The Banks Giveth &The Banks Taketh Back. Part 3 of Our Story
Monday, May 16, 2011 @ 3:34 PM
Retail, in any field is pretty much a guessing game, trying to figure out what potential customers might want to buy from you. We had already learnt throughout the summer that whatever stock you bought in, it was never quite right for some customers. If you had pink geraniums they wanted white. If you had white, they wanted red. You get the picture!! But our real dilemma was - just how many real Christmas trees do you buy in for re-sale when there’s a recession?? After two seriously quiet trading months during October & November we had to take the plunge and make the decision just how many Christmas trees to buy in. People had already started tightening their belts. And who could blame them with all the daily doom and gloom news reports about the banks, job losses, house repossessions etc. so it was a big gamble for us. We considered that it would go either one of two ways. Either nobody would bother as Christmas is a really expensive time of year OR they would say “what the hell, lets go for it, have a brilliant time this year and worry about the cost next year”. We decided on the second option and luckily we were spot on! We ordered and sold hundreds of real trees and wreaths, selling out two days before Christmas, enabling us to shut shop early and do our own crimbo shopping. However, January and February, when its sub zero outside, tend to be another couple of empty till months. But you still have bills to pay! So we turned to our friendly bank for some much needed financial assistance. They were only too happy to oblige. After all, we had re-styled the whole garden centre, increasing both its reputation and its sales, tripling the turnover! We had big plans for expansion the following year, so the bank agreed quite happily to extend our loan and our overdraft. We ordered more stock for the new season and made quite a killing on Mothers Day. Nothing says, “I Love My Mum” better than flowers or plants. We managed to stay afloat throughout the summer, despite watching many other businesses, both big & small, fall by the wayside. Then the dreaded winter was upon us again. However, this time things were totally different! Nobody, but nobody was spending out on luxury items and we ended up returning unsold Christmas trees to the supplier at a fraction of the cost to us. By now the banks were getting overly cautious after many of them had been bailed out by the British taxpayer. They no longer wanted to lend any money out to small businesses and any money they had already lent out, they seemed to want back as quickly as possible. In February the banks demanded repayment of our overdraft, so instead of buying in new stock for the start of our third year trading, we had no alternative but to shut up shop. We later found out that if a bank manager is moving from one branch to another they have to clear all debts before the new manager takes over. And our manager wanted to move. So that was it - the dream was over! We had invested all our time, money and effort into this venture. So how on earth were we going to move on?