Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Sept 24, 2020 15:52:20 GMT
Sounds doable doesn't it? Trouble is, price points on fashion and footwear are astonishingly but provably sensitive. An upward variance of 15 or 16% could halve the sales. Especially on those items where the price is respectively north or south of £100. Huge drop off in volumes once over £100. Not that we are not already up there and way beyond on some items, but the volume stuff is in two digits. No we are not alone of course. But some days, it does feel fairly friendless at the moment. 😉 I understand the price sensitivity though the flip side I take from what you've written is you have no sales because you can't give a price so damned if you don't and damned if you do. There has to come a point where some middle ground is reached as no one wants to see their suppliers go out of business as that will hurt the manufacturers too. Of course, a supplier operating within a market and a supplier importing in to the market is going to introduce an advantage for anyone already inside the tent. I'd think for a manufacturer it is in their interest to maintain a working relationship in the short-term until people know more early next year. There is always the possibility the market has fallen away completely as you mentioned coming up to Christmas party season and the manufacturer is as exposed as the suppliers. Hmmm a right old pickle indeed. |
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Avant
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Post by Avant on Sept 24, 2020 16:27:47 GMT
Presumably, Humph, you'll sell a higher proportion of Chinese goods as the tariffs are there already?
If other countries, especially China, can make goods to the same standard as EU manufacturers do, with their lower labour rates they can make a killing. I don't know whether that can happen with shoes, but I don't think it'll be long before it happens with cars.
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Post by Humph on Sept 24, 2020 16:46:06 GMT
In truth we're just quoting "normal" prices. There's not much else we can do. If we get shafted by duty changes then we'll just have to swallow it I guess. Could go the other way of course.
Nightmare anyway.
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Post by dixinormus on Sept 24, 2020 21:46:07 GMT
Not sure that Brexit is the biggest issue here? Isn’t the greater threat that Covid will close retailers, limit people’s social lives, threaten their incomes, and massively reduce the quantity of fashion items purchased over the next 6 months anyway? 😬
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Post by Humph on Sept 25, 2020 6:53:55 GMT
Yeah that too.
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Post by Deleted on Sept 25, 2020 10:36:20 GMT
My certificate of Maltese Citizenship arrived today. It was signed in March but it's taken all this time to get here because of Covid.
I'm a bit teary, for a couple of reasons. Sniff.
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Post by dixinormus on Sept 25, 2020 10:53:02 GMT
Time to retire Humph? I’ve deduced that you’re older than the rest of us anyway... 🤣
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Post by Humph on Sept 25, 2020 12:58:33 GMT
Maybe, we'll see. Wouldn't be the end of the world, ( I'm 62 ) but I guess I'd like to get my son off the payroll first. Just starting his final year at uni, but the little ( insert adjective of choice ) is muttering about doing a masters...
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Avant
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Post by Avant on Sept 25, 2020 22:28:23 GMT
There are two reasons for someone doing a masters....(a) they have a real interest in the subject and an undergraduate dissertation frustratingly only scratches the surface.... or (b) they haven't a clue what to do with their lives. A variation on (b) this year is that even if they have some idea, there's a shortage of vacancies.
Wiser employers will keep recruiting in a recession, even at a reduced level, as they can see the inevitable skill shortage in a few years' time. But there are others who don't, and I suppose some businesses where the work just isn't there.
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WDB
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Post by WDB on Sept 26, 2020 8:35:10 GMT
The work may not be there today, but how many graduate recruits contribute anything of value in their first year in the job anyway? That time is about building experience and confidence, so wise employers will still be taking on people with the right potential. That way they won’t be scrabbling for resources when business picks up.
The exceptions will be in those industries that may not recover for years, or at all. Back in March, the FT ran an article predicting that business travel may suffer in the short term but would bounce back, as it did after 2001. Today’s paper takes a very different tone, explaining how many businesses have gone right off letting their people travel at all, and that many may never go back to it. I wouldn’t have advised anyone to take a degree in hotel management in the first place but it must be heartbreaking to be emerging with one now, and a master’s isn’t really going to help.
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Post by EspadaIII on Sept 26, 2020 20:03:25 GMT
The effects of the credit crunch recession are still visible in the surveying profession with a shortage of good quality qualified valuers who have at least three years PQE. This is necessary as the bank require all valuers signing reports not only to be qualified but have had three years experience. How they get it, is of course a mystery if they cannot do bank valuations.....
I had to let one good trainee go in May, (although we paid him till the end of August and I gave him a genuine glowing reference) simply because he was already on furlough and I see no need for more surveyors for a while. We have enough qualified ones in the firm already even if work picks up by say 50%. Thankfully another firm has decided they want him and I am pleased for him.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Sept 26, 2020 21:41:05 GMT
Boris is playing a blinder on this. His oven ready brexit still under wraps and Gove throwing the 7000 lorries in Kent out there to divert attention away from this fantastic oven ready deal.
The Japan deal 80% loaded to Japan is just the kind of deal Britain should be brokering with other countries. Can't wait for the deal for corned beef with Argentina. I reckon a free Rolls Royce for every tin sent is a victory for brexit.
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Post by dixinormus on Sept 29, 2020 3:36:31 GMT
How any business in the UK can plan ahead for anything right now beats me! Covid + Brexit, what a perfect storm 😣.
On the upside Humph, early retirement aged 62 is probably a better scenario than being washed-up and jobless aged 42 or 52, when retirement probably isn’t a viable option for all kinds of reasons.
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WDB
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Post by WDB on Sept 29, 2020 8:23:36 GMT
When I started work in 1989, 62 was my ‘planned retirement age’. Doesn’t seem very likely now.
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Post by Humph on Sept 29, 2020 8:38:22 GMT
If I had stayed at my second employer, rather than allowing myself to be seduced by my third one, I'd have been able to retire 4 years ago on just about the most favourable pension scheme I've ever heard of.
😫
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