It is said that England was a nation of shop keepers but really this simple thought applies to all countries at some stage. Success in business comes from many directions but a particularly fruitful area has been to revolutionise how the simple, daily needs of the population are bought and sold. With some exceptions all of the success stories in basic retailing have involved lowering prices and this has killed the shop keepers. more...

In the world of food and beverages to create a product which consumers constantly crave is the Holy Grail. 'Morrie Yohai, 90, the Man Behind Cheez Doodles, Is Dead'; Dennis Hevesi, August 2nd 2010, New York Times, takes up the story: "The millions of snackers who can’t stop munching Cheez Doodles, those air-puffed tubes of cheddar-flavored corn meal, owe all that pleasure to Morrie Yohai - although he insisted on spreading the credit". more...

As an experienced wine merchant I do not like making mistakes when tasting wine. Even at this late stage of my career I'm still anxious when tasting and keep saying to myself; 'David, do not make a big error'. Fortunately the tasting boundaries of wine are quite narrow and it requires rare stupidity to reject great wine. Realising the wine is great but refusing to pay the asking price, well that is a different and more common problem, and those are the decisions you regret. more...

For the desperate who wish to prop up a failing empire and for those whose business is out and out fraud the inflation of asset values is a common occurrence. This can be done by inflating the worth of fixed assets or, more commonly, by adding in fictional stock. more...

At least part of the art of retailing is simple. Pile it high, sell it cheap and they will come. No one person can be said to have created a trend but Eugene Ferkauf, a post war New York retailer, had a strong influence on the move to large scale 'big box' retailing. His vision had a strong influence on Sam Walton who founded Wal Mart. more...

We are creatures of habit and do not like change. Yet we are aware that change is one of life's constants. It is the handling of this contradiction which is the role of marketing. From the aspiring political party to the maker of consumable goods, convincing the user that change is good requires a deft hand. more...

Finding you make a product which sells out is most gratifying. If the demand appears to be much larger than the resource the natural response will be to expand the resource. But suppose the resource is fixed and has particular characters which mean that if it is expanded the original is altered in some way? This is a common feature of the wine business - for example, how do you expand production of a single vineyard wine? more...

Australian wine has a very long and rich heritage which began with vineyard plantings in the Sydney Basin, spread to the Hunter Valley and had its greatest flowering in South Australia. I use the word 'had' as no one seems to care much about this history. The failure to nurture our great heritage brands is nothing short of astounding and to watch 'wanna be' marketing stars destroy one after the other saddens me. more...

Asking for dollars, such as raising share capital is another form of marketing and one where a lot of skill is used. Some prospectuses and shareholder updates are very imaginative. These may involve claims that you will get a great return on your money plus a tax write-off. Such were the 'managed investment schemes' based around rural activities such as tree farming which were sold as year-end tax 'write-offs'. more...

In the wine business I am very cautious about using phrases like; 'best suited to the advanced drinker who understands older wines', or 'not recommended for those who like a sweeter fruiter taste'; as you are drawing a line between customers. Also any form of negative may also throw a doubt into those to whom you are appealing. I guess the term is, "it may back-fire". more...