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Young Apprentice - 14th Nov 2011


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Old 15-11-2011, 06:58
CaroUK
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Agreed - the shopping trolley was a red herring - which is why we were shown an animal print one on another stand selling at £19.99. Most over 50s with £100 to spend on a shopping trolley probably wouldn't need one to go shopping with!

Harry was spot on with his comment about the cusion - at under £10 it was the sort of thing people would buy on impulse - or as a gift. It would have been useful as it was and could have been sold to travellers as well (and even to those who go to events like sports matches where the seating is hard!). At that price point - I think it would have flown off the shelves.

What Nick and LS didn't like was the way Haya brooked no discussion over the piemaker - which she then proceeded to try and flog at well over its RRP (her truly fatal mistake). I just feel sorry for Harry M - he will be stuck with the awful adverts next week - and all because the others went with Haya (close to my grandma!) rather than Harry as PM this time!
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Old 15-11-2011, 08:23
Dogmatix
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Looks like it!

Not sure about Sralan saying that Harry sold "quite high volumes" when he only sold 4 or 5....if they had sold at around the £80 mark they'd have sold a lot more. My parents would buy one at £80 but not at over £100.
Sales volume is the total amount of money received for sales, not the number of units sold, nor the cubic feet they occupy when stacked up, and it is irrespective of the initial purchase price,.i.e. has nothing to do with the sales mark-up or profit margin. Thus 5 units sold at £80 each creates sales volume than 20 units at £15 each.
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Old 15-11-2011, 08:38
spannerandpony
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Sales volume is the total amount of money received for sales, not the number of units sold, nor the cubic feet they occupy when stacked up, and it is irrespective of the initial purchase price,.i.e. has nothing to do with the sales mark-up or profit margin. Thus 5 units sold at £80 each creates sales volume than 20 units at £15 each.
Ah, thank you. I thought it was units sold.
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Old 15-11-2011, 09:01
Metal Mickey
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It wasn't though. The shopping trolley was the lowest (or possibly second lowest) seller of the day.

For some reason, everyone on the show was fixated on the trolley - but it was a very expensive, not particularly special product in a crowded market.

The key product to get was the vacuum cleaner - a relatively low price point, easy to demonstrate and something people would tend to buy on an impulse.

I don't understand why nothing more was made of that.
That's what I thought, too! I guess that in terms of the "story" of the episode, they had to make it about the pie-maker (actually a decent seller, notwithstanding the few hours they lost trying to flog it at the higher price), and about "losing" the trolley, though that was more about the team's meeting/negotiation skills than the financial effect it had on the task.

Yes, it was the vacuum cleaner that won it - we'll never know if any of the un-taken items (like the pillow) would have made up that gap...
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Old 15-11-2011, 10:22
nats18
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Have to say that was an obvious result. I found it funny last night had fun telling my mum whos 54 she apparently doesnt save anymore cos she's ready to die. Though really they were only showing over 70s at the start to emphasise the oldness.Also love the fact that after they both pushed for the trolley only 3 were sold
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Old 15-11-2011, 12:57
Reggie Rebel
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I was really surprised that no of them cottoned on to 'Today Only' price and stuck with it all day.

Trying to shift the pie maker at well over the RRP was a bad mistake and had they stuck to the RRP or even knocked a couple of quid off and gone at £17 the result would have been different.

That said, had Harry H and Zara negotiated a discount with the mini vacs then the margin of victory could have been even more.

Flawed strategies from both sides, although we did have strategies which is not always the case in the Apprentice.
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Old 15-11-2011, 13:31
psychocilla
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If he tries to squeeze me, i'll thump him
So will I- the patronising little twerp!
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Old 15-11-2011, 13:44
brian_snail
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Fantastic picture of Harry M's eye bulging enthusiasm for the pillow here www.asseenonthetv.co.uk. Annoyingly he is getting better and was right about the pillow. I loved his reaction when he sat on it, 'it is very...mmm...YAAA!!' it was best of the products (found all of them here )
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Old 15-11-2011, 15:45
echorose
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I could have done with one of those pillows 22 years ago when I had just given birth for the first time. I was in agony and couldn't sit down. The ward sister told me they were fresh out of rubber rings because all the ladies were using them!

I was very naughty and waited for one of them to go off to the toilet and nicked one. I then carried it with me everywhere I went. It was the more precious thing to me. Even more precious than my beautiful daughter.

If you gave birth at Kings College hospital London in 1989 and you lost a rubber ring I'm sorry
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Old 15-11-2011, 16:30
neo_wales
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You get those pillows in the £ shop for...a pound. Very good if you have piles I'm told
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Old 15-11-2011, 23:44
DavetheScot
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It wasn't though. The shopping trolley was the lowest (or possibly second lowest) seller of the day.

For some reason, everyone on the show was fixated on the trolley - but it was a very expensive, not particularly special product in a crowded market.

The key product to get was the vacuum cleaner - a relatively low price point, easy to demonstrate and something people would tend to buy on an impulse.

I don't understand why nothing more was made of that.
The vacuum cleaner was certainly a good product, but I don't think anyone on the other team was really pushing that much. Harry M and Hailey were mostly trying to persuade Haya to pick the cushion instead of the piemaker.

The sales weren't just about the product, but about the teams salesmanship. The birdhouse cameras would have got zero sales if Harry M hadn't had the idea of selling to other traders (it really was a good piece of thinking; all credit to him). The team selling the shopping trolley could have done this too, but didn't (Zara in particular seemed to be hardly trying, though that might have been editing). If Harry M had been selling that, who knows what he'd have sold?
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Old 16-11-2011, 07:13
Takae
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I actually think he stands a good chance of winning it. I think people are too bothered about his upbringing to realise he's actually not a bad candidate!
It helps that he's a learner. The Harry M in the first episode is different from the Harry M from the latest episode. He's obviously listened. But I don't think he'll win. He's good at guessing and selling, but managing? I doubt it. We'll see when he's a PM.
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Old 17-11-2011, 17:18
thenetworkbabe
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I was really surprised that no of them cottoned on to 'Today Only' price and stuck with it all day.

Trying to shift the pie maker at well over the RRP was a bad mistake and had they stuck to the RRP or even knocked a couple of quid off and gone at £17 the result would have been different.

That said, had Harry H and Zara negotiated a discount with the mini vacs then the margin of victory could have been even more.

Flawed strategies from both sides, although we did have strategies which is not always the case in the Apprentice.
No way of knowing if negotiating a discount on the vacs would have made more - more sales but less per sale could mean any result . Time selling and number of potential customers would have limited how many they could sell cheaper. Its also not at all clear contrary to Harry M that they could ever sell four pollows for every vac or 2 per pie maker or 10 for every trolley, so the claims about the pillow were also dubious.

The slightly hidden winning move was to go for the vacs which offered both sales numbers and a higher sale price than the alternatives. The winning team (we saw Zara and Harry H) laid out the logic for that buy and got it all right. Not sure Lord Sugar noted it but they made the right winning call.
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Old 17-11-2011, 17:36
Ultra Magnus
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The slightly hidden winning move was to go for the vacs which offered both sales numbers and a higher sale price than the alternatives. The winning team (we saw Zara and Harry H) laid out the logic for that buy and got it all right. Not sure Lord Sugar noted it but they made the right winning call.
Yeah, as I said above - the product that made the difference between winning and losing was the vacuum. It was odd that no-one seemed to mention this once on the show.
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