nickshanagher

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 ...

I am uncertain who runs the M&S store at the service station near Benson in Oxfordshire but last night Ahmed upsold me two cans of Red Bull that I really didn't want. It was raining hard and I was quite tired when I pulled in to fill up the tank. 64 and a bit litres of diesel later I was delighted that the total on the pump was less than £100. As I looked at this I saw a sign that said buy two cans of promoted beverages and get 5p a litre off your fuel. Inside the shop, after a comfort break, I bought a bag of crisps and stood behind another customer at the till. I noticed by the door a second piece of point of sale with the offer on it. After she completed her purchase, I handed the crisps to Ahmed, the teller, and put my credit card next to the payment terminal. Are you interested in the soft drink offer, Ahmed asked, with a smile. I looked at him and as I did so his eyes flicked to the display of Red Bull behind me. As he was smiling I thought about it for a second and...