I was expecting to see a long thread about this as it's one of the most inexplicable things I've yet seen on TA.

Surely after all the series already shown the candidates must realise the supreme importance of properly understanding the task.

It was clear that it was deliberately set up so that Sugar did not make the nature of the task crystal clear at the outset but was the brief similarly 'rigged' so that the need to account for the putative (and unknown) cost of the items was obscured?

If handled properly this was an extremely difficult task since, paradoxically, you need to know which items are most valuable in order to get them properly valued. And as the rules say they have to split into only two sub-teams it's virtually impossible to get all the items valued (especially since this was a truncated, one day, task).

Of course, we haven't seen the dossier that was provided to the teams with rules etc, so we don't know how detailed that was or what they missed.

SAS did keep stressing that it was about the value of the items, and not just selling them.

However, the bit I thought was unfair, and the part that seemed to take everyone by surprise was the way the result was calculated. (ie profit made less the difference between what they could have made). They would have been better off not selling some of the items, and didn't seem to grasp this at all - wildly trying to sell everything at any price.

Whether that was a misunderstanding of the rules or something that was not explained to them, I don't know. In previous series, to return with items unsold has always resulted in ridicule from SAS and hefty fines, so I can understand why they were trying to avoid that.

It definitely seemed as though they were not aware of the scoring system. But I suspect they may not have been told.

Ben was right; it was a silly task.

As usual, they all thought is was about "selling" - very limited mind sets.

It was all a bit confusing really. Technically, one team could have sold absolutely nothing at all and come into the boardroom with a figure of £0, which would have won.

Very odd task.

That's what Sir Alan told them though. Without re-watching the episode, which my computer is too rubbish to let me do , I'm not positive but I'm pretty sure he used the words 'this task is all about selling'. So it's understandable for them to think that.

I was thinking the same thing.

I guess it boils down to doing the research and knowing what each item is worth, and then not selling below that price.

Normally Sir Alan says something like "...and the team that makes the most money will win", but I think this time he said something slightly different (which I can't remember) which the teams should have picked up on.

I think they were in such a rush to prove what good sales people they were, that they failed to understand the task.

DP

I thought the task was quite clear and was amazed to see them selling stuff below value (especially where they had valued the items). Sir Alan even said it's not about selling all your items, it's about getting good money for those you do.

I think the two PMs were just incompetent and there didn't seem to be much planning going on...just a scattergun approach..

Most of the candidates in each series are somehow involved in sales. It should have been obvious from there being no penalty for non-sales that you did not have to sell at any price. Yes, they could have done nothing and still won - that's what Noorul did when PM.

Yes he did say its all about selling. It's automatialy implied that its selling at a profit.

No one would have any problem selling goods at well below value. If you do not know the value of an item you cannot know the selling price.

Except that his exact words were: "The team that comes back with the highest amount of sales will win"

Which is only ambiguous to the extent that it is not 100% clear whether he means highest number of items sold or higest amount of cash.

It cannot be interpreted as highest profit.

Yes it can - they spent the first hour or so, trying to value the objects, although all except Cassandra failed to spot the carpet. If you only wanted an indicator, you would not spend an hour on it.

I just didn't understand this at all.

If it was clear that they wouldn't be penalised on stuff that wasn't sold, why did Nick give Noorul so much grief for not being the one who closed the sale on Pete Doherty? Since the sale cost them money?

And if they had to get the valuation, what would be the point in even trying to bother making a sale? Why would anyone pay above value to a bunch of clear non-experts?

Cookie_365 is confused

It was a difficult task and the instructions were not very clear - at least for the viewer. It was also clear to me that they were never going to sell the rug for the market value to anyone as Ben's team found out when they were trying to sell it to shops.

Thats clear to me. It means the highest amount of sales revenues

a quick blast on ebay would have given them an idea of what things sell for? It seems they can't use the net? Is that right?

That's what I thought Suralun had said. He only mentioned that he did not expect them to sell all the items when he was in his car.

How on earth could they make a profit at all if they had to make more than their value? It's hard enough to sell AT their value never mind for more.... and even harder when it is clear to a potential purchaser knowledgeable about the product that the vendor does not know what they have got on their hands e.g. one of the rug purchasers.

I thought that it was a terrible task in completely unrealistic circumstances. You would never be given a product to sell which you didn't know the price of.... or at least the price you had paid for the product. To value the products accurately and then sell them for more within 8 hours was not very practical.

I think most of the problem with the rugs was that because they had no idea of the value they were trying to sell it to the wrong type of shops.

It was a completely different class of product to those in the cheap and cheerful shops and market stalls they tried.

It was totally clear what it meant. It was clearly not selling the most items. Anyone could sell the most items by just selling them at a few pence.

Sorry, I'm not sure exactly what you are saying is totally clear.

Are you saying that: "The team that comes back with the highest amount of sales will win".

Means that the team that returns with the largest amount of money wins?

If so, it may be clear(ish) but is is not how the task was scored.

Wth respect, that makes no sense. Had a team not sold anything it would have shown them to be incapable of selling or having no desire to sell anything (irrespective of how much each item was worth).

The show is all about selling so even if there were some advantage in not selling anything, you could hardly go into the boardroom and say:

"We decided not to sell anything because we knew the other team would make a loss when selling their items. By not selling anything this gives us an advantage."

Sugar would laugh at you and then fire you. Not really the way to win the show, is it?

Agreed. Although in every other sales task I can think of, to get maximum score teams had to sell all their stock. This is the first task where it was better not to sell at all than to sell below value. So it was probably familiarity with previous tasks that led them to make a mistaken assumption.


Watching it again, you're right he doesn't make it clear, but instead he gives lots of hints. Some quotes:

"... in this place people come to have their produces [significant pause] valued [pause] and sold."

"The task this week is all about selling, with a little twist to it."

"Your job is to make sure you know what each of them is worth."

"Just a word of warning: don't take everything at face value."

Although it's tempting to suppose the twist is that some items are worth more than they seem, he may also have been hinting that they should read the rules carefully.

Both teams made a profit on some items. Phil's team made £96 and only undersold two items, for £130, so he made a gain overall of £34.

Ben's team made £78 and undersold £242, so a net loss of £169. (Nick's figures - I don't know why they don't add up.)


None of the task are about superficial realism. The eventual job won't be cleaning cars or making sandwiches. This task was about organisation and planning and time management, and about putting candidates outside their comfort zone.

I don't know about this task specifically, but that's usually the case with similar past tasks.

No actually, sunshine tube is completely right. Had a team done nothing and sat around drinking tea, they would have come into the boardroom having broken even and therefore would have won.

No the show isn't 'all about selling'. As Sir Alan tried to make clear last night, there are times when selling something for under its value is worse than not selling it. Business is all about making profit. Last night both teams made a loss.

I don't feel the candidates were misled. They're supposed to read that brief I presume, so they have no excuse. However, I do feel the producers missed a trick in not making the rationale clear to the viewers. If the viewers knew exactly how they were being judged, we would have watched in even greater horror as they tried to flog the expensive stuff for a few quid. Ben in particular misunderstood the entire point. Didn't he try to pay someone to take the commode off him?