Woolworth’s: what really happened

Woolworth’s is a big company, but small firms can learn from its demise. When it launched the retail chain was all about newness and fresh thinking.
You pick up stuff before you bought it (for the first time) instead of pointing at items behind the counter, there was a range of products instead of just a [...]

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Ex-con? Then start a business!

As Duncan Bannatyne will tell you (and anyone else who’ll listen), it’s hard to get a job when you’ve got a criminal record.
So the obvious(ish) solution to getting your life on track is to become an entrepreneur: no interviews, no digging into your past, no need to prove your rehabilitation.
Well here’s just such a story [...]

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Small business guides

In business, you’re never too experienced to learn something new. Small business how-to guides online and in mags are a great way to refresh your thinking and see your business in a new light.
We’ve heard from the government, Bank of England and business lobby groups that we’re in for a hard time next year, so [...]

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Grim marketing

Small businesses need to grab opportunities whenever they see them, and some will stretch the boundaries of taste to get their brand infront of their target market.
Take Adam Dixon-Smith of adventure holiday business Dragonman. Having spied news reports of rocketing unemployment, he’s offering the newly redundant discounts on his trips away.
You just have to prove [...]

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pre-Budget report for small business

The pre-Budget report happened yesterday, don’t know if you heard. As usual, it was seen as something of a mixed bag for small businesses; the Tories and the big accountancy firms said it smacked of ‘buy now, pay later’, but small business groups said it provided some welcome short-term relief.
The big headlines were a £7bn [...]

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Dubai business parties hard

Dubai is not known for holding back on spending, and when it comes to hotel launches, crunch or no crunch it pulls out all the stops – £20m worth in fact.
The Emirate needs another expensive hotel like Cairo needs more cars but, hey, why free market economics get in the way of your 2,000 room [...]

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Thousands of small pubs at risk

High taxes and competition from cut-price supermarkets are killing small community based pubs and thousands will go bust unless we do something about it.
The Campaign of Real Ale (CAMRA) says around 7,500 (one in eight) will go bust by 2012 if the government doesn’t intervene.
It wants to see lower VAT, cuts to beer taxes and [...]

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Small business horoscopes? What will they think of next?

Yes indeed, there is such a thing and quite right too! Businesses have birthdays, so why not star signs?
Your astrological chart could be screaming at you to make this or that BIG DECISION, but you’ve been blind to it all this time.
No longer. Check out LaunchLab.co.uk’s business horoscope starlet Twinkle. She can tell you a [...]

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Yacht for sale, £8m off!

People don’t rush out and buy super-yachts when economic crises hit, which is probably why the market for pleasure cruisers has fallen into a big hole.
Take the 164ft Alibella (pictured), it used to be worth €33m (about £30m), now it’s a snip at just €24.5m. Clearly, people just can’t justify these little luxuries.
According to this [...]

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New small business tax cut demand

Alistair Darling is getting it fron all sides at the moment: criticism, demands, and accusations. Here’s the latest from the second group: it’s in the form of the Federation of Small Businesses’ pre-Budget wish-list for SMEs.
It wants the government to abolish a planned increase in small business corporation tax (coming into force next year) and [...]

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