They didn't. Melody and Helen found that wholesaler themselves. They said that they'd spent quite a bit of time ringing round various wholesalers trying to find one who stocked the duvets, the only two they could find was the one which shut at 2 (which they should have checked) and the one the producers originally set out for them, which was 2 hours' drive away.

When introducing the task, LS said that was about selling products that they had already sold as part of this task. Unless Nick highlighted it in his report, LS might not of known about it. The £100 fine may have been partly about this, as they didn't break any other rules or even break the principles of the task. They did re-invest, it's just that Natasha didn't get the notion that unsold stock was as good as cash when it came to the final total, and so wasn't prepared to re-invest as much as it was possible.

Actually, when you are only open for half a day is known as a half day. You'd have to know what time the wholesalers opened to know whether shutting at 2 constitutes a half-day. Seeing as many retailers get stock early in the morning before they open themselves, it's not necessarily a sound assumption to assume that they only opened at the start of retail business hours.

Generally, it's very unusual for B2B operations to shut for the afternoon.

I know some people expect utter perfection from the candidates but I think this was a low trick (assuming the producers even realised it themselves.) As I said it's very unusual for B2B's to close mid day and as none of the candidates have barrow-boy experience I don't see why they would even suspect this.


They were going back to the initial wholesaler because they wanted more of the items (Duvet covers) that were on the initial palate. So they would not have even had the opportunity to see any displayed 'hours of business'.

What "trick"? Helen and Melody found the wholesaler themselves, and didn't check the closing time. Who tricked them?


They went back to the original wholesalers because the wholesaler they found themselves had closed. I'm not sure why you think this means that they couldn't have seen a sign saying when the wholesalers closed, or have asked an employee about their opening times. While they were at it, they could have asked Mr. Duvet when he shut as well, so that they didn't end up travelling halfway across London with 30 duvets they couldn't sell.

That they assumed both the market stall and the wholesalers would be open until 6 is nobody's fault but theirs. An understandable oversight, perhaps, given the pressure the contestants are under, but still a mistake of theirs.

I noticed it too, she bought them for a cheap price and was making a very healthy product from them

Not sure where you got that impression. I actually know the place in question via a family contact and oddly enough I was in there last summer. (I know, don't ask...)

What struck me though was that she was in Kensington earlier in the day and that jewellery wholesaler is in Whitechapel. Her team really let her travel to the other side of London? I guess they didn't know what she was upto at all as I can't imagine they'd have been too hot on the idea?

The fine was plainly given for not re-investing. If the real reason was Susan's bracelets, then that's pretty deceitful editing, not to mention that the other team should have collected a fine too as they also bought new items when re-investing.

Why do you think that?

What evidence do you have that they were not using the wholesaler from whom the initial palate was sourced?


Again, what makes you think that?

What evidence do you have that the closed wholesaler was the one they found?

Do you realise that if that is the case and the one they went back to was the original, then the tasks designers initially set them up with a wholesaler that was a four hour round trip from the location of the pitches?

That would be pretty stupid but given the inept way this task was designed it wouldn't surprise me.


That much is true.

You seem to be making some very strange assumptions.


Except that they didn't assume it would be open until six. They assumed it would still be open at three - which is a much more reasonable assumption.

Didn't it say so in the program? I'm pretty sure Helen specifically mentioned going back to the original wholesaler as the option that would take up the most time.

I don't remember hearing that.

That would have made the task design and set up even more bizarre.

There's Sugar telling them that they should restock two or three times a day and the wholesaler he set them up with is a four hour round trip away?

Also, I don't quite see how they could have known that a different wholesaler would have an equivalent product to the one on the palate. If they turned up with something different the buyer might well have refused it.

I've just rewatched it on iPlayer (about 27:30 in), and it's a bit confusing - Helen first says, 'I've managed to find somewhere that does them' and then goes on to say 'The one that I'm going back to now is the one that we started off at' (which Melody & Tom respond to with, 'That's miles away' & 'it's a bit far').

So, she does say that the open wholesaler is the one they started at, but she also states that it's one that she found?

If my memory serves me correctly, the other half of the team were in Covent Garden which is hardly far from Kensington both of which are not really the other side of London from Whitechapel.

The more we look at it the odder it is.

The perfect model is that you spend some money buying lines to test and then go back to buy more of what works with retained capital and sales profits. You then do this 2-3 times a day for two days so you compound your profit. If you find something like Susans bracelets with a 400% markup and can sell them all, in theory you could get into the hundreds of thousands of pounds in two days. The problem is if that, or pyramid selling, worked, the world would be full of millionaires.

In practice though, you can only sell so many with two sites and three people, and in this case the starting stock and the first reinvestment are large enough to fill the days selling and meet any demand. You can't sell more without more customers - and you don't have time to test other items for sale to them . The teams don't have the knowledge they would need , and a young Lord Sugar would have had, about the market, their pitches, the options for what to sell , their suppliers or the current working practices/opening hours. You can't even use one person to restock because you can only split the team in two not three - so time restocking is time selling nothing. The warehouse is too far away to take time going to it two or three times a day. The warehouse also seems to operate working hours that mean people stock once a day not two or three times. The fixed pitches seem to be fixed so you can't go looking for a bigger market.

I think we have to conclude that what Lord Sugar thinks should happen just can't . The suppliers may not be where they were, and open as long as they were 40 years ago . He knew more of what he needed to know , and they don't seem to have much flexibility to seek out new buyers. When it doesn't appear to be a way to make lots of money, Natasha plays to win the task - and Melody, Susan and Helen all look for a better way of going about it. We then end up with Natasha being blamed for a winning strategy, and with three other people stretching any rules there may have been, We end up in something that doesn't tell us much at all - with arbitary fines chucked in on top,

Because we saw footage of them speaking to that wholesaler on the phone, being told they had closed at two, and then having to go back to the original wholesaler which was a 4 hour round trip.


Having paid attention while the episode was airing.

It was a 4 hour round trip away from where they had decided to sell. They chose their own location. And, before you ask, this was also said in the programme itself.


They phoned round wholesalers and asked them.

Not true. They only had a handful of nodding dogs, and Tom sold out of them quite early on the first day.


Both teams had members who wasted time that could have been more usefully spent restocking.


The warehouse that Lord Sugar provided stayed open late. We see them restocking after 6pm on the first day. It was Helen's warehouse that closed early.


They had choices about where to go. Susan didn't have to go to households, for example.


It can and should have. I reckon we'll see the task revisted in later years, and future candidates will make a much better job of it.

Just so you know, goods are sold on pallets.

Palate is in your mouth.

Just saying, like

But did they ever run out of anything after they restocked? You are meant to run out of the first token buy so you know what sold. Does Tom run out of dogs on day two? Would his dog sales with more dogs outweigh the time lost selling dogs, or anything else, going for more dogs? Jim, from what we see, had enough umbrellas to fill the entire day selling - minus the time he spent going to finally restock. if he went earlier, he would have had the same time selling with stock in hand and its unknowable if he would have sold as many or more later in the day as he did earlier.

The idle team members are not spare. They can't go off on their own without a camera crew, and there seem never to be more than two camera crews per team - so to restock you either take the one man sales team away from selling or the two man one. The less productive people can't be used for restocking the people selling best - Natasha can't leave Susan who is selling and Helen is already busy on her way to wholesalers to get something else

Helen had two wholesaler choices . The first was too far away. The second was closed. That amounts to zero good choice and, with hindsight, she would have done better not trying to restock at all.

There' is a mystery how Susan ends up where she is hawking. Even if she has the necessary legal bits of paper, its a bizarre option - and we never get to see whose bad idea it was, or who approved it.The others are on established pitches in markets, and someone, we can presume, has fixed those pitches for them. They can't just have turned up on the day, and I doubt if they were given many choices where to go.

The task might work if you start with smaller resources and can make multiple visits to a nearby, open, wholesaler. . Even then, it depends on whats available, how lucky you are picking initially and what market with what demand you are allocated. It might work better too with the same amount of starting stock but with more people on the teams, able to pick more lines and sell them in more places with someone free to do the restocking. That would remove the potentially negative clash between selling time and restocking time and make people adjust goods, supply and demand. That just doesn't seem possible though with the mechanics of the show and the limited number of camera and production staff .

This is a formidable list of difficulties, as difficult as things were for the 18yo Sugar who learnt on the job, and learnt fast. The whole test is to see who can work out the logistics, optimising profit and minimising overheads, including the overhead of travel time.

This is not to say the solution would be easy, but the whole point of the exercise is to find a candidate who could overcome the difficulties, with ingenuity and energy. For example could the team find out what times the wholesaler would close? Could they leave £200 deposit behind with the wholesaler (trustworthy because of the Sugar connection), and then ring through to confirm a repeat order. If stock is available, then the Sugar limousine driven by chauffeur can collect the merchandise refill plus cash refund of unused deposit if applicable. This would have saved Jim's selling time lost while collecting more brollies, saved Helen's selling time lost while collecting more duvets. SELL, SELL, SELL, time is money.

It is not easy, as it was not easy for 18yo boy Alan Sugar. The exercise is to find those who can, not those who cannot.

I8 year old Sugar though knows the markets and the suppliers and the closing times. If he's relating accurately what he did, he didn't have suppliers two hours away or suppliers that closed at 1400 either. If he really is restocking three times a day he's either got less stock and money to start with, better items available , or he's selling much more in the same time. If he's selling more it may be because he's just better or because demand, locations and goods have changed.

There are ways around problems - but there's no evidence that they are available to the candidates. They could use their car drivers as unpaid labour and do everything on the phone, but its never been done - probably because the rules don't allow it. The rules almost certainly mean you can't use production staff in the tasks and there's never enough money to employ dispatch riders, or professionals to do the work for you.

The camomile tea saleswoman who asked for £900 then settled for £400 came to meet the buying team outside a pub. They did not travel to meet her. Specialists who produced new products delivered them to Apprentice House. There is nothing sacred about Apprenticing having to travel everywhere in person. Use of internet is ruled out, but use of the phone is not, and use of the limo is not.

I cannot recall any rule stipulating that buyers have to take delivery in the most time-consuming manner. The limo was there all day to ferry candidates anywhere on demand. What is the difference between ferrying a bum resting on a seat and ferrying a signed purchase order resting on the seat? Candidates always went in person, because they needed to hand over cash, because they could not think of a better way. This is not a shortcut to disadvantage the rival team -- they have equal access to their own limo, if they can tumble the same idea.

It is hard to see how the 18yo Sugar could have any business objection to cost-efficient purchase and collection. Hard to see how Sugar can possibly object to use of an available resource in the most cost-efficient way. Is Sugar anti-economy, is Sugar anti-efficiency? It is not a question of misusing the limo by sending it out to work as a taxi for cash.

Followers wait to be shown a precedent, leaders set the precedent. Candidates who cannot do this, cannot do that, might as well not continue. What possible point is there for Sugar to invest in someone who cannot?

I agree. In fact LS should have had a go at her like he did the other team for missing the point of the task completely.

She probably has experience from her mums stall that these are a good sellar but that was not the point of the task.

The wholesalers don't come to their customers.

The rules must include not using the drivers as labour. If they didn't you would have seen drivers and production crew doing all sorts of things. Whilst its true the driver can drive from A to B with someone on board or not, there's no point in arriving at B if there's no one on board to get out, say who they are, check and sign for the order and put it in the back seat. If the driver does that he's by definition doing more than driving and he's replaced a team member. You either have a rule against this or you don't - and its pretty clear that they do.

Given that neither she nor Melody were rebuked by Sugar for choosing their own stuff, it's highly possible that Sugar didn't see this as being outwith the spirit of the task.