SNACR

I simply don't believe these figures retailing electricals is about one of the toughest markets going at the moment and so dependent on house moves.

I'm almost certain tax credits are a mechanism to massage unemployment statistics. For both employed and self-employed tax credits represent a huge disincentive to doing too much work and thus spreads the labour requirement, in the market, around the maximum number of people possible. It would probably be cheaper and certainly more efficient to say anyone self-employed earning less than £25k pa can just stay out the tax system entirely. The counter-argument would be the effective ceiling this would impose on further economic activity by this group but I really can't see how tax credits causes any different behaviour.

Mmmm... Yummy mouse shit http://www.bristolpost.co.uk/Plague-rodents-costs-Costco-Bristol-61-000-court/story-19854783-detail/story.html Edit to add: There is definitely across the board retail price increases in the grocery sector presently.

Can't believe so many people tie themselves in knots over UKIP's policies and their attraction to voters. You can save yourself pages of debate and bickering by understanding what just these two words mean together: 'protest vote'. I doubt there will ever be meaningful political change as people just love talking about politics too much. It's just become to British people what small talk about the weather is and they would be actually disappointed if the weather was always fine.

I notice that Tescos seem to have cut down the height of their gondolas in the non-food categories, Typically when a retailer does this it is due to pilferage but I do suspect, in this case, it is to reduce the amount of money tied up in stock. I've certainly noticed with all the supermarkets that there is very little depth of stock to their back to school ranges with little more than a box of half a dozen units per store carefully arranged to occupy the maximum shelf space with the minimum investment in stock.

Quick way to establish if it really is 2007 again is to watch people's reactions if you go to a fancy dress party in a gold lame shell suit and white haired mullet wig.

Oh well, on the plus side, we may have hit peak f**kwittery.

Speaking of Morrisons, has there been any mention of their Kiddicare debacle on this thread?

Pretty soon by the looks of it now, ground is being laid.

Amazon are better than most at selling add-ons but, a hell of a lot of online purchases are just one single item much more so than a typical bricks and mortar customer.

This is not really true. The public have to subsidise keeping the post office counters open through their prices - there is effectively another middle man taking a cut. Royal Mail still can't talk turkey on prices in the same way a private courier can and doubt they can go to the real dark side of how business contracts are secured.

Like fish round a sewage outlet pipe in the sea, virtually all economic activity of note swarms around wherever the government has currently decided to hose out money.

The distribution centres are not cutting edge in terms of automation, very far from it. Ultimately, they themselves, are nothing more than a fulfilment operation for consumer brands and publishers and not a particularly efficient one at that. With Royal Mail now looking to have squandered their monopoly if more cost-effective sub 5kg shipping options come into the market for all their size Amazon would possibly not be able to compete with the smaller operators.

At some point the realisation will dawn that you can't deliver products to customer's doors for less than the cost of them picking the stuff up themselves from a shop. Amazon's downfall is too little investment in automation and expanding their sales volume faster than the physical infrastructure.

More recovery signs http://www.westerndailypress.co.uk/Wiltshire-bus-company-Hatts-goes-administration/story-21938371-detail/story.html

There's already companies offering this. I just cannot understand why an ebay business would need to borrow money for any reason other than it was struggling.

I'm suspicious they're looking for an excuse to ditch staff and then maybe improve the value of their offering once the fat is trimmed.

Our lot just guess if it looks like large letter and never get any come back. They did once bring one enormous mat back because they said it was too big to accept - they delivered the other 900 odd though. There's a battle between account managers/management and sorting office staff. Whenever our Royal Mail account manager would trawl round our warehouse she'd say why aren't you sending this or that with us and we'd say it's too big or heavy according to your guidelines and she'd say just shove it in. I guess they realise it's better to actually deliver something slightly too big than the business go to a competitor but I think they have a hard time with the sorting office staff. Also sure the public would get aggro at the post office for various hazardous goods but for business, where a sales person has targets to meet, it's very much 'just shove it in'.

Third time since 2008 http://www.diyweek.net/news/news.asp?id=17965&title=Floors-2-Go+enters+administration+for+the+third+time More recovery

Two myths that are currently stretched to bursting point are that houses and degrees, no matter how much you borrow to acquire them, always produce a return on the investment.

I can remember arguing with someone on here that worked for them that they were overpriced for parcels against the competition and the response was always complacency and no-else can offer the same universal service but it's just not true. They've lost massive business from us and presumably many others too. They really need to be offering a 5kg parcel service nextday tracked for sub £4.

A statement not untrue closer to home.

If it got to the point that sufficient landlords have tax demands, they're struggling to find the money for, that it leads to a fire sale of property. Rest assured banks would be compelled to refinance their lending on fsvourable terms.

Get general mutterings amongst manufacturers that the brand split is moving from the premium retail store private label to the cheaper trade counter private label with little overall uplift in volumes. Probably not a wise discussion to have actually, having started it myself, as it's a sector I probably know too much about and may end up putting something unwise on a public forum.