The great eBay rip off
It has been a while since I sold anything on eBay and I was discussing it last week with my brother. Did you know they now charge 10% of the final price plus the listing fee’s ? He asked. I thought, no that can’t be right.
It appear’s he was absolutely right.
Here is a breakdown of the closing fee’s (and don’t forget you have to pay to list the damn thing as well)
Final Selling Price : Final Value Fee
| £0.01 and above
|
10.0% of the amount of the winning bid, up to a maximum Final Value Fee of £40.00 |
and for business users (more…)
Nobody beats Laser ! except the banks off course
The stark news hit just at the Start of this month that Laser Electrical had gone into Administration. Usually when this happens the administrators try to trade the stores until a buyer or a way forward can be found. Sadly with Laser things were grimmer than most, just hours after the receivers took control of the business the stores were closed and days later the firm was placed into full liquidation. The final nail in the coffin for the ailing retailer.
But why did things go so wrong ?
Quite simply the business model had not worked for a number of years, 2008 /2009 accounts showed a profit of only £34,177, not what you would call great for a retailer with 10 prime locations, good cachment areas and 140 staff. There was however a few ways this business could have been saved.
As I said, the business model had not been working for a number of years. Currys and Harvey Norman have better buying power and better terms with the bank for getting consumers finance. What Laser needed to do was to create more ways of doing business rather than sticking to the tradional ‘waiting for people to come in the door approach’ (more…)
Henderson Group to take over local coffee fanchise chain ‘the streat’
I have been working with ‘the streat’ for nearly two year’s now, providing a complimentary Wi-Fi service to customers in their key stores. They are a local success story started by Michael and wife Nikki McQuillan (of no relation).
The business started from just one store in Belfast in 1999 to a massive franchised coffee and sandwich store chain with over 30 locations in Ireland, Northern Ireland and Scotland. Their stores are fresh, clean and provide good food at reasonable prices.
Their support network and business start plans and assistance are what keeps them alive and makes choosing them as a franchise a no brainer, over the past 10 years they have won several training awards and pride themselves on brand and quality.
Open Coffee Lisburn on tour / Open Coffee Banbridge, a new beginning
I am not sure if we should say that Open Coffee Lisburn is on tour or if we should just go right ahead and start calling it Open Coffee Banbridge, after all the Lisburn (cell / chapter / branch / franchise / who cares?) was started by a few of us that were attending Belfast Open Coffee.
Anyway to make a short story long a few of us were chatting about how to expand on our bi-weekly meeting, get more people involved and generally shake things up a bit in 2010 ( twenty ten / two thousand and ten / again who cares? ) and Open Coffee Banbridge was born (exactly one year on from Open Coffee’s birth) !
However rather than Belfast’s weekday evening or Lisburn’s Friday early o’clock, this will be on a Saturday at Outlet, meaning you can bring the family and make a day of it.
The first meeting will be on Saturday 16th at 9.30 at Starbuck’s, of course Open Coffee Lisburn still continues as usual on Friday mornings with our next meeting being on Friday 8th at 7.15am in Dalton’s Lisburn.
If you have never heard of Open Coffee, here are a few links to help you better understand what on earth I am talking about !
Open Coffee Lisburn andrewgribben.com, Open Coffee Lisburn on russellmcquillan.com, Open Coffee Lisburn on Twitter, iCal / gCal subscriber tool
I hope to see you there !!
Russell
T-Mobile and Orange to merge UK businesses to become largest mobile telco
Discussions with other Telecoms people lately have left us all thinking the same thing. 5 Mobile operators in the UK is to much and not sustainable.
It was thought that eventually Hutchinson (3) would eventually merge or be purchased by one of the smaller UK operators such as Orange (once owned by Hutchinson) or T-Mobile (the worlds 6th largest provider).
In 2005 T-Mobile tried to purchase its smaller competitor O2 but was beaten to the post by Telefonica.
The UK messes things up and all is not as it appears, Vodafone the worlds 2nd largest provider (after China Mobile) is the 2nd largest provider in the UK but telefonica O2 which does not even rate in the worlds top 20 provider is and always has been the largest provider in UK, this is however set to change as Orange (France Telecom) and T-Mobile (T-Mobile AG) have announced they are to merge their UK businesses creating in the process, the UKs largest and leading mobile operator.
The deal (subject to competition commission approval) will take around 18 months to fully complete and see a full merger of all assets, transmitters, stores and customer bases into the new company – yet to be named.
The joint company will hold close to 40% of the UK mobile market.
From a backhaul point of view – both companies use GSM 1800 so this will make the merger of assets easier and from a customer point of view, customers will have access to more masts, faster data, edge and 3G – something that both companies have been poor at but combined the network will be not to shabby however you will have to share it with close to 30million other users.
It is likely that competition authorities in the UK and EU will probe the deal and job losses are very likely !
Sometimes you just have to grab an idea and run with it ……..
Taken from Wednesdays Bristol Evening Post is a story of man who grabbed an opportunity to make some cash and also a story of how civil servants are the thickest people alive !
Outside Bristol Zoo is the car park, with spaces for 150 cars and 8 coaches.
It has been manned 6 days a week for 23 years by the same charming and very
polite car park attendant with the ticket machine. The charges are £1. per
car and £5. per coach.
On Monday 1 June, he did not turn up for work. Bristol Zoo management phoned
Bristol City Council to ask them to send a replacement parking attendant.
The Council said “That car park is your responsibility.” The Zoo said “The
attendant was employed by the City Council… wasn’t he?” The Council said
“What attendant?”
Gone missing, is a man who has been taking the daily car park fees
amounting to about £400. per day for the last 23 years…!
It equates to nearly £3m !!!!!!!
Restaurant Review : Tony Romas Belfast
It has been nearly two years since our last visit to Tony Roma’s in Belfast, since then steak houses have came and gone but none seem to have stuck in the minds of steak lovers like Tony Roma’s. I wanted to revisit and see if the credit crunch had effected business.
First Impressions
We entered on Friday the 1st of May at around 7pm – the town had been quiet all day so we didnt feel the need to book, this was a mistake as the restuarant was packed however the friendly Texan lady on the welcome desk did her best to squeese us in, she gave us a pager and found us a resting place at the bar until a table became available. Lyndsey of course (my wife) took the opertunity to attack the cocktail list !
Selection food and service
As ever the menu was huge, well presented and laid out and their really was something for every pallet. We shared an onion loaf for starter (If you have never experienced an onion loaf – get down here right away and try it !) I went for the steak and shrimp with garlic fries, mash and pepper sauce and Lyndsey had the house ribs and shrimp with greens and mash.
The service as usual was fantastic, the food came in a timely manner and as a nice touch, I was asked to cut into my steak to check it had been cooked to my request – it had, I often go for a medium steak but it is often in other places either under or over cooked.
Costs
So its not the cheapest however, it is true when they say you do get what you pay for. The total came to £57 which for a heap of meat, shared starter, drinks and shrimp it is not bad at all.
Rusky Rates
Service good and very accommodating, checked how we were getting on through out the meal and kept our drinks topped up: 9/10
Food, All prepared fresh and hot, served in good time, All food cooked to request : 9/10
Vibe : a great atmosphere, very busy and staff were not under pressure: 9/10
Value for Money : £57 for Dinner – Not good for a cheap evening out, but great for a treat : 7/10
Choice : A good selection on the menu for all tastes, some thing for every pallet 10/10
Total 46/50
Lisburn farmers market farce
Those of you that have been following @beanandgone on twitter today will know what this is all about. Those of you that do no follow them or have never heard of Bean and Gone…… allow me to tell you.
Andrew Gribben formerly of Creativ Coffee has gone back into the Coffee business but this time is roasting his own beans, eventually he hopes to have his own micro factory – expertly crafting the finest beans and selling them to coffee lovers across the world by means of the interweb and (hopefully) locally in his purpose built coffee store where you will be able to watch the beans being roasted that you are enjoying and be part of the roasting process.
He also plans to turn the coffee world upside down by being one of the first companies in the UK and Ireland to offer a ‘managed coffee service’ to retailers, letting him take care of the coffee beans, machines and staff training and letting the retailers get on with whatever they are retailing.
Today Bean and Gone were at the Farmers Market in Lisburn for the second time, and for the second time they were not actually allowed to sell coffee (a coffee company not allowed to sell coffee, that’s crazy) but they were allowed to give ‘free samples’ of the coffee and do what they set out to do in the first place…. Sell coffee beans and gauge customer reaction to the blend.
Great ! well no, there was in fact another Coffee supplier (Javaman) on site, but like last month they were allowed to co exist with one selling beans and the other coffee ……. Until Mr JavaMan (I think thats his real name) made a complaint that people where taking the free coffee sample and not actually buying any of his coffee ……. boo hoo.
Lisburn city council, ever being diplomatic and supporting free trade and all that, decided that rather than allow the market to trade like markets are supposed to, they would tell Bean and Gone to stop at once with this free samples carry on and concentrate on selling beans …………..
OK there are a number of things wrong with this
1. All the other stalls are allowed to give free samples
2. Without a sample, you could sell any old crap
3. What the F£$%
The council continued with
There are not enough customers to justify two people doing the same thing
1. The council should do more to advertise the event
2. If there is only one person allowed to do one thing, then that person has the monopoly, surely this is not in line with European free trade blah blah blah
3. Fact :- If you have a monopoly then you can charge whatever you want !!!!, hardy good for you and me – the consumer
4. Fact :- Quality is never as good if you don’t have a direct competitor.
I have spoken to a number of people today who have agreed that this dictatorship from Lisburn Council is totally unacceptable and something should be done about it. I was at the first farmers market and the 2nd and it’s been the same traders each time, therefore there is no choice and there is no variety, quite frankly I don’t think i’ll go back – why would I?, I have seen all it has to offer !
St Georges market is Belfast is a fantastic market where you can simply come in, pitch, pay and trade – if the guy next to you is selling the same thing then you had better hope your product is better and better value for money – other wise you are going to be wasting your time – this is surely what markets are all about ! You pay you money and you take your chance, it is true grass roots entrepreneurial ship and retailing at its very best.
The national market traders body says :
Markets can be the quickest way to get started, and although it is not the easiest way to make a living it can be lucrative and rewarding.
In the end, your success will depend to a large extent on your own judgement and initiative.
They also say
Markets are a great asset to any town or city.
A huge range of products, a bustling atmosphere and traders who are experts in what they sell -
what more could you want?
Lisburn ! It’s time to sort this out and get in line with the other markets around Europe – open the market up to many traders and then you will see the people coming and more importantly quality stalls with quality products.
I know many followers of Bean and Gone have taked the time today to write to local government – lets hope something is sorted for the next one !
Russell
I thought Wellworths closed down ….. Woolworths rebranding as Wellworths
If you grew up in Northern Ireland then you might be a bit confused at the news recently of an ex-woolworths store manager in England who rather than close her shop chose to re-brand it and set up her own business Wellworths ….
Wait a minute, I know this name ………… I grew up shopping in Wellworths ! For those of you that are slighty confused by what I am harping on about.
Wellworths (FA Wellworth & Co. Ltd.) was a supermarket owned by the Fitzwilton Group trading in Northern Ireland until 1997. Along with Stewarts/Crazy Prices it was one of the two main supermarkets in Northern Ireland until English-based retailers moved into the marketplace – Stewarts/Crazy Prices was acquired by Tesco while Sainsbury’s built nine new stores.
Wellworths was split in two. Smaller stores were wholly acquired by the Musgrave Group in 1997 and traded as Wellworths-Supervalu for a time. The Wellworths name was eventually dropped and these stores now trade as ‘Supervalu‘, part of an all-Ireland chain.
Larger Wellworths stores were acquired by Safeway Stores (Ireland), a joint venture between the Fitzwilton Group and Safeway. They operated from 1997 to 2005 under the Safeway name.
In March 2004, Safeway Stores (Ireland) was acquired by Morrisons when Morrisons bought Safeway. The Northern Ireland stores were not part of Morrisons’ long-term strategy and traded under the Morrison name for a limited time. Despite continuing to trade as Safeway, own-brand products and carrier bags were supplied by Morrisons. Safeway Stores (Ireland) was acquired by Asda in 2005 and now operates under the Asda name.
I have found memories of visiting Wellworths as a child and seeing someone in England opening a store with the same name brought back found memories.
But why has she done it ? Woolworth failed in a blaze of glory !! Well yes it did because nationally the business model did not work, but it Dorchester – there is no direct competitors so this store always turned a profit. Claire Robertson the ex store manager and new owner knows the staff and knows what the locals want, she is a general retailer like the old general stores of day’s gone by.
She is and this is what retailing is all about, good luck to her !
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