Dear Jac – Page 95
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Dear Jac
Dear Jac: When does an epos system become a viable business proposition?
I don't get asked this very often - probably only once every few years. But while most businesses would view computerisation as essential to their efficient operation, it might not be for everyone.
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Dear Jac
Dear Jac: Are there any other Scottish retailers totally ticked off by the Daily Record?
The Daily Record is Asif Mahmood's biggest-selling daily paper. He sells about 200 copies a day from his Spar store at Oakley in Fife.
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Dear Jac
Dear Jac: I hear the spurs jangling – looks like the cowboys are back in town. You have been warned.
I am indebted to Preston-based chartered surveyor and ratings consultant Ken Batty for the following warning: "What all your readers must be clearly aware of is that, on the 2005 Rating List for England and Wales, only one proposal against a compiled list entry will, under current legislation, ever be ...
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Dear Jac
Dear Jac: When you're strapped for cash and under the shadow of Tesco, every penny counts.
And certainly every £20-30 quid counts. Douglas Gill, who runs Doug 'n Di's in Stockport, has been in business for 20 years. Over that time he's had to watch superstores springing up all around him. So far he has managed to stay afloat, but says it is touch and go. ...
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Dear Jac
Family firms fight back
Retailers have rubbished a report which claims family businesses are asking for trouble if they hand over the reins to a second generation.
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Dear Jac
Double whammy for yobs
Retailers will get more help to tackle anti-social behaviour from two new government initiatives.
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Dear Jac
Dear Jac: Terminal breakdown has resulted in a loss of faith.
Jaykant Shah is one frustrated retailer. He has been in business for 27 years and contacted me for the first time last month. He has an Alliance & Leicester Chip and PIN terminal.
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Dear Jac
Dear Jac: This solution is clear and easy and cheap, so it deserves a plug.
I know many retailers are on the lookout for a simple way to sort the books because in September 2004 I featured IOW retailer Graham Sutcliffe’s plea for help in this department. Over the next three months I wrote up at least six retailers’ recommendations for accountancy packages.
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Dear Jac
Dear Jac: So the OFT has ordered an investigation into the power of the supers
And about time too. Still, there are no guarantees. The announcement came as I was writing this column and the story got quite a lot of headlines, not, I suspect, because many sympathised with the plight of the independent but because it concerned the big four that make news whatever ...
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Dear Jac
Dear Jac: This retailer had pictured some fine profits from his mini photo booth.
But it was not to be. Mohammed Rafi refurbished his post office at Winchwen in Swansea last June and invested £6,000 in a mini ID photo booth supplied by Snap Digital Imaging. The lease was arranged through Bank of Scotland.
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Dear Jac
Dear Jac: Just when you think you’ve heard all the tricks, another comes along.
A man walks into Subhash Patel’s Spar store in Richmond, Surrey, and explains that he has just moved in and is running a business in the building opposite. In a business-to-business spirit he runs down the ways that they can mutually benefit. The ‘neighbour’ will need to buy in bulk ...
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Dear Jac
Dear Jac: You plan your business, your future and then an interloper interferes
It's probably just coincidence but lately a clutch of retailers have rung me about planning applications. A few years ago it was simpler in one sense. It was the little guy against the superstore, David versus Goliath. My planning file has a set format for fighting them: marshall all the ...
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Dear Jac
Dear Jac: Here’s another insight into the role of the trading standards officer.
John Inglis emailed me after he read the story about the retailer who sent back a load of duff watches but got charged for the freight. Trading standards wouldn’t help.
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Dear Jac
Dear Jac: One retailer has Islington Council in his sights over the way it runs its business.
Regular correspondent and activist Hurendra Bhatt discovered more or less by accident that Islington Council had given planning permission for a six-storey building to be erected over a new supermarket (heavily rumoured to be Tesco) less than 100 yards away from his business, Universal Newsagents. He has enlisted the help ...
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Dear Jac
Dear Jac: What amounts to too much information on a customer's receipt?
The manageress in Howard Toms' store was taken aback when a customer pointed out that almost all his details had been printed on his receipt, including his card number, name and expiry date.
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Dear Jac
Dear Jac: You are open all hours – except when you’re on strike. Is going on the picket line a sensible option?
I promised a couple of retailers that I would test the theory of whether going on strike will engender sympathy from shoppers for the ‘plight’ of the independent. I put the word in inverted commas because I know a fair few retailers who enjoy being their own boss and being the boss of others, meeting and greeting shedloads of people every day and relieving all of them of some of their money. However, I must also acknowledge that others, often through the sheer bad luck of having to trade in the shadow of a superstore or even its little clone, are suffering the consequences.
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Dear Jac
Dear Jac: Can you vouch for total honesty when it comes to news vouchers?
The feedback on newspaper vouchers continues to trickle in. Four more retailers have been in touch.
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Dear Jac
Dear Jac: Has anyone made a study of the effect of open-plan chillers on theft?
A retailer who is at the planning stage of upgrading his business from CTN to full-blooded convenience, says that his first step will be to change traditional coolers to open-deck type cabinets. (He has also requested anonymity, saying that he knows of at least two other retailers within striking distance ...
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Dear Jac
Dear Jac: And still the weird little wrinkles of licensing are surfacing.
Pete Patel runs Europe Off Licence in Leicester and had duly applied for the two new licences. The premises licence arrived last July in plenty of time. But he never got the personal one.
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Dear Jac
Dear Jac: You really have to push to influence local councils.
And no one does it better than Hurendra Bhatt. Two issues ago I carried the story of Hurendra's ongoing fight with Islington Council over what appeared to be minimal criteria being applied before granting planning permission for what was rumoured to be a six-storey development plus big Tesco just a ...