What general business ideas?

**Sandeep Chougule** · 06-Sep-16, 01:09 PM

Hi All,

What general business ideas can we learn from retailing?

Thanks,

**adrianh** · 06-Sep-16, 05:33 PM

That the customer is not always right and that the customer is sometimes a downright a-hole.

**Dave A** · 07-Sep-16, 07:26 AM

It's all about your profit per square meter.

**adrianh** · 07-Sep-16, 10:12 AM

Originally Posted by Dave A

It's all about your profit per square meter.

I like this thought because as a manufacturer I tend to only think in terms of profit per hour.

**Dave A** · 07-Sep-16, 04:33 PM

When I first came across it, that one struck me for much the same reason. Makes you rethink a few things...

**Blurock** · 08-Sep-16, 12:01 AM

Originally Posted by Sandeep Chougule

Hi All,

What general business ideas can we learn from retailing?

Thanks,

The agent or reseller always makes more than the manufacturer. Good idea for the manufacturer to have shares in the retailer.

**Justloadit** · 08-Sep-16, 07:10 AM

With the change in the way that the market follows today, many manufacturers are shifting their position closer to the customer.
This effectively increases the bottom line, but introduces a whole new set of operating challenges, and dealing with customers on a one to one basis. Not so easy when manufacturers may deal with a handfull of distributors.

This is notable with the Vodacom/MTN/Cell C franchising. IN the beginning they used the existing market network, and new networks were creating because of the discounts that were offered for reselling.
15 years back a bulk purchaser would get 25% discount. As time moved, the discount was every year reduced to where it today is a few percent, and they have slowly squeezed out the original market network that was developed and took over. What they did not anticipate was the new set of rules that comes with employees, which was well controlled by the previous market network, as they had grown into it.