I took his silence on buying items not on the original list as tacit approval of the tactic.

In other threads, I mentioned that the second I saw Susan buy those bracelets I thought she would be rebuked for it, as I misunderstood the task in thinking that the original items were the ONLY items they could sell.

If that had been the case, it may have made for a tighter contest.

You cannot see it.
Therefore it does not exist, Q.E.D.

This business about only buying what was on the initial pallet seems to be something that has been dreamt up by a few DS members.

The producers would not have allowed them to all do that if it were against the rules.

More of what sells obviously meant by type of good not by specific product. So if you found ornaments and umbrellas sold and watches and sunglasses didn't you stock up on any ornaments and umbrellas.

Setting up a task where Sugar said he expected them to restock 2 to 3 times a day and using a wholesaler a four hour round trip away was just as bad as using one who shut at mid day.

Never on The Apprentice, on any series, on any task have we seen the people carriers running errands for the candidates.

It is entirely reasonable to assume that that is outwith the rules.

That meant that they had chosen a location from a small selection that they were offered, not that they were given the whole of London and told they could go where ever they wanted.

Did you notice that Jim was in Shepherd's Bush Market and Melody was at Hammersmith, about a mile away?

They producers had clearly got a few pitches around that area of West London for them to choose from.

They don't get him any more dogs to sell, so the issue didn't arise.


He had stuff to sell, but I don't think it was the best stuff.


I know that. But Susan was on her own on the first day, and Helen was on her own on the second day, as was Jim. They could have restocked. They just chose not to.


She wasn't restocking. She was fulfilling a retail order. And the 4 hours was for the round-trip: from her sales pitch to the warehouse to the retailer back to the pitch. I don't think her pitch was close to the retailer, so merely restocking would have been quicker.

And these logistics are a consequence of choices the candidates made. Had they made restocking a priority, they could have located themselves differently.

What she did was a total waste of time, partly because she left it too late to get to the retailer, and partly because the margin was so low. Both of these she should have realised in advance.


Smaller resources defeats the goal of figuring out which resources sell and which don't.


That doesn't help when there can only be two sub-teams per team.

Although they were told to restock 2 or 3 times a day, they could reasonably use the lower figure and restock 3 times overall: at say 1pm first day, 6pm first day, 1pm second day. So you assign one sub-team to do that, and have them service the second sub-team as well as themselves. The rest of their time they spend selling. Even if each restocking takes 4 hours, that's only half of their time. It's totally doable and would have been better than the things they actually did.

That was yet another failure on Sugar's part. Set them up with items where there weren't enough of the best seller's for them to restock.


I think it was. He seemed to be doing best with the umbrellas and that's what we saw him selling late in the day.


But they would still have substituted selling time for unproductive travelling time and that would have meant they scored less.

From what we saw no one ran out and apart from Tom who could not get the dogs he wanted, they all seemed to be selling well.

You are supposing that they could have sold more profitably but there is not a scrap of evidence for that.


She was restocking. It was just that the stock was already spoken for. And, as I pointed out in another thread, the rate for the half day she spent would actually have more than the average of all the other sellers. The fact that it took 4 hours to get from central(ish) London to Enfield and back was a complete fluke and something that could not possibly have been anticipated. Had that journey taken a more typical amount of time they would, as things panned out, have won the task.


There is no evidence whatsoever that they had any choice but to locate themselves in a small area of West London. The producers were not going to arrange and pay for permits and sites all over London so that they could pick anywhere.


Except that it was only too late because of unusual traffic condition that could not have been anticipated.


Except that the margin was fine and would have yielded a return for the half day that was greater than the average for the other's


Not necessarily.

Given the time constraint of the task they can only test an extremely limited number of items. If they had been given 10 each of 5 items at £2 wholesale they would have been able to test those somewhat realistically and then restock.

Of course, the randomness of London traffic would still have turned the task into a coin toss.

I'm sorry, but that's rubbish. The other team happily got nodding dogs from the wholesaler Lord Sugar provided.


You're making that up. We don't see Jim selling umbrellas between the two phone calls. We do see him with a load of them right at the end, after he's finally restocked. He wanted to get them earlier.


That's what the whole task was about. That was why Nick was hovering around wondering when they were going to restock. You're the one assuming the production team got it wrong, with scant evidence.


And as I pointed out in that thread, the rate only looked good because the others did so badly.


We see them in a variety of locations. Selling door to door or in shops, and in various pitches. We don't know what other places were available.


It was too late because of poor planning. At best, she took a risk.


Again, the point of the task is to given choices and chances to exercise their judgement.

In the 1st phone call Jim said that he had sold around £175 worth, in the 2nd phone call he said that he had sold another £50.

Yes, apparently all of them.


On the contrary. If they were reduced to selling poor stock Nick would have mentioned that. All he was doing was parroting what Sugar had said. He conspicuously did not come up with a valid reason why the should restock that matched the scoring system on which they would win or lose the task.

This is yet more evidence that Sugar pulled the fine from thin air. If Nick had known about it he would have said that they risked being fined.


LOL. But that's the nature of the competition. You just need to beat the others.

For whatever reason that was the best the teams could do and that particular episode would have exceeded the average rate for the task. So it may not have been a good idea in absolute terms but it was still better than the average of the others.


Well, I musty admit I was wrong about just the area of West London. But the point remains that there must have been a limited number of locations available because of the paperwork needed to get permits.


We are going to have to agree to differ on that.

Your attitude always seems to be that no matter how unusual the traffic conditions the candidates 'should have planned for it'.

I think that that is utterly unreasonable when you get weirdnesses such as Enfield and back taking four hours.

I can just imagine your and Sugar's reaction if a candidate used allowing four hours for a relatively short journey as an excuse for not doing something else.

These tasks are so short that they should not rely on intra London journeys when those journeys remove selling or buying time because it turns the task into a coin toss.

she want to a place where you buy items cheap. bought some bangles and sold a few at a higher price.

This could have been achieved by a 10 year old

Yes, buying things more cheaply than you sell them is the basis of all trading business.

Yet, strangely, we don't see too many 10 year olds successfully doing it and we do see many experienced traders go to the wall.

So I suspect you are ever so slightly wrong.

And...?

I bet if that had been Helen LS would have lavished praise on her

But it was Suzy and between her and Jim they had managed to wreck LS's plans to get rid of Natasha- that is why LS was so spiteful in not allowing them their trest

I actually don't get the impression that he's very keen on Helen!

She has got a lot of credit lately, though, some of it arguably undeserved. She got the sole credit for the sales in the Paris task, when some ought to have gone to Susan, and also the sole credit for the sales in the biscuit task, when most of it should DEFINITELY have gone to Jim.

I'd believe that the credit for the biscuit task should have gone to the whole team.

But in reality ASDA were buying a product. They buy on the basis of the expertise and experience of their team, not on who can sweet talk them in a presentation.

Jim did a good job (I don't mark him down for mooting tie in possibilities as all of that would be hammered out later) but I don't think it really helped them that much.

Okay, I should have phrased that better. If Helen deserved the whole credit in the Paris task, when Susan picked out the product (which effectively sold itself) and also participated in the presentation, then Jim should have got the whole credit in the biscuit task, especially as he was the one who came up with and made the biscuit. I wouldn't have minded half so much about Helen getting sole credit there if Susan had been credited with the win in the previous week.

It took me nearly 80 minutes to travel from West Hampstead to Kensington last Saturday and I wouldn't fancy this journey in the middle of the afternoon...
http://maps.google.co.uk/maps?q=kens...FHQLq4OJg&z=12

I don't think Helen did get sole credit.

Karren complimented her on a superb pitch - and she was quite correct - it was the best pitch I've ever seen on TA.

Sugar echoed this.

I don't think they necessarily gave her all the credit for winning the task, though. It would have been most unfair if they had done so. It was just the stand out performance of that task.

Whereas in the biscuit task it really was a team effort. Biscuit design, packaging design and pitch.

Helen gave a very good pitch, but I wouldn't say it was the best ever given on TA - I'd put it on a par with Liz's record-breaking pitch last year - and, as I've stated, the product pretty much sold itself. As for who got the credit, I didn't see Susan getting very much credit for the win (in fact, she got rather castigated by Karren in the BR), and whilst the boardroom obviously takes longer than we see on TV, I don't think we can just assume that Susan did get much credit. You've said before that we shouldn't just assume that things happened if we don't see them on TV - well, I didn't see Susan getting credit for her excellent and instinctive product selection (or for her brilliant sale to the mobile phone shop).

On the biscuit task, I wouldn't say that Jim's pitch was as polished as Helen's, but he did think outside the box rather more, and IMO he should have been given the credit for that. It's also arguable that he was responsible for much more of the task than Helen - you list three parts of the task, and he was solely responsible for the pitch and the biscuit design, and partly responsible for the packaging (he came up with the tagline). I'm not saying that Helen and Natasha slacked in that task, or that they didn't deserve any credit, but I think it was a standout task for Jim more than anybody, and he should have got more credit than he did. Helen is a very good candidate, but it looked to me like she was getting sole credit for two wins in a row, and IMO that's entirely unwarranted. (on another note, how does LAS expect her to not take sole credit for the wins if he & Karren keep effectively giving it to her?)

They do seem to spend a lot of time travelling. I mean sending them from London to Cardiff in the biscuit task is insane. I have done that journey many times and its a 3 hour boring journey as a passenger one way and another 3 hours coming back. I cannot believe there is no other place nearer London.
The cost of petrol for those big limos for a six hour journey must be enormous.

Particularly when you consider that they sent Jim in a car by himself - even though there was a spare seat in Tom and Melody's car! What a waste of money!

Yes of course. Indeed they should have shared a car and the show would have got great plaudits from everyone for conserving fuel and carbon emission and not adding to the destruction of the planet.