An apprenticeship with Lipton The grocer part 2,
One of the great advantages of being a bit older is that you tend to have far more memories (at least until the mind goes). During the course of thinking about my early days working with Liptons the Grocers it also brought to mind some of the other retail grocers around at that time.
I remember that just down the road from the Exeter High St branch of Liptons I worked at was an International stores or ITC as it was known. There were also others lke MacMarkets, David Greigs, Keymarkets, the Co-op (the only one still around today) Fine Fare, Maypole and Home and Colonial, Victor Value and Kwik Save.
In those days working in the retail trade gave every young man the opportunity to learn a trade and then if they were good enough they could progress up the management ladder. In fairness, you did not need to be all that competant as the number of boys entering the trade had already started to decline and you could often achieve success by default. I completed my apprenticeship by the age of nineteen and almost immediately I was managing shops for holidays and within a year or so I had my own small store. The shops in those days were much smaller, 1000 sq ft was a reasonable size, and as we had complete control it was very satisfying.
All buying was done at store level other that the odd HO Special Offer and bribes by suppliers to get you to order were rife. As managers we were responsible for losses incurred though pilferage so getting freebies from suppliers as an inducement to take stock were commonplace. Most of the big biscuit manufacturers, soft drink firms and soap powder suppliers happily encouraged you to place big orders. In fairness, we had the skills to feature these specials in such a way that we could clear the stock and it was fun!
A lot of the skills that I learned then have helped me build a successful business selling chocolate.
One of the great advantages of being a bit older is that you tend to have far more memories (at least until the mind goes). During the course of thinking about my early days working with Liptons the Grocers it also brought to mind some of the other retail grocers around at that time.
I remember that just down the road from the Exeter High St branch of Liptons I worked at was an International stores or ITC as it was known. There were also others lke MacMarkets, David Greigs, Keymarkets, the Co-op (the only one still around today) Fine Fare, Maypole and Home and Colonial, Victor Value and Kwik Save.
In those days working in the retail trade gave every young man the opportunity to learn a trade and then if they were good enough they could progress up the management ladder. In fairness, you did not need to be all that competant as the number of boys entering the trade had already started to decline and you could often achieve success by default. I completed my apprenticeship by the age of nineteen and almost immediately I was managing shops for holidays and within a year or so I had my own small store. The shops in those days were much smaller, 1000 sq ft was a reasonable size, and as we had complete control it was very satisfying.
All buying was done at store level other that the odd HO Special Offer and bribes by suppliers to get you to order were rife. As managers we were responsible for losses incurred though pilferage so getting freebies from suppliers as an inducement to take stock were commonplace. Most of the big biscuit manufacturers, soft drink firms and soap powder suppliers happily encouraged you to place big orders. In fairness, we had the skills to feature these specials in such a way that we could clear the stock and it was fun!
A lot of the skills that I learned then have helped me build a successful business selling chocolate.
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