Running a business in Britain, page 12
246 articles on what it actually takes to run a business in Britain: VAT, staff, rent, rates, tenants, stock and sites. From the studio that simulates it.
- The restaurant inside the hotel. Most hotel restaurants are subsidised by the bedrooms above them. The number that decides whether yours is worth keeping is capture rate, and it is usually lower than you think.
- Closing for the winter, and whether it pays. Closing for the winter does not stop the costs, it only stops the revenue. The question is whether a week of trading covers what that week actually adds.
- Housing the staff you cannot recruit locally. Housing your staff solves a recruitment problem and creates a licensing, tax and eviction problem. The accommodation offset is where most operators get it wrong.
- Accessible rooms, and the bookings they bring. The duty to make reasonable adjustments is anticipatory. You are meant to have sorted it out before a disabled guest tries to book, not after they complain.
- The system the whole hotel runs on. The PMS is the only system that knows what every room costs, who is in it and what they owe. Choosing badly is survivable. Migrating badly is not.
- Everything between the lease and the first sale. Between signing the lease and taking the first £10 there are about thirty separate obligations, and roughly four of them have lead times you cannot compress.
- What it costs you to be paid by card. The rate you were quoted covers about a third of what you pay. The rest is on the statement, and the terminal contract runs longer than most shop leases.
- Loyalty schemes, and the discount you were giving anyway. Most loyalty schemes pay people to keep doing what they were already doing. The useful ones change a behaviour you can name before you launch.
- Gift cards are somebody else's money. A gift card is a loan from a customer who may never collect. It is a liability on your balance sheet, and the VAT point depends on what the card can buy.
- Buy now pay later, from the shop's side. The provider takes several times what a card costs you. Whether that is worth paying depends on whether the customer would have bought anyway.
- Counting the stock properly. A count that agrees with the system tells you nothing if the system was adjusted to match. The value is in the variances you investigate.
- Putting your own name on it. Put your name on somebody else's product and you become its producer in law. The margin is better. So is the liability you have just accepted.
- Why it is £9.99 and not £10. Charm pricing works on the goods where people compare and fails on the goods where they are buying reassurance. The law also has views on how you display it.
- VAT in a shop that sells all sorts. A basket with a loaf, a bottle of squash and a pack of pens has three VAT rates in it. Retail schemes exist because working that out per sale is impractical.
- Selling things you can lose a licence over. The nineteen year old on your till carries personal criminal liability for the sale. Your job is to make sure she never has to guess at anybody's age.
- What happens to the packaging after they leave. The cardboard leaving your back door and the packaging leaving in the customer's bag are two different regimes, and both of them now cost money.
- Choosing where to put the shop online. The monthly fee is the smallest number in the decision. What costs you is the extra cut on every order, and the day you want to leave.
- Choosing how the parcel gets there. A light parcel in a big box is charged as though it were heavy. Most of what an online retailer loses on delivery is decided before the courier is chosen.