Natasha got a lot of criticism over the way she handled the task but I sort of understand her logic. She said she bought a lot of stock on day one and wanted to sell that. The impression I got was she didn't want to waste time going back and forth to get new stock when the team could be selling the hot items they already had in stock. This turned out to be the right tactic as they made more profit than the other team.

I know Sugar lambasted her for only reinvesting 20 quid, so fair enough, she was in the wrong for not following the instructions but she was looking at the task from a quick sell point of view. You've got the stuff, just sell it, forget about going back and forth to get more stuff. That would take time.

She took a different approach and it made some sense, perhaps? Perhaps she wasn't totally useless.

One of the things Natasha has going for is that she is not afraid to think out the box so to speak, even the suppliers thing from weeks ago and all that.

I think Sugar was pissed that her team won, even with the fine! Her team sold well even if she didn't follow the rules. Anyway, I thought in business you can bend the rules a bit if it's to your advantage. Perhaps she's smarter than we think and she does think outside the box.

I understand her strategy actually, and I think on any other task she would have stormed it. Just the fact that LS emphasized about 12000x "RE-INVEST" meant I got really frustrated when she didn't. Other than that, I don't think she did anything wrong to be honest, she definitely picked the right products to re-invest in after the first day, and was very meticulous and organized throughout the task.

Yes, I think you it's one of those tasks when you can condemn her or applaud her. Ultimately, she won the task. Is it so bad if you make a mess of it and still win? Not really.

The problem was that Jim had pretty much run out of stock but she wouldn't let him go and get more until it was too late to actually sell it.
Natasha also seemed to be emphasising cash - when Lord Sid had clearly said at the start that the amount they would be judged on would be cash plus stock.
In this task cash was not King - if Jim had been allowed to go earlier and converted all his cash into umbrellas he would have been no worse off, but every umbrella he sold would have been a bit more total value.

She chose to stick with 'sell until there's nothing left, then restock' instead of actually doing the task, which was designed to show each person's ability to making most of what sells on spot. Jim performed the best in this task with Susan and Tom close behind. Helen, Melody and Natasha have completely failed in this task.

Susan not only sold well she showed her entrepreneurial skills too.

I think either I missed something, or they didn't show something, but isn't Natasha's strategy only a problem if you do run out of stock you could have sold. And even then the calculation is if the new puchases you can get with the new stock outweigh the sales you lose by going to get it? I don't think it was proven they ran out of stock they could have sold, or that the time wouldn't better be spent selling what they had. If the final totals were calculated on what they paid for stock, it wouldn't matter whether they had stock or money left - it would matter if they lost sales and markup going to get more.

As far as I could see she didn't do much wrong thinking it through .She might have been cught with too little stock but she wasn't.

I do think that if you are going to apply a fine for something then it is only fair to make that clear at the beginning.
It was obvious that LS wanted to get rid of Natasha (I'm not a huge fan but she did win the task). I think he told her she was lucky when she went home last week without going in the boardroom.
And then he was so annoyed that they didn't get their reward?? Anyone else think this was wrong? They won so they deserved it.
I think he was hoping that he could boot Natasha out this week and when that couldn't happen he changed the rules. No respect for him now.

I think that the possibility of a fine if you didn't stick to the 'rules' of the task was made clear to the candidates at the beginning of the task, although not shown in the edit.

The reason I think this is Jim said to Natasha, (i'm paraphrasing) we need to restock I don't want to be the subject of ridicule and a fine by Lord Alan.

At the time I thought it a strange comment as why was he mentioning a fine, but in the end it made sense as I think this was always on the cards.

I happen to think Natasha's strategy was right and the fine was very unfair. she had very strong sellers on her team, why waste a couple of hours picking up more stock when they could simply maximize the profit they made by selling the stock they did have at a mark up. Although jim sold all his umbrellas they still had plenty of nodding dogs, so they could have used his help at their pitch rather than sending him to get umbrellas. If it was a real business/or going into day 3 she could of restocked first thing before trading.

I also think she followed the task rules far better than Melody's team as they did reinvest in the things that were selling, ie nodding dogs and umberellas. Also the bracelets although not on the original pallet, Susan explained she had sold them previously and they did fly so they did 'smell what sells'. Melody just went on a random shopping trip picking up 'electronics' she was lucky on the the mobile phone chargers, it didn't appear that her other picks (travel items and ugly digital clock) sold at all.

The edit of the show & Lord Alans comments were very much skewed against Natasha but it could just as easily have been made out to show her as a brilliant team leader with a successful strategy.

oh and I don't actually rate Natasha very much, but I do think this episode was unfair on her.

Once again she demonstrates she has no grasp of business concepts despite this one being spelt out to her and wins by luck rather than design.

That's not a business model I'd invest in. Clueless.

I think the business concept of not shutting up shop in the middle of the day to go buy more stock when you have plenty is actually sound. She won the task by a large margin if you ignore Sir Alan's fine.

She did reinvest, she just did it first thing in the morning.

If Lord Alan wanted to see that she invested in the right products to sell on a third day then the task should have run for 3 days.

Its amazing how many people dont actually understand the task,natasha was better than melody ,but only jim and tom knew how execute the task correctly...

look at the opening times for this wholesalers...

http://www.savinwholesalers.co.uk/Opening_Times.html

Monday to Friday 05:00 to 15:00

Saturday 06:00 to 11:00


Clearly the idea is you get there early in the morning and you can't keep going back all day to top up.

Seems to me a big flaw in the task design.

The defence of not wanting to waste selling time might have some validity if Natasha was actually selling, but a lot of the time she was just standing around saying yeah and picking fights.

I got the impression that it was thought her team would lose, and even imposing the fine i think Lord Sugar thought that would seal it. When the totals were added up, he seemed royally annoyed because i think the good, strong people on the other team and he had to fire one of them, rather than the team he didn't like.

Correct! She had no clue at all. She did not sell. She was confused. She did not handle pressure well.

I think the whole task was flawed - it obviously could be (and was) won on selling, which meant that the whole concept of smelling what sells and replenishing stock (as you have pointed out) could just be a big waste of time. But I think you would have kept Sugar happy if you'd have re-invested your total profits at 5.00am on the second day, and maybe one player made one final trip to the wholesalers before it closed.

I think he wants rid of Natasha and is pissed off that the task was won for her by Jim - he should have divided the teams differently!

If he wanted her gone should would be gone!
I'm sure they all know the results before the board room reveal.
It's all part of the illusion of the show. Angry dad! Bed you lot without any supper!
Hilarious.

That's essentially what Natasha did! Not sure if it was her fault or Jim's that he only then reinvested £20 at his final wholesaler trip.

I agree with all the other comments about her being useless and standing around panicking rather than selling, but she wasn't criticised for that on the show, just her 'winning' strategy!

I think Lord Alan did create a favored team and a team he hoped would lose, hence he was so pissed off in the boardroom when his strategy backfired and he didn't get to fire the person he wanted!

I understand the next task is subjective - ie he gets to pick which team wins it - so we'll see then who he was gunning for!

Just wondering if the restraints of having two camera crews per team could have affected strategy as well.

Both teams had two areas they could sell at at any one time. The logical thing would be to have a middle person replinishing stock for the main sellers and so not losing any significant fall out in potential sales.

When stocks have to be replinished, a whole sales stall would have to go out of commission for 1-2 hours. Can understand Natasha's strategy but maybe should have allowed some leeway for Jim or requested an assessment from him on his potential lost sales given time restraints and the quantity and type of stock left to sell.

Although that was because the other team imploded. Susan effectively wasted the first day in a poor location. Melody and Helen devoted most of their energies to selling to retailers.

Without the fine it would have been £851 against £728, which is about 15% more, not a huge amount. And we're told the palettes cost £250 but had a retail value of £1100, so arguably they should have £850 just from selling that.


They were clearly told they should be reinvesting two or three times a day.


That's not what it was about.

Yes, but he cocked up the task design and scoring so that that instruction was completely at odds with what was best from both a business point of view and a winning the task point of view. (From the rules we were told about.).

That's one of the major problems with these series. Candidates need to be able to second guess Sugar and he's really all over the place which makes that impossible.

There's another massive volte face coming up next week. (About which, a thread tomorrow.)

No, he didn't. For example, if Jim had reinvested in umbrellas earlier, he'd have had a chance to sell them and they'd have made more money than whatever it was he was selling when he ran out of umbrellas. Reinvesting was the way to win. The only reason that's not apparent is that neither team did it.