Chapter 4

“Please, sit down comfortably, I’m afraid we have both good news and bad news” Tiff sounded suitably serious. Jim Graves and Ms Duncan exchanged a surprised glance as they sat.

“First, the good news: the system worked flawlessly. We should demonstrate that, first.” Tiff turned and waved her palm at me, “Sam, if you please.”

I sped through a random sampling of the footage, pausing on images of trolleys being scanned at the checkouts. In these images, my software drew neat little boxes around the barcodes. Those fancy cameras had excellent resolution and sharp focus.

“We haven’t linked into your point of sale software, that is to say the software your checkout tills currently run, so we can’t verify your scanning. But we zoom in on this small LCD screen on the till which shows the total money and the number of items to the customer.” Tiff pointed helpfully. “We can’t verify the money, but we can count the items.”

Jim Graves and Ms Duncan looked really enthralled with our demo.

“Now, that was the good news. I’m afraid we also have two bits of bad news. The first bit of bad news isn’t very bad. There were just seven times this week when our software detected an undercount of items being scanned. And when you think about it, that’s a tremendously good margin of error for humans!”

The paranoid Jim Graves didn’t look completely convinced, but he wasn’t interrupting. Tiff continued to the punchline:

“The really bad news, though, I’m afraid, is that four of those seven times were the same employee and same customer, and we suspect it was deliberate.”

Tiff let that sink in. Jim looked devastated.

“Now, slow down” an alarmed Ms Duncan whispered, “we can’t go accusing people of theft! This is just a school project”

Jim wasn’t listening. He was ashen faced. His fears had come true. And we’d given it to him on a plate. I saw Tiff watching him and waiting.

Charlie took over. “Ms Duncan, please, we’re now about to move beyond our school project and discuss other matters. We wish you to remain, but you do understand this is strictly confidential from here on in? Now, we’re going to talk with Mr Graves about things that aren’t part of our schoolwork.”

Ms Duncan snapped her head to look at Charlie, whose interruption was suddenly sounding very business-like and in charge. Then Charlie smiled her winning smile, her row of perfect teeth all lined up between her perfect banana-shaped lips, bracketed by cute dimples.

Taking silence for consent, Charlie now addressed Jim. “First, I think it problematic if you involve us – involve me – when you confront Derek. Can you watch him closely and catch him, now you know what to watch for? That will be far stronger grounds for dismissal. If you look at the footage, you see the customer even waits to check out until Derek is free.”

Jim nodded mutely.

“Excellent. Now, Jim, on to much better news. We have a proposition for you.”

Charlie pointed again at Tiff, who took over the sales pitch.

“We have a further two business cases to present to you. The first is the most straightforward. We have incorporated a company to provide this checkout assurance system,” Tiff waved at my computer screen, “to companies such as BigMarket franchises. Now, the best way for us to enter that market is in cooperation with a franchisee, such as yourself. We’d be prepared to offer your store a three month free trial of the solution in return for introductions to your peers and, perhaps, head office.” Tiff studied Jim to check he was paying attention and following. “We would, of course, pay a small commission for successful introductions. Are you interested?”

A very interested Jim nodded and beamed at us. “I told you kids like these were the future,” he enthused to a staggered Ms Duncan.

“But I don’t understand. You can’t form a company, you’re too young,” Ms Duncan spluttered. I don’t think she was against us, just that she was spotting things she thought were problems. Did she think we were playing games?

“Yes, that is true, in England, so we’ve formed it in Scotland,” Tiff explained with a wave of her hand as though it was a detail of no importance. “We have the registration document with us, don’t we, Charlie?”

Charlie delved into her laptop case and plucked out a certificate printed on a stiff card that our solicitor has sent us in the post along with his first bill. Ms Duncan took it and read it carefully, a growing look of wonder spreading across her face.

“Can I make a photocopy? Frame it, for the classroom wall? Inspire others?” she croaked.

“No! This is strictly confidential, remember? Nobody at school must ever know what we’re doing. We really have no wish for anyone, not even other teachers, to know.” Tiff’s tone was suddenly aggressive as she fixed Ms Duncan with a steel eye. “This is very important to us,” Tiff underlined. Ms Duncan was forced to nod assent.

“What kind of commission?” Jim interjected, bringing the topic back to the business proposal. He’d obviously been thinking rapidly while Ms Duncan was inspecting our certificate.

“3%.” Tiff turned her attention back to him.

“7%.”

“5% for the first year. All you have to do is get us the introduction and provide a good testimonial. If we get a sale, you get 5% of the profit from the first year. It’s really a very good commission. And you haven’t yet heard our second proposal.”

Jim smiled and nodded for Tiff to carry on. He was enjoying this, now, and he’d forgotten all about the earlier unpleasantness, re theft.

“Our second proposal is for T C S Enterprises Ltd,” she paused, realising that she hadn’t introduced us - “That’s our company name” - “to form a joint venture with you to run a new kind of store called, provisionally, BigSaver. Or BigBuy, or BigShopper, or something like that. Lets call it BigSaver. BigSaver will be here, on this industrial estate, and offer discount bulk buying direct to consumers.”

Jim looked startled. He hadn’t expected that. Now, Ms Duncan seemed the least surprised of the two of them, as though nothing we could say or do now would surprise Ms Duncan any more.

“You see, your existing customers are small retailers for corner shops and such. These are called ‘convenience stores’ because they provide convenience to those who live locally, even though the prices are quite high. Now, these days, a lot of people shop at supermarkets, and we know that modern supermarkets are pushing prices down further as foreign brands such as the Germans enter the UK market.”

Tiff paused for breath. Jim and Ms Duncan were hanging on her words, now.

“We believe we can compete with the budget supermarkets by launching BigSaver. BigSaver wouldn’t compete with the corner shops directly, but rather take the fight to the big, budget supermarkets. BigSaver will allow consumers to buy whole boxes of goods, bulk, just like BigMarket provides to retailers. It’s basically BigMarket, but direct to consumer.”

“My retail customers won’t like it one bit.”

“That’s why we think it important to have a separate entrance, a separate area, separate parking, a separate company. Ideally we’d be in that empty building beside you here, so we can easily ferry pallets between the two areas without going outside and risking getting anything wet. We’d knock a door through there,” Tiff pointed at a far wall, “and make a new customer entrance for BigSaver facing the apron on the far side, which would make excellent customer parking.”

“And how are my retail customers not going to be angry with me, again?”

“Anyone who drives out to this estate to buy a whole crate of baked beans is already driving out to the big supermarkets rather than shopping in their local convenience store. It’s the big supermarkets that we’re going to compete with.”

Jim looked deep in thought for a few moments.

“Think about margins” Tiff continued, in hard sales mode, now. “We’d carefully price things to be just slightly cheaper than the big supermarkets. Which is still massively more than your wholesale prices. The margin, compared to what you have today, is absolutely ... enormous!”

Jim looked playfully sideways at Ms Duncan. “You get the feeling this whole thing has been planned from the very beginning?”

Ms Duncan smiled and nodded, realisation dawning. “Marketing plan?”

“Minimal” Tiff replied. “The whole project is to be minimal risk and minimal cost, so we can wrap the whole thing up if quickly it doesn’t work out. Marketing, for example, will be kids leaving fliers on car windscreens in big supermarket car parks; go straight to those shoppers shopping at the big budget supermarkets and steal those customers.”

“Is that allowed?”

“Normally, no. However, our asleep council is one of the few in the UK to have forgotten to enact the Clean Neighbourhoods Act 2005. The worst we can be got with is trespassing; the supermarkets can tell us to leave their car parks, but in the end, that’s hardly going to stop the kind of kids we’re going to employ,” Charlie interjected, proud of her research.

“And, so, what is the split in this joint venture?” An astute Jim Graves came back to the money.

“T C S Enterprises Ltd gets sixty percent. You get forty. We provide the cashier system, security systems and such. Security will be much more important with the kind of clientele BigSaver will attract. Sam, here, will have to really extend the feature set of his computer program thingy. You provide the stock, with three months terms for the first three months, so we grow. We have a whole list of small details. Can we subcontract the shop staff from you? And do you think your landlord will give us a few months’ grace on the building next door? It’s been empty for ages.”

Jim nodded and beamed. It was clear he was excited about it. Even Ms Duncan was excited. We offered Ms Duncan an advisory post on the board to keep her sweet. After all, we hadn’t said anything, but Charlie was the only one of us with a moped, so how else were we going to get out to the store regularly?

We’d long since finished and handed in our business assignment at school. But only Ms Duncan knew. We still huddled together in her class and during every free period, planning and plotting. But these days, we were planning BigSaver in excruciating detail.

My software was coming along nicely. I’d just presented some footage to the girls showing my software tracking. It captures which boxes are lifted from which shelves and which customer’s trolley it ends up on. Because we will be working with big boxes rather than small awkward-shaped things like tins, this was actually quite straight-forward.

The girls asked a few pointed questions but didn’t get as excited as I had hoped. Something else was on their minds: D-day. Everything had gone so quickly and we were already about to grand-open on Saturday!

Tiff and Charlie were insistent that nobody know that we were involved or owned the company or anything. I puzzled at that, but it was cool. To the press attending on Saturday, Jim Graves would be the public face of BigSaver.

Tiff had arranged for the Girl Guides to leaflet everywhere. Not the formal Girl Guides, but rather the actual girls in the Guides, our own private guerilla army of litterers. In return, they each got a pack of marsh mallows, which seemed to be good currency with Guides.

Everything was set. And we were going to watch from a distance, hide in the background, avoid the limelight. Charlie pointed out to me that my third share of T C S was a twenty percent share of BigSaver, which wasn’t at all shoddy for a sixteen year old! This time next year, she said, we’d all be millionaires.

Tiff hammered the gavel against the table. Everyone hushed. “I call this meeting to order!” she shouted, altogether unnecessarily loudly. We all smiled happily.

“Well, the first month’s numbers are in. The advantage of direct sales and no credit is that we have the numbers the second after midnight. And I think we can all agree they make excellent reading.” She could be forgiven for sounding pompous. She was presiding over a very successful new company.

“In the first month, BigSaver now accounts for fifteen percent of BigMarket’s sales! BigSaver is BigMarket’s biggest customer, and we predict startling growth as word of mouth spreads. Customers are driving from surrounding towns for our deals, which surely can’t save them that much when they factor in petrol and so on. After all, this is tins of baked beans we’re talking about! We charge almost as much as the supermarkets. Charlie, you have the figures?”

And so it’d become true. This time next year, we probably would be millionaires!

After the buoyant, upbeat, first BigSaver board meeting, we asked Jim and Ms Duncan to wait outside so we could could follow up with a private T C S Enterprises Ltd meeting.

“Never, in the course of human enterprise, have...” Charlie started but couldn’t finish, bursting into a fit of giggles. Then Tiff dived in and started tickling her. I shook my head in shock. What on earth was going on?