Quite often like last week we see the contestants pitching their products to preselected retailers. The retailer then proceeds to order certain numbers of the product if hey like it.
Are these orders real or just imaginary ? It's never been explained properly but I can't ever imagine something like a wearable gadget which was designed over a couple of hours going into mass production?

I'm sure it's all hypothetical. They are asked "if this were a real pitch for a real product, would you be likely to place an order for it?"

The majority of the time it's hypothetical, but occasionally there are tasks that have real orders, such as the calendar task in Series 2. That one was specifically stated to be for real, because the money was going to Great Ormond Street Hospital. I think there have been a couple of others, like Series 4's ice-cream task. But it's usually hypothetical. I assume hypothetical unless specifically stated otherwise.

How did the Bodyrocker end up in production?

I think Philip Taylor launched that independently after being fired from the show.

Loads of stuff's never really explained properly - I think you just have to suspend your disbelief, otherwise you'd go crazy shouting 'But why don't they just...' questions at the screen. As I do every week.

The shopping task, for example. We can take it as read that they're not allowed to Google stuff, but are they allowed to go into bookshops? Or phone 118 118? Or ask random people on the street?

In YA2, Zara phoned a library and asked them to look an obscure word up in the dictionary. That hasn't happened since, so it's possible that they've banned it since then, but in fairness there have only been three series since, one in which that task didn't happen and one in which it happened abroad, so it may just be that no one in YA3 remembered what Zara did.

They presumably aren't being monitored all day - there'll be recording breaks and lunch breaks and so on. I wonder how easy it'd be to slip away into Waterstone's and look up 'cloche'. Or just cheat generally.

I'm guessing Google and smartphones aren't allowed.

Also I'm sure they're given some direction on what and where to go. For exampLe being told by producers to split into no more than two sub teams. Also for example the cooking and food type tasks they must be given some sort of guidance on hygiene general ingredients etc .

I guess some retailers will buy the more practical products as part of the deal of being on the show. Firebox, an online company that could always do with more publicity ordered, although admittedly it could have been hypothetical.

Makes you wonder then, why don't they just make up the design, and pitch it. They could for instance say " oh these are a new type of solar panel, that can go under fabric" etc. In one series when pitching children's food "one contestant made very ambitious promises about how they would tie it into the Harry Potter theme" (can't remember his name (Lee?), and Asda's excepted that, and made a hugh order on the back of it.

The orders are based on what the retailers would buy given that product and that pitch. If they don't see the product sitting in their stock range then they won't order, the same as if the product is good for them but the pitch is awful and they can't trust the teams to deliver.

The retailers are usually selected to have one multiple, one mid size/specialist and one niche market. Get the right product and you should get the orders from the mutiple (more shops, more orders).

In this task the Sports Retailer was they key buyer so teams should have been looking at that. Had they gone with the running pants they probably would have won.

That was Jim Eastwood.

^^Thanks