I began what is laughably known as a retail career as shelf filler in Tesco's. The store in Weston Favell had been open for about nine months and they were struggling to increase turnover because they couldn't keep the shelves full. The answer was to bring in a dedicated night team to stock the shelves and fill the bins.
I worked four twelve hour shifts and was paid £1 an hour. This was good money for Northampton, where shoe factory wages were about £28 per week. The downside was that the shifts were on Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday nights. I never knew what to do on wednesdays. Should I go to bed during the day, or try to stay awake and sleep at night? Whatever I did, I always seemed to arrive for work on Thursday evenings tired out.
The work wasn't too hard. Armed with a price gun and a pen and pad, I'd list the stock that was needed for my section, go into the warehouse, load the stock onto a pallet, drag the pallet onto the shop floor and get pricing. We had to price every item. This was years before EPOS and scanners at the tills.
I stuck at it for about nine months and business boomed as a result of the better availability of stock. I asked for a transfer to the day team and they agreed. I was now a trolly pusher, cardboard clearer and mopper up of spillages. I also worked the tills when it was really busy.
One day the manager called me into his office and asked if I'd like to run the frozen food department. It was underperforming and way behind budget. I said I'd give it a go.
I started by instigating a cleaning rota, and clearing out the dead stock in the backup freezer. Gradually all the rubbish was sold through or disposed of, and I had a clean sheet to work with.
Those of us who are old enough to remember will recall that during the 1970s the nation's favourite frozen dessert was a dairy cream sponge, with arctic rolls and frozen mousses close behind. It may surprise you to know that frozen vegetable prices have hardly changed in more than 30 years and may even be cheaper in some cases. Once the department was organised we were able to push for sales. There was and is no secret to it. Keep the shelves or freezers full or if not, faced up so that they look full. Every Saturday afternoon we'd empty one freezer by rotation into shopping trolleys and store them in the walk in back freezer in the warehouse. We'd switch the freezer off and clean it thoroughly. On Monday morning we'd refill the freezer from the trolleys and top them up again, ready for the week ahead.
We never opened on Sundays. We stayed open until 8.00 on weekdays and 5.30 on Saturdays. You could always guarantee that someone would come into the store at 7.59 to do their month's shopping and someone would have to stay behind to serve them. If we'd have stayed open until 11.00 the same thing would have happened. Now we have 24 hour opening and the stores look the worse for it. The shelves are never full and I can't see the point of going shopping at three in the morning- ever. Get a life for goodness sake!
Surely the point of a successful business is to take as much money as you can in the shortest possible time? There is only so much money in the pot. If you can take it in 80 hours why double your costs and open for 160? The answer is fear.
Fear that your competitor might steal a march on you, might entice a customer to spend his hard earned dosh in their shop rather than in yours. Market share, market share, market share.
Anyway, we beat the target by miles. In April when I took over we were on course to make only half the target during the year. By September we'd equalled the target set for the year and by the end of the year we'd doubled it.
I was pleased. We'd worked very hard and had risen to the challenge. My reward was two fold. New freezers that reduced the stock capacity and which put the stock behind doors, and out of the customer's reach, and secondly, my target had been doubled. It was now four times what had been set the previous year.
It was years before I was motivated enough to try and reach a target. What's the point?
It was now 1977 and I was bored again. And demotivated by an impossible target.
I tranferred to the dairy department. We sold milk, cheese, sausages, pork pies and bloody ski bloody yoghurts.
Ski Yoghurts. We sold a pallet of them every day. Different flavours and every one of them disgusting.
The main challenge on the frozen food department was managing your back up freezer. Order too much stock and it would defrost on the loading bay. Too little and you'd sell out. By Thursday afternoon it was impossible to get another pack of peas into the freezers. The display freezers were chocka and the backup was full to the ceiling from front to back. By Saturday afternoon the backup freezer was empty, which was why we could park half a dozen shopping trolleys in there over the weekend.
Now you'd think that the best way to increase sales would be to enlarge the backup. Wrong.
In the run-up to Christmas the Butchery department would hijack the freezer and fill it with frozen turkeys.
On the dairy department we'd order our requirements daily from the various van salesmen who called. We'd record the deliveries, the stock and work out the sales before placing an order. we had to keep an eye on the "sell by" dates, especially on a Saturday afternoon. If a product was due to go out of date on a Sunday, we'd reduce it in price to clear it. Over the weeks I noticed that certain lines stopped selling. I reluctantly reduced them in price and they'd go in seconds. The customers used to circle like vultures playing a waiting game. Eventually I'd cut my losses and reduce the prices. Some weeks I refused and let the pies and sausages go out of date and be thrown away.
The crunch finally came on Christmas Eve 1977. It was a Saturday and we'd been incredibly busy all week. Unbelievably so. I took a delivery of a pallet of bloody ski bloody yogurts and single and double cream and waited for the onslaught.
It never came. The punters had finished their shopping on Friday night and had all gone into town to buy clothes or go to the footie. We got stung.
1978 was going to be different
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