuries: Pramac America has received 51 reports of fuel filter leakage. No fires or injuries have been reported.

Description: The recalled portable generators have "Powermate 5500" printed on the side of the black generator with wheels. These generators were sold under the model name Sx5500 and model number PM0125500. Both are printed on a plate on the rear of the generators with serial numbers of the recalled units ranging from K003xxxxxQ through K090xxxxxQ.

Sold exclusively at: Home Depot stores in northeast, mid-west and southeast United States from February 2012 through August 2012 for about $550.

Manufactured in: China

Remedy: Consumers should stop using these recalled portable generators and contact Pramac America to receive a free repair kit including a replacement filter, hose and hose clamps for fuel line.

Consumer Contact: Pramac America LLC at (800) 445-1805 from 7 a.m. to 5 p.m. CT Monday through Friday or www.powermate.com and click on the Generator tab and then the Expert Advice followed by the Service Notification link for more information.

Early Spring for Home Improvement

February 21 -- The spring selling season is like Christmas for home-improvement retailers, and this year Christmas is coming early.

Government data show December and January were the warmest such months in the contiguous U.S. since 2006, creating the most inviting climate for home improvement since the onset of the recession. The mild winter sets the sector up for a key test of underlying demand.

When Home Depot Inc. reports fiscal fourth-quarter results on Tuesday, it will preview homeowners' willingness to spend on sprucing up homes, tending gardens and renovating rooms this year, when an improving job market and hopeful housing signs are on their side.

Comprising November through January, the period is seasonally the weakest for home improvement and is typically marked by sales of snow shovels and the like. This year, exterior paint and live plants are just as likely to crop up among popular merchandise.

That is because the U.S. is having one of the warmest, least snowy winters on record. Last month was the fourth-warmest January going back to 1895 and had the third-lowest snow cover going back to the '60s, government data show.

The mild climes were bad for apparel stores and sporting-goods purveyors, which were stuck with boots, coats and snow-sport equipment. But companies like Home Depot and Lowe's Cos., the smaller rival that reports next week, are enjoying an early start to spring selling.

Weather has driven January demand for exterior paint up 31% in the Southeast from last year, estimates researcher .Planalytics Inc. When it comes to live plants, "you can't keep them in stores in the southern tier" because demand is so strong, Planalytics President Scott Bernhardt said.

Signs are also good at companies that supply the likes of Home Depot, the biggest home-improvement retailer in the U.S. by sales. Scotts Miracle-Gro Co. said point-of-sale figures were up more than one-fifth in the first five weeks of the year. The maker of lawn-and-garden products highlighted strong increases in Texas and Florida, two key early-season markets.

Granted, the felicitous weather also can hinder home-improvement retailers because of lost sales of winter merchandise. Planalytics estimates weather has driven down demand 24% in the snow-removal industry in the current season from a year earlier.

However, wintriness can damp traffic, too. A year earlier, record-breaking snow in some areas generated demand for snow throwers and ice salts, but Home Depot said the storms were an overall negative as shoppers stayed home.

Meanwhile, the job market is on the upswing. The Labor Department's unemployment rate hit its lowest level in nearly three years last month and has improved for five months straight.

The housing market, though still weak, has hopeful signs: Home builders' sentiment rose to the highest level in nearly five years in February. Anticipation of a housing recovery has driven up shares of Home Depot and Lowe's, analysts say. Home Depot stock is up about 24% in the last three months and Lowe's, 18%. That compares with a 12% gain in the S&P 500.

In Home Depot's results, momentum in the average ticket, sales per square foot and the volume of high-ticket items will gauge underlying home-improvement demand. Home Depot's average ticket was up 2.6% in the year-earlier period, after it had fallen for four years. Sales per square foot rose 4.1%, and tickets of $900 or more were up 9.6%.

The amount of acceleration in metrics like average ticket should hint as to how much homeowners are buying into job market and housing recovery—and how much they're snapping up snapdragons when they would normally be scraping ice off of windshields.

 www.wsjonline.com