All Service Centre articles – Page 7
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News
Help and advice from jac roper
== The price of power, the abuse of power ==Every week retailers ring me with a complaint about a sudden horrendous hike in their energy bill - none of them expected. As was the case with Tony Vann who runs Woodlands Stop & Shop and BP petrol station in Harrogate. ...
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News
Help and advice from Jac Roper
== You’ll soon have to pay to stock top-ups! == Are you making anything on mobile top-ups? I can hear the collective ’don’t-get-me-started’ groan from here. Steve Dyer, who runs Knight Brothers at Thornfalcon Garage in Taunton, sent me copies of two letters he had received from Payzone. ...
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News
Help and advice from jac roper
== Headline news angers retailer =="Retailer sees red as ’red top’ sends his shoppers to supers." You must admit, the foregoing is worthy of any tabloid front cover ’splash’ as they call their screaming headlines. Yet, that is exactly what happened to thousands of independent retailers and probably most forecourt ...
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News
Service Centre with Jac Roper
== Sunday trading - forecourts are exempt ==Paul Delves emailed to clarify something he thought he had read here: "I seem to recall you featured a retailer who had a store of over 3,000sq ft and was trading extended hours and Easter Sunday because he had a fuel station as ...
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News
Service Centre with Jac Roper
== Following Tesco with off-the-peg premises ==Eamonn Rankin took the unusual step - for an independent forecourt operator - of ordering his new store in kit form.His Londis store trades at his Masonhill Service Station in Ayr and he had been pondering a refit for a couple of years.When ...
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News
Service Centre with Jac Roper
== Screen savers? We have some solutions ==It’s been months now since Big Media went blankly to that big screen in the sky leaving retailers high and dry with some 230 dead screens in their stores. Then there was the hope of a rescue by Eurowide Media which had bought ...
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News
Service Centre with Jac Roper
== Power of the press? == Jerry Eggleshaw’s problem went back to the hot bank holiday at the beginning of May - and it only got cleared up five months later after the intervention of Forecourt Trader. I don’t report this to brag but rather to hope that a few ...
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News
Service Centre with Jac Roper
== Get the timing right ==I think the days of the photocopier as a must-have extra service in convenience stores are numbered. I’m not saying it won’t work for some, just that photocopiers have fallen largely into public ownership by virtue of home computers that come with printers and scanners ...
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News
Service Centre with Jac Roper
== It’s good to talk ==Back in May I recounted Alan Steele’s saga with his ’car wash consultant’.There were endless teething troubles after the installation at his site, Steeles of Worthing, which the consultant (ie agent) subsequently couldn’t fix. The manufacturer had washed its hands of it too until Alan ...
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News
Service Centre with Jac Roper
== Chip, chip, chip ==First Arval, now Vodafone. Just what the forecourt sector needs at the moment - big suppliers chip, chip, chipping away at their wafer-thin margins.Steve Dyer, who runs Thornfalcon Garage in Taunton was one retailer who took part in what was estimated to have been a boycott ...
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News
Service Centre with Jac Roper
== Accepting cards can be a costly business ==How many of you have noticed that accepting Arval cards is costing you money?Steve Jones, who runs Nuns’ Bridges Filling Station at Thetford in Norfolk, reckons that independent operators will have noticed because they receive their statements directly."But if you are with ...
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News
Service Centre with Jac Roper
== Callers having to drive really hard bargains ==I’ve had two calls lately about cars. Fair enough I suppose - for people running forecourts it’s a not-unrelated subject although not one where I can profess much expertise.I can spot Porsches, Jags and Minis (because I have one) but after that ...
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News
Service Centre with Jac Roper
== Big Media, big bang ==What are all you retailers out there with Big Media screens going to do with them? The company went into voluntary liquidation on April 18 with a deficiency of £672,000. It is reckoned that assets might realise just £16,000.I see from the 19-page ...
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News
Service Centre with Jac Roper
== Get group backing ==Some of the calls I’ve had lately have been over breathtaking, heart-stopping bills. (Regular readers will recall the past few issues which followed Jonathan James’ wrangle with Powergen/Eon where he is still fighting bills for ’adjusted’ meter readings totalling £35,000-plus). Following that I was contacted by ...
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News
Service Centre with Jac Roper
== The price of power ==Those who have been following the saga in this column of Jonathan James’ power struggle with his erstwhile energy supplier over three years’ worth of wrong meter readings and a backdated bill for £35,000, will be interested in the next exciting instalment. It’s now been ...
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News
Service Centre with Jac Roper
== Internet threat ==Do you regard the internet as friend or foe? Probably, like most people, a bit of both. Rehana Ali, who runs two sites with her husband, in Leeds and Bradford, rang to ask if there was anything they could do to prevent someone "just around the corner" ...
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News
Service Centre with Jac Roper
== New Year, new rules ==If you are licensed and trade in Scotland, make very sure that you don’t sleepwalk into the Scottish Licensing Act 2005 which opens its doors for applications from February 1.The actual Act doesn’t kick in until September 2009, but between now and then you may ...
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News
Service Centre with Jac Roper
== Another abuse of power ==So, you sweat along on the main business, tinkering with the sideline essentials like paying your bills on time and looking around for a better deal from one of your service providers, maybe switch sources and then... hang on, a back-dated bill for £35,000?This nightmare ...
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News
Service Centre with Jac Roper
== The easy tick in the book ==The first speech by a new prime minister at his first party conference gets a close hearing. Thus it was particularly frustrating that Gordon Brown chose to single out independent off licences at the recent Labour conference and threaten to revoke licences of ...
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News
Service Centre with Jac Roper
== Getting a good rate ==Have you ever looked at your rates bills and wondered just how the figures were arrived at? And whether you were being ripped off by the local authority?In the past this column has pilloried the cold-calling rip-off ’ratings consultants’ - the cowboys who offer to ...