was it QVC as I can't find any of the products on their website

They looked alright on the mannequins, but the sad truth of the matter is Lorraine made them look awful. The phrase 'mutton dressed as lamb' comes to mind.

If Kate had been wearing the product, they would have got a hell of a lot more sales.

No. They went to Peterborough, so it must have been Ideal World.

Call me evil if you like - but I have a sneaking suspicion that Kate knew exactly what she was doing in picking that jacket for Lorraine to model - she took a punt on Lorraine doing badly (which she did) and therefore being in line for the chop.

Her strategy almost worked.

I don't believe she deliberately did that but as I said in another thread this product was wrong for Lorraine and Howard to sell. There was nothing wrong with Lorraine's pitch, she said all the important points but it just didn't look convincing.

I wonder why they didn't get a model like the other team did!!!

Lorraine was about as convincing pitching that coat as Mona was pitching 'pantsman'.

It must be hard trying to sell complete tat that you just don't believe in.

I actually find it a plus point in a candidate if they cannot completely hide their embarrassment trying to sell tat. It may not make them the world's greatest salesman but it does show a certain inherent honesty.

They did say it is one of their top products. Did Lorraine like the product when she first saw it?

I honestly don't know what they could have done better when pitching the coat. It just didn't suit Lorraine and I believe that Kate was at fault. Probably the coat was saleable but she should hve asked herself: can it be pitched by Howard and Lorraine?

I have to say that Kate's sales figures were embarassing .. just over £200 in half an hour?!! I can't put my fingure on what went wrong: the products or the pitch?!!!

What would be the point in that though?... surely it would be a better strategy to try and be in the winning team and therefore not have to deal with the risk of getting fired yourself. Regardless of whether you would ideally like to see one of your team-mates get the chop or not.

If that was, indeed, what she was up to then it's all a bit "cutting off your nose to spite your face". I don't think that was her strategy though.

yes it is I've just found that lovely jacket


http://www.idealworld.tv/Metallic_Le...fileId=2128587

In general life I'd agree with you, but as Sugar's apprentice showing embarrassment at flogging tat might not be the best quality.

Oh bugger!

They don't have my size

I wouldn't confuse being shit at lying with being inherently honest. Some of the biggest manipulative bullshitters on this show (Simon, Saira, Paul) have been awful at this task.

That's not saying anything against Lorraine. Out of her entire team, I thought Lorraine had by far the best on-air persona. I don't know what people saw in Howard, any more than I know what they saw when he was pitching Gaytown.

And they've all sold tat with a straight face on this show at some point. Lorraine, Mona, James, everybody. Claiming that an isolated shit sales pitch is a cris de coeur is a little bit like when Dr Sophie Rocket Scientist claimed to have a fit of conscience over the Additive Vomit Lollies when the week before she'd happily been cackling about how she was going to overcharge school-children for amateur face-painting. It's face-saving, false piety, and nothing more.

I dont think they failed on presentation of the demostration well except for that dreadful Cat & dog or whatever it was.

They just simply failed to push and sell the product. If they had done that they would have walked it.

Not sure what Ideal World normaly sell in an hour but its got to be quite a lot to cover the costs. There looked to be at least 4 people involved and that without al the other costs managers, warehouse staff etc.

Just to cover the presenter and 3 or 4 staff needed for the studio has to be costing £1.5K to £2K an hour at least

I don't think we ever know why the losing team loses this task ever, and no amount of Siralan's "totally live, yes it is, it is in no way scritped responses to a pre-recording" live narration will ever convince me otherwise.

It might have been product selection, it might have been sales technique, it might have been Siralan decided he wanted to fire Howard this week so he got his mates to ring round and buy loadsa snoods.

Every single time it's seemed utterly random to me. It's good television, because it's the candidates making comedy dicks of themselves, but it never makes a lick of sense.

I've just had a thought re the shopping channel tasks....

Do you reckon that it isn't actually aired and that that it is shown to only a sample of consumers and they hit a button (a bit like 'an ask the audience' button on millionaire) to say whether they would buy it or not based on the pitch?

Has anyoe actually seen the candidates on the actual programme doing their pitch?

The snoods does look highly suspect.I think they have got a warehouse of them and are always trying to shift them without much luck.

Putting them on the Apprentice might be a good way of shifting them. Not so much from the tiny amount they sell but from the publicity of it being shown on the program. Its bound to get a few mugs buying them.

I have yet to find ayone sad enough to be seen out in the street wearing one.

It's a new item, it has the novelty of not being on the market before and as another poster mentioned could pull in fad sales. They wouldn't have needed many to be sold to win.

I reckon it would have done better than the jacket. Didn't Margaret point out that the Dinosaur would have been a good product as well.

The jacket and the chip fryer may be best selling items for the channel but they sure as hell weren't for the apprentices were they!

Didn't they get about 5-10% of the projected sales?

The dinasour was not in the same category of the jacket. It would have replaced the air guitar.

Yes I could have done better. I also would have picked different products. I had a successful career in marketing for several years and I was always big on researching my product's target market, which the apprentice's seem to do very little of.

She did not do well with the products she had, if I recall rightly she sold the least of all 3 of them.

And there is no need to be rude to me, just because my opinion is different to yours it doesn't mean you have to be all attitude with me.

Whether I like Lorraine or not, she does seem to make good choices in regard to her products, that has been shown time and time again.

Thanks for pointing that out to me, I wasn't watching all the time that they were picking the products.

That jacket is nasty, looking at it closely, the leaves do not seem to be well stitched on and only in very thin strips, I could see that tearing very easily.

I am still amazed that the channel said it is a best seller !!

lol

I know!!!

Just looking at it - it looks really flimsy and the leaves look like they will easily detach themselves.

I wonder who has bought it?

Man, I obviously watch the shopping channels too often (ahh, insomnia...) I remember seeing that minging jacket on the telly and I just can't believe she CHOSE THAT THING D:

I've posted the same in the "Kate. Opinion. Changed" Thread.

After a bit of number crunching:

Ignite made a total of £1376.73, rounded up to £1377 to make things easier.

Kate sold a total of £277, of the lower priced items. If she sold one cat/dog set, that means she sold around £260 worth of the guitars. That means she shifted around 17 units of them.

With Kate's numbers taken away from the others, they sold £1100 between them. I don't think there's any info anywhere to know how many they sold of each item, but it means they either sold just 7 jackets or 8 fryers. Of course it was probably a combination of the two. I'm sure with a bit more patience I could fathom out the most likely combo (!) but I haven't, I'm afraid.

So although Kate brought in less money, relatively considering she was selling the lower priced products (around 10-15% of the other products' prices), she shifted more units than Howard and Lorraine combined. In unit terms, she shifted more than double of the other pair.

Of course, we can't say that she would have sold more of the other items and vice versa, but in further consideration of the others having the best-seller items of their categories for the channel, I really don't think the blame for this task lies with Kate.

Oh I have my evil moments - and I think Kate has hers.

I actually think she's been guilty of seeing herself as inviolable.