Andrew Reynolds on making money in a recession

[fatimahislam]

Entrepreneur Andrew Reynolds talking on stage about businesses which are not taking part in a recession – business which are bucking the media hyped trend and making money despite the doom and gloom portrayed in headlines. Part two of this video series filmed live at the O2 Arena

Transcription

Andrew Reynolds: I got an email here from a bloke, a gentleman saying “Regarding selling DVDs, particularly at the time of the credit crunch it will be struggle to attract customers to buy DVDs.” Telegraph don’t agree, Telegraph’s headline is that DVD sales are bucking the economic gloom because people are sat indoors, they are turning off the frightening stuff and putting on the DVDs.

I love this quote. This is from the CEO of Iceland, he’s saying “Recession, what recession? We are not taking part.” This weekend, shall we not take part in this recession?

Iceland’s profits rocketed 84% to 113 million. Did anybody see that on the telly? Their sales are up 16% and Iceland have been going round the country picking up on the cheap all the Woolworths stores that went out of business. Fantastic business model.

Pizza. Dominoes Pizza, their profits are up by 25% because we all sit indoors watching our DVDs eating pizza.

Garden centres, the missus says “Garden’s looking a bit tatty darling, let’s go down the garden centre.” Garden sales are up.

Andrew Reynolds: Video sales. All the kids are in the email data with their TVs playing video games. Video game sales are up.

And it’s not just down at the bottom end in the pound shops, posh lady’s shoes, profits are up. The iphone, they are telling us on the TV that the mobile telephone market has taken a big plunge, that’s what they are feeding us. But iphone can’t make enough of these things.

When they launched the iphone and the upgrades, they had people queuing outside their shops and they can’t keep up with demand. They’ve got a premium product, they are giving the customer what they want, they branded it well and people are queuing up for it.

Andrew Reynolds: Cosmetics, bless them because the ladies are trapped indoors with nothing else to do, they are now looking at the whole cosmetics thing. Biggest seller on the market at the moment, anti ageing cream, I have no idea how you get that through the Advertising Standards Agency. Anti ageing cream, the warehouses can’t keep up with the women buying this glob, profits are up.

The house building sector, I used to work in house building as a number of people in the room will know. House building has taken a big dive unless you are building little houses. Lego, profits rose by two thirds last year. It’s not on the news.

Caravan sales are up 15%.