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Job description and activities

Sales assistants work across all retail areas in high street outlets, superstores and retail parks.

Typical work activities include:

* liaising with clients in all areas of sales – client interaction is vital and sales assistants working with higher priced goods will need to provide a highly personalised approach;
* meeting set sales targets – this aspect of the work can be demanding, often carried out in a busy and pressured environment, with sales teams frequently expected to hit their targets;
* stocking, replenishing and cleaning sales areas;
* assisting with product selection;
* processing payments of various kinds;
* offering advice to customers;
* arranging delivery dates for larger items;
* dealing with customer complaints;
* utilising specialist product knowledge;
* monitoring and updating sales display areas.

An interest in or knowledge of a particular retail area may be required for some roles, for example in computer or high fashion sales. Because of the high levels of client interaction, successful sales assistants will need a combination of good negotiation skills and diplomacy.

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The number of people claiming jobseeker’s allowance fell in November for the first time since February last year as Britain’s total unemployment rose at a slower than expected rate to 2.49 million, boosting hopes the country’s jobless will avoid peaking at three million.

Official figures released today revealed a 21,000 rise in the number of unemployed in the three months to October, below forecasts of a 30,000 increase.

However, the rise was still enough to push up the unemployment rate up from 7.8 per cent to 7.9 per cent.

Analysts said that the more modest-than-expected increase was because more people were moving to part-time employment, as companies tried to avoid cutting jobs.

The total number of people claiming unemployment benefits actually fell in November, with 6,300 fewer people receiving jobless allowances than in October. Some 1.6 million people now rely on unemployment benefits.

The figures will further boost expectations that previous warnings of unemployment hitting three million next year will prove unfounded.

Analysts tore up those warnings last month when the official figures showed a significant slowing in the speed at which people were losing their jobs.

However, concerns persist at the number of young people out of work. Today’s figures revealed the number of unemployed 16 to 24-year-olds in the three months to October was 952,000 — a quarterly rise of 6,000 and the highest figure since records began in 1992.

Around one-in-three 16 and 17 year olds are out of work, the figures show, and the proportion of 16 and 17 year olds who have been out of work for a year or more doubled over the last two years to 14 per cent.

One in four young people aged between 18 and 24 are now unemployed.

Howard Archer, chief UK and European Economist at IHS Global Insight, the consultancy, described the data as “encouraging” and “a welcome boost for recovery prospects.”

The drop in the claimant count — which had looked inconceivable only a few months ago — was “a very welcome surprise” he said.

However, he said, that “modest job shedding” was likely to persist for some time as, even if the economy did clamber out of recession in the fourth quarter, “ongoing uncertainties and concerns over the strength and sustainability of any recovery are likely to encourage businesses to keep their labour forces as tight as possible in the near term at least.”

Source : Times

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The number of repossessions orders taken out by mortgage lenders rose by 3% during the third quarter of the year to 13,987, figures from the City watchdog showed today.

Despite the increase, the Financial Services Authority (FSA) said the number was “much in line” with the average for the year as a whole and 6% below the figure for the first quarter of the year. The drop is likely to have been driven by interest rate cuts at the start of the year, which made mortgages more affordable, and increased government help for struggling borrowers.

The FSA said the number of borrowers who had fallen into mortgage arrears of more than 1.5% of their outstanding loan had fallen for the third successive quarter, and at 46,000 was down 10% on the three months between April and June and 30% below the peak in the last three months of 2008.

The total number of mortgages in arrears stood at 395,000 by the end of September, a fall of 7,000 (1.8%) on the second quarter – the first time the number has dropped in more than two years. The percentage of the total mortgage book in arrears remained static, at 3.61%.

People who were in arrears managed to pay an average of 48.5% of the payment that was due during the third quarter, up from about 40.6% in the second half of 2008.

The FSA figures are broadly in line with statistics published by the Council of Mortgage Lenders (CML) in November, which also showed a 3% rise in repossessions during the third quarter to 11,700.

The number of people who were behind with mortgage repayments also dropped to 194,600, although the CML figures only include those who were in arrears of at least 2.5% of their outstanding mortgage.

The difference between the two sets of repossession figures is due to the fact that the FSA data includes all lenders, including those offering second charge mortgages, while the CML only publishes figures on first charge loans advanced by its members.

Earlier today a report published by charities including Shelter and Citizens Advice suggested some lenders were ignoring the government’s repossession protocol, which was designed to help more people stay in their homes.

Responding to the FSA’s figures, Shelter’s director of policy and campaigns, Kay Boycott, said the fall reflected the fact that schemes to help struggling homeowners were making a difference.

Boycott said in eight out of 10 cases where people got free legal advice through court desk schemes they had avoided immediate repossession, but said that more still needed to be done for borrowers.

“Job loss is the most common cause of mortgage arrears and with 2,000 people losing their jobs every day we still have work to do to ensure that we save as many people as possible from repossession,” she said.

“The only way to close these gaps is to make sure all lenders fully comply with the pre-action protocol. We also need a fundamental review of the private and state safety nets, and more flexible powers for courts to help borrowers stay in their homes.”

Outstanding mortgage loans

The FSA’s report also includes figures for the wider mortgage market. It shows that by the end of the third quarter the total value of outstanding loans stood at £1.2tn, 1% more than the same period last year.

The value of new loans granted to borrowers over the three months totalled £40bn, 20% higher than in the second quarter of the year but lower than the £61bn advanced in the third quarter of 2008.

Fewer than 2% of those loans were for more than 90% of a property’s value, compared with almost 14% in the second quarter of 2007 when the property market was at its peak.

Source : The Guardian

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Carpetright, Britain’s biggest floor coverings retailer which is considered a barometer of the mood on the high street, said it had returned to sales growth as it reported pre-tax profits rose 15.8 per cent to £11 million in the first six months of its financial year.

Lord Harris of Peckham, chairman and chief executive of Carpetright, said: “Despite the continued uncertainty about economic recovery, we believe we are growing more quickly than the market in all our territories, reflecting the appeal of our value for money proposition.”

He said that the company had “made a good start” to the second half and was confident about further progress.

Like-for-like sales in the UK turned positive, growing 3.9 per cent in the six months to the end of October — the strongest half-year performance since 2004. The chain’s sales plunged in its last financial year as the bottom fell out of the housing market and consumer confidence waned.

Lord Harris said UK growth had been helped by the demise of rival Allied Carpets which was put into administration in July, but also by the recovery in the housing market, as people moving house bought new carpets. He said the underlying sales recovery “correlates closely, on a lagged basis, with the improved mortgage approval figures.”

The company has grown its UK and Ireland stores from 567 to 590 during the six months, including 124 Sleepright stores which sell beds.

In the Netherlands and Belgium, where the group has 116 stores, sales fell 3.8 per cent against a dismal market estimated to have fallen by around 15 per cent.

Carpetright has decided to pull out of the Polish market where it has failed to make significant profit in four years of trading. It took a £2.5 million hit for writing down the value of its 12 stores there and it has so far closed four of them, with the rest expected to close by early next year. The Polish stores made a loss of £800,000 in the half year, against £600,000 losses a year ago.

Higher profits and reduced capital expenditure meant it also managed to bring net debt down by £23.7 million over the six months to £73.4 million.

Carpetright is doubling the interim dividend to 8p.

John Stevenson, an analyst at KBC Peel Hunt said: “With a combination of new revenue streams, the Allied Carpets collapse and rising housing transactions, we expect the second half to strengthen further.”

Ramona Tipnis of Oriel Securities said: “The Polish market was struggling to get to critical mass and the decision to close stores rather than sell the business reflects the fact that Poland was always going to be a very difficult market to crack.”

Source : The Times

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Britain’s headline rate of inflation surged to a higher-than-expected 1.9 per cent in November following a sharp increase in petrol prices.

The Consumer Price Index (CPI), the key measure of inflation, rose from 1.5 per cent in October and above expectations of an increase to 1.7 per cent. It is the second acceleration in the index in nine months.

The Office for National Statistics (ONS), which compiled the data, said the rise was in part down to a big jump in transport costs, up 6.9 per cent in November compared to a year ago, mainly due to a rise in fuel prices.

The Retail Price Index (RPI) measure of inflation, which is more frequently used in wage negotiations and includes mortgage costs, moved back into positive territory, rising to 0.3 per cent in November from minus 0.8 per cent in October.

Economists have forecast that inflation could climb as high as 3 per cent in the coming months – back above the Bank of England’s target of 2 per cent – as a number of factors, including the return of the VAT rate from 15 per cent to 17.5 per cent in January, filter through into the headline figures.

The Bank of England had also warned that it expects a spike in inflation in coming months because of the weak pound, higher crude prices and the forthcoming reversion in the VAT rate.

However, the Bank has indicated it expects the spike in inflation to be temporary as factors such as high levels of unemployment persist.

It forecasts that CPI inflation will be around 1.6 per cent at the end of next year, boosting expectations that interest rates will stay at historic lows for some time.

Howard Archer, chief UK and European economist at IHS Global Insight, the consultancy, said today’s CPI figure was “slightly more than expected but is still not much to worry about – for now at least.”

There was no evidence to suggest the spike was not temporary and “there is still a good chance that inflation will moderate and be back under 2 per cent later in 2010,” he said.

Mr Archer added: “Underlying pressures (will be) largely contained by muted recovery, wage moderation amid high unemployment and an ongoing need for retailers to price competitively in the face of still limited consumer spending.”

Jonathan Loynes, economist at Capital Economics, said: “November’s consumer price figures will do little to ease recent concerns over the near-term inflation outlook but we remain convinced that price pressures will remain subdued over the medium term.”

The ONS said that “by far the largest upward pressure” on CPI was from transport costs, in particular the cost of fuel.

The price of fuels and lubricants rose by 2.8 per cent between October and November this year, it said. They fell by a record 8.3 per cent a year ago. The large fall last year was due to the drop in the price of crude oil. Transport costs also include air fares.

The ONS said the index had also been pushed higher by an increase in the cost of clothing and footwear, particularly men and women’s outwear.

A rise in the price of household heating also played a part.

Source : The Times

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The big earning news in the City today is the third quarter interim management statement from Tesco, which has shown weaker sales growth than some analysts were expecting.

Britain’s biggest supermarket chain reported that UK like-for-like sales rose by 2.8% (excluding petrol and adjusted for lower VAT) in the 13 weeks to 28 November. Analysts were forecasting around 3%.

Today’s result is also lower than the 3.1% like-for-like sales growth that Tesco achieved in the second quarter of the year. Back in the first quarter of the year, when food inflation was still rising, Tesco’s UK sales grew by 4.3%.

Overall, group sales were up by 8.8% (excluding petrol) compared with the previous quarter thanks to a stronger performance overseas, and chief executive Sir Terry Leahy insisted that Tesco was coping well with the economic downturn:

We are seeing improving customer confidence and encouraging trends in both the UK and our international businesses, although recessionary conditions still exist in a number of markets. As ever, with Christmas approaching, we’re doing even more for customers with low prices, great promotions, including on our Finest range, and of course double Clubcard points.

But traders are predicting that Tesco’s shares could some under pressure today – they fell just over 2% when the stock market opened.

Finance director Laurie McIlwee has also told Reuters that while Tesco can cope with the end of the temporary VAT reduction, it would not be happy if VAT rose to 20%.

We also have results from Game Group this morning, which continues to find 2009 much tougher than 2008. Like-for-like sales in the UK and Ireland are now down 16.6% this year.

Game had been pinning its hopes on a corking selection of new computer games in the run-up to Christmas, but chairman Peter Lewis indicated that Game may be a bit disappointed:

Since the half year, there have been a number of major software releases including Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 and FIFA 10, which both broke records in their first week of launch. However, the exceptionally strong performance of these titles was in part offset by softer than expected sales of some other releases.

 Source : The Guardian

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Thousands of Northern Rock shareholders are being told today that they are not entitled to compensation following the nationalisation of the Newcastle-based lender nearly two years ago.

After receiving “several thousand” responses, the independent valuer Andrew Caldwell has published a consultation document today in which he concludes that shareholders should receive “no compensation”.

Caldwell admits that his investigation has taken longer than he originally hoped because of the difficulties he encountered in obtaining the information he needed – and had been promised – when he was appointed by the Treasury 14 months ago. He did not receive some of the information until last month, further delaying the publication of today’s consultation document.

Caldwell based his calculation on how much money Northern Rock would have had left for shareholders if it had repaid the £25bn loan from the Bank of England, granted in September 2007 when it experienced funding difficulties during the credit crunch.

He concluded that it was “unlikely” Northern Rock could have been sold in its entirety and therefore searched for any assets the lender could have sold to raise the necessary funds. Following a complex analysis, he concluded that the lender would actually have been unable to repay the loan and would have been “in a deficit” of £5.7bn.

Caldwell reached this conclusion even though Northern Rock had £106bn of assets on its balance sheet. They would have fallen short of the amount needed because Northern Rock would have required a quick sale which would have forced down their price, he said. Caldwell assumed that £50bn was immediately available for sale to repay the loan – largely mortgages, government bonds and cash – but applied discounts to their values that left a deficit of £2.4bn. This rose to £5.7bn once he assumed an administrator was then appointed and forced to sell further assets at distressed prices. He insists he made “optimistic assumptions”.

In a letter sent to shareholders today, Caldwell stresses that he is still in a consultation phase and asks for responses by 29 January.

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Source : The Guardian

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It started with Debbie Flett, the model, applying red lipstick to Sir Richard Branson. Twelve years on, the last remnants of the Virgin Cosmetics retail business will close next month.

The Times has obtained a copy of the administration proposals for Effective Cosmetics, the company that began life as Virgin Cosmetics in a blaze of Branson publicity in 1997. The administrator’s plans include closing the last ten stores, which were rebranded as Effective Cosmetics last year, after January 10. It will mark the demise of another high-profile 1990s’ Virgin launch.

Sir Richard had enormous confidence in Virgin Cosmetics when it began, claiming that he would open two stores a month and have more than 100 high street outlets within five years. Virgin also launched an internet and home sales division for its cosmetics, which were sold under the Virgin Vie or Vie at Home brands. Yet Virgin Cosmetics struggled to find a footing in a competitive market and Sir Richard sold the business last year.

Ros Simmons and Ratan Daryani, who put together the original Virgin Cosmetics concept in 1996, took control of the assets after the Virgin Group wrote off accumulated loans of £21 million. A further £8.8 million was given to the new owners as a brand-protection payment. That payment was to reclaim the Virgin brand so that if the new owners failed, the Virgin name would not be tarnished.

Something similar happened when the Virgin Megastore music shops were sold and renamed Zavvi two years ago. Zavvi’s owners are believed to have received a £50 million brand protection payment when they bought the chain. Zavvi was put into administration last year.

The new owners of Virgin Cosmetics decided this year that they could not keep the retail stores operating and have closed about half so far. The remainder will close from next month, once they run out of stock or available staff. About 80 staff will lose their jobs. The stores, which include outlets at the Trafford Shopping Centre in Manchester, Lakeside in Essex and Meadowhall in Sheffield, lost £1 million in the five months to the end of August on turnover of £1.7 million.

However, the remaining home sales and internet operations will continue as the Vie Cosmetics Group (VCG) and will carry the Vie brand.

The new owners have a strategy to cut costs and are planning an international expansion to boost revenues after the business lost £5.7 million last year.

The company sells its products through self-employed consultants who arrange parties for potential buyers and take a commission on everything sold, similar to the Avon or Tupperware party model.

Vie has about 9,000 consultants but is rumoured to have lost staff in recent months amid uncertainty about the company’s future and also as a result of Jamie Oliver, the celebrity chef and restaurateur, launching a home sales operation.

Wedding belle

Virgin Cosmetics was one of a number of high-profile businesses, including Virgin Brides, Virgin Cola and Virgin Vodka, that were launched with great fanfare during the 1990s, but success was elusive.

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Source : The Times

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We often spend time thinking up new ice-breakers to settle the nerves and create rapport at the beginning of important meetings with senior decision-makers. Yet, far too often these can sound clichéd or insincere.

There is even a school of thought that recommends avoiding too much banter or small talk at the beginning of a meeting and concentrating on the job in hand; after all, that’s what the busy executive has allocated precious time to do.

Positive memories

It makes more sense to leave the buyer with positive memories of your visit once you have the formal part of the meeting out of the way. So, by all means pick up on that desk photo of the decision-maker shaking hands with a sporting legend when you’re packing up to go.

Try something along the lines of: ‘Have you really met Tiger Woods? What’s he actually like?’

You may find that the decision-maker engages there and then and you will have secured a way of making yourself stick in the buyer’s memory.

Then try: ‘I‘m a big fan of Tiger Woods. I’d love to hear more about him next time we meet.’ This plants an important emotional seed that there will actually be a follow-up meeting. Either way, it will help create a lasting impression.

Source : CIM

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