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Arkwright - The Independent Voice
Somewhere between my writing last month’s article and it coming to the printed page of the magazine a decimal point got slipped into 301% (yes, I really did mean three hundred and one per cent!) equivalent per annum interest charged when a credit card payment reached Dick Turpin Banking 24 hours “late”.
Instead, by the time your eyes scanned the page, the interest charge had been down graded to 30.1%, still an outrageous amount but not far above standard credit card annual charges. That’s the trouble with percentages, not only is it too easy to make a mistake with a decimal point but by using percentages rather than actual figures you can come up with a manipulative statistic to exaggerate or down play most situations. For example: the police might say that crime solving is up by 18%, not a bad increase, but if they caught 5 people last month it only means they nearly caught 6 this month. Put that way it sounds less than impressive! Similarly, sales and turnover are more often quoted than profit, both the former can be going through the roof whilst profit is plummeting thanks to heavy discounting and upward spiralling overheads but that’s spin for you, consequently keeping a check on reality becomes ever harder. At the end of the day it has to be about profit in hard cash even if you’re a community service, as some perceive local shops to be.
When first meeting someone it’s generally accepted there’s a very short window to make an impression, a decision is made in seconds and based almost entirely on visual impact. Why is it then that people can’t employ the same principle when buying a football? Twenty minutes it took one lady this week. Her son was willing to settle for anything, but for her this was clearly a life changing experience and she was making the most of it. After about 10 minutes of indecision I was filled with panic when she confided she had difficulty making decisions (she must have thought I hadn’t noticed!) and that the supermarket shop had taken her two hours that morning. I pretended to rearrange stock at that point because I could see any hint of interest could potentially suck me in to a conversation I was better to avoid due to my limited counselling skills.How do hairdressers put up with listening to inane details of people’s lives while tending their tresses? Back to the footballs….music to my ears is “What’s your cheapest football?”with that question I know they’ll buy, they’ll pay cash,won’t expect a bag and I only have to say three things to them: Five pounds. Thank you. Goodbye. In and out of the shop in under a minute – the perfect customer!
Mobile phones have been banned when driving and cigarettes from confined public spaces, hasn’t someone missed a point here? Government could have exercised a little joined up thinking, saving itself a lot of time and money (realms of fantasy again) by making one law banning the use of both items unless people are entirely alone as they are equally irritating to others. Cigarette butts are dropped at the shop doorway, after people have taken those desperate finishing drags, before entering my establishment to then exhale lungs full of smoke once inside. A sweep up and blast of airfreshner can alleviate some of this unpleasantness but more desperate measures are called for as it becomes increasingly apparent that mobiles are more often used as comforters, like dummies and soft baby blankets, rather than as a meaningful method of communication. I’m on the look out for a scrambler that will prevent any mobile signal being received in the shop as I really can’t stand their incessant use around me for trivia, better still the scrambler affects a hypnotic “shopping zone” message into the user’s ear who is then metamorphosised from a mobile phone moron to a compulsive shopper.
Global warming is clearly not a good idea but warm weather and sunshine does more than any ad-man’s smooth talking to get everyone fired up to participate in sport, garden games and starting to head for the beach. The unusually hot weather for early April certainly enhanced trading conditions over Easter but I wondered at my wisdom to make changes to the shop’s layout the previous month. People who I don’t see through the winter months came out of hibernation and seemed affronted that I had dared to make alterations without consulting them, asking pretty impertinent questions about the whys and wherefores of our business. Had I let the entire film crew of Changing Rooms run amok in their front room while they slept upstairs would probably have caused less fuss!
