This is a story about how a man started out with
one market stall and 25 years later sold his chain of 1,000 shops for more than
£500m to Tesco. But Kevin Threlfall’s book One Stop One Life is more remarkable
than that.
Any modern convenience store operator wanting to
learn about business should read Threlfall’s remarkable life story. You will
pick up some neat ideas about how to exploit loopholes and spot profit
opportunities. But mostly you should just pick up his zest for life.
His parents had a knack for sales and after his
dad opened a cut-price market stall in the 1950s they had enough money to pay
for Threlfall to get a good education. Knowing how much money could be made
from market stalls, he went into partnership with his dad selling special
offers and top-up shopping.
In competition with the supermarkets, Threlfall
made a list of all the “must buy items” and priced them lower, sometimes making
as little as a penny per pack.
“In being cheapest on known value items we had a
marketing edge. People knew we were the cheapest on everyday necessities and
they assumed therefore we were the cheapest on everything else. But of course
that was not true.”
The trick was to upsell. After the customer had
bought the basics, they would ask “Now are you sure you haven’t forgotten
anything?” and there was always something they could tempt customers with.
Threlfall didn’t stop there. He worked out how to
get the best deals from cash and carries and how to exploit loopholes in tax
laws. Wiser businessmen admired his skills and Ralph Feeney of J&F cash and
carry backed him to launch a Lo-Cost discount store, which developed into a
chain with sales reaching £12m in 1976 on a wafer thin 2.5% profit margin.
The partners sold out in the face of a price war
launched by Tesco, which effectively stopped the discounters in their tracks.
Threlfall’s analysis of the big economic picture is one of the strengths of this
book. His skill helped him to switch strategy.
He was back with a cut-price tobacco outlet in
1978 with a 3% margin out of which the business had to pay all its expenses. To
make this work you have to get your sums right and find the right sites.
Threlfall used a measure invented by Ray Ridgley, a former Lo-Cost partner.
“He counted the number of people passing the
potential site over a period of five minutes on a busy weekend lunchtime. For
some reason 100 people would equate to £10,000 per week (of tobacco sales), 150
£15,000 and so on.” Confectionery tended to work out at about 15% of tobacco
sales.
Site selection was absolutely critical, meaning we
turned down far more sites than we took on. The business grew rapidly. He
listed it on the stock market. He bought talent and more shops. He moved into
convenience. Then in 2002 he saw Tesco investing in convenience and he decided
the time was right to sell out.
Plain speaking and modest, Threlfall writes about
his life journey, the friends he has made and how generosity unlocks business
success. If you can’t get 50 ideas to make your life better out of this book,
then you are not really trying. An unmissable read. Put it on your Christmas
list.
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