Back again!
It's amazing how things like this blog get forgotten in the face of a large volume of real work!
It's been an interesting summer over here in Europe with the trade "problems" with Chinese goods dominating the retail news. Rampant protectionist disguised as naivete seems to have been the order of the day. Italian manufacturers who have had years to anticipate the end of the MFA were apparently taken by surprise by the volume of imports and need time to adjust.
The UK government surpassed even themselves in a demonstration of total lack of understanding of the retail market. It never seemed to occur to them that lead times and plans were in months not hours, and that supporting a quota on imports with no notice was going to damage an awful lot of retail businesses (Mind you this is a government that thinks retrospective tax legislation is a fair way to deal with people)
Our merchandise planning training course has been gaining in popularity. We have some very good feedback and look forward to continuing to shed a little light on this area. Maybe we should add a chapter on anticipating government legislation in the Strategic Plan!
It's been an interesting summer over here in Europe with the trade "problems" with Chinese goods dominating the retail news. Rampant protectionist disguised as naivete seems to have been the order of the day. Italian manufacturers who have had years to anticipate the end of the MFA were apparently taken by surprise by the volume of imports and need time to adjust.
The UK government surpassed even themselves in a demonstration of total lack of understanding of the retail market. It never seemed to occur to them that lead times and plans were in months not hours, and that supporting a quota on imports with no notice was going to damage an awful lot of retail businesses (Mind you this is a government that thinks retrospective tax legislation is a fair way to deal with people)
Our merchandise planning training course has been gaining in popularity. We have some very good feedback and look forward to continuing to shed a little light on this area. Maybe we should add a chapter on anticipating government legislation in the Strategic Plan!
posted by John Hobson at 3:04 pm
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