Jac Roper

                

  • Analysis

    Service Centre: Jac Roper talks to retailers about their recent trading experiences

    2020-06-08T08:08:00

    When I first spoke to Hassan Mohammed a month ago, at peak Covid-19 pandemic, he told me: “Things are hard at the moment because while fuel sales have taken a nosedive, shop sales have gone up between 30-50% at both sites (Limes Service Station in Walkden, Salford and Howich Service ...

  • News

    Service Centre: Contract? It’s in the post

    2006-02-03T00:00:00

    CONTRACT? IT’S IN THE POST

  • News

    Service Centre: Pinning it down

    2006-01-06T00:00:00

    I took an awareness trip in December deep into the murky world of Chip & PIN courtesy of Gerald Wooding who is responsible for card acceptance across the Texaco network.

  • News

    Pinning down fraud

    2005-12-06T00:00:00

    Pinning down fraud

  • News

    Service Centre

    2005-11-01T00:00:00

    An abuse of power?

  • News

    Service Centre

    2005-10-03T00:00:00

    FACT-FINDING MISSIONS

  • News

    Service Centre

    2005-09-02T00:00:00

    Driving up crime

  • News

    This should keep you posted

    2005-08-17T00:00:00

    You would think that, if you had the best convenience store in town, with a forecourt to boot, plus parking, plus a customers’ petition supporting your application, that you would get the sub post office when the sub postmistress in the village decided to retire from her little ‘centre-ville’ shop.

  • News

    Tampering with the brakes

    2005-08-17T00:00:00

    My piece in the July issue about police efforts to put the brakes on drive-offs brought a bit of a scoff from a retailer who runs a filling station in Plymouth but wishes to remain anonymous. He writes, via email: “If we are not careful, petrol station operators could see ...

  • News

    A good result

    2005-08-17T00:00:00

    In the April issue I carried the tale of Andrew Fraser who works at a couple of Hills Garage’s forecourts in the Northwest. He was about to be taken to court by Cumbria trading standards – along with a load of others in the area – after the TSOs had ...

  • News

    A widening gulf

    2005-02-01T00:00:00

    One might say that the gulf has widened in the dispute between retailer Owen McKay and his supplier. In our November issue I recounted the story of a strained relationship between Owen, who runs Smithy Garage at Warrington in Cheshire, and Gulf Retail. Owen had nothing but praise for the ...

  • News

    Keeping track

    2005-02-01T00:00:00

    f you sell newspapers supplied by John Menzies and are trying to keep manual track of sales and returns you have probably noticed that the handy diary and sales control annual is no longer available from them.

  • News

    Watch your backs

    2005-02-01T00:00:00

    I’ve written a couple of reports on the success of Kent Police’s Forecourt Watch scheme – and went so far as to ask why can’t the rest of the country follow such an impressive example.

  • News

    A token gesture

    2005-01-01T00:00:00

    Don’t you wonder where they go? Like odd socks, like teaspoons, like the half dozen biros you bought last week, air and water tokens just gradually disappear into thin air, don’t they?

  • News

    A streamlined scam?

    2005-01-01T00:00:00

    It will be interesting to hear if anybody else out there has had an experience similar to Adrian Moore, who runs Grizebeck Filling Station at Grizebeck in Cumbria. He suspected a scam when he got a phone call from someone purporting to be from an investigation unit at Streamline asking ...

  • News

    Dealing direct

    2005-01-01T00:00:00

    I do hope this isn’t opening a can of worms, but is anyone else having problems getting their money back from Our Price? James Robertson, who runs JR’s Filling Station in Fife, sent back 15 DVDs to Our Price in September and was promised his money (£112.50) back. He has ...

  • News

    All pull together

    2004-12-01T00:00:00

    There’s never been more attention paid to low-level crime (litter, graffiti, drive-offs as opposed to shotgun-up-your-nostrils) by the authorities. The government has its anti-social behaviour orders and most communities have some form of crimewatch. But most impressive of all is Kent Police. I’ve reported on the success of their Forecourt ...

  • News

    Stamp duty

    2004-12-01T00:00:00

    Another complaint about the Royal Mail. As I’ve reported previously in this column, the margin on first class stamps may have gone up to 7%, but the reduction on second class stamps to 3% has really put some of you off.

  • News

    Wrong data

    2004-12-01T00:00:00

    Some information I passed on in the last issue about Data Protection wasn’t quite the full ticket. I pointed out a refinement to the Data Protection Act 1998 which excuses retailers from registering if they have static cameras which don’t particularly target anyone.

  • News

    The choice is yours

    2004-11-01T00:00:00

    Or is it? The grocery supply chain is generally thought to be a fairly free and fluid thing. You can more or less buy your baked beans from anybody. The government hasn’t had to intervene the way it did with banks to make it easier for you to shop around ...

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