Ha!

Lucinda Berets - where is she now?

On the subject whether potential customers may become more emollient because they know they are on film and feel they may gain an advantage from nationwide TV exposure, this could go both ways.

A trade buyer would not like to be seen by their peers as being a soft pushover and easy mark, taken in by the patter of clueless amateurs flogging deadbeat merchandise.

I suspect, unless customers spotted Nick or Karen, they wouldn't think much of it. There are enough reality shows around, not to mention the centre's own TV channel, that I don't see how people would assume it was The Apprentice.

However, on a different note - tasks like the "present an invention to a retailer" a couple of weeks back puzzle me. Do the retailers ACTUALLY buy those products? Or is it all hypothetical? For a start, if the team gets orders for thousands of units, nobody seems to give a hoot whether the inventor can actually produce them. I rather suspect they might just be playing along with a hypothetical scenario for the sake of getting their company on TV.

I suspect the reputation of the Sugar empire will back up delivery and quality promises.

The trade buyers respond with such hard-nosed considerations on whether they can shift the merchandise, and they go to such trouble with haggling on price, that I suspect they are genuine orders for genuine merchandise.

I'd always assumed that the 'invent a product' tasks were always hypothetical orders. Afterall the product doesn't exist.
Looks like the 'sell on behalf of a real company, to trade' are also hypothetical. Probably always have been. Afterall a retailler can place an order but there's no way to know if the supplier can actually meet that order. Not in the candidates' interest to turn a sale down, even if they knew. You would hope that buyers for large companies would act professionally and not give the impression on tv that they just pull a figure out of their bum. Unfortunately when dealing with small shops, what you suspect is probably true more often than not. They treat it as a bit of joke and show off a bit. The 1000 shower heads and the nonsensical raising of the quantity of sleeping bags on the last series for example. Neither decided which team won or lost as it happens. Trying to think of previous ones.

Actual sales of single items to the public should be real though. Clothes, paintings, rocking horses , etc. Afterall if you were a merchant (or a drunk) who'd seen some idiots coming and got a great deal on a rug, would you give it up cos some production assistant was pleading it was all for a tv program?

especially the sausage task had me cringe. they made them around 3am, transported them in vans that didn't seem to have any cooling and then displayed them in direct sunlight. you could prolly have killed someone just serving them sausages for dinner.

having been a buyer for over 10 years, i can tell you i enjoyed every bit of haggling, even if i knew i was never going to buy from a supplier. it's honing skills and seeing how far you can go. and it gives you an idea where you may be able to push the other suppliers to.

it was revealed a few days ago that the (IMO useless) baby clothes causing the record result were never actually purchased, didn't the inventor only learn from the show that severl thousand items supposedly had been ordered? and only when he contacted the retailer, he got a valid order for a considerably smaller amount?

I think the presence of cameras does affect people's behaviour and it doesn't matter where they are from. I have been out with students of various ages from 14 up to adult university students who were filming as part of their course and noticed that members of the public react in much the same way to being filmed by kids as they do to being filmed by professionals for national TV. It seems to be the camera they are reacting to rather than thinking where or if it will be shown.

I thought it was obvious in last night's show that the cameras/possible knowldge that it is an apprentice show really affects sales.

It was especially obvious in Jamie's purchase of the tikka - even Martin Lewis hinted at this in the You're Fired show.

I also suspected the black taxi shop people knew.

the moment someone shoves a camera in your face, you know something's up. and you can deduct that you may be shown somewhere, meaning free promotion and also that you'd better not be coming across like a total tit or greedy bastard.

if they wanted it to be credible, they'd have to use hidden cams and ask for permissions later, which is not only likely to cause a lot of hassle, but would also show up how useless most of the contestants really are, so it will not ever happen.

i was cringing at that Karen's comment las night. persistance gets you the price you want. well, yes, but not by being in the face of the seller who could easily guess you really really want that item and will keep the price up. basic suplly nd demand thing, which Karen, the supposedly great business woman (not going to comment on why she really made the career she had so far) should know. persistance means knowing where to get alternatives and thus having the upper hand. without cameras there, Jamie'd have paid 200+ for that tikka.

I can't remember the exact situation but the man in the shop where they paid £57 for something asked why they insisted on such a random price and Nick was stood right behind the girls - I thought it was fairly obvious that he must've realised.