The Last Word: Engulf and devour

OPINION: As most resellers know, the only way you’ll ever make any real money in this game is when you sell the shop and move on.

That opens up the question of whether you should spruce up your shop, sell it, then open another one down the road, or keep the first shop and acquire some more shops. That option works on the assumption that a flock of shops will go for a bigger price one day than just one shop.

Then again, you might be able to float your fabulous shopping chain on the stock market, generating wads of cash while you still keep most of the business for later.

That’s the sort of scenario that appeals here at Rabid Reseller — the money and the shop. But our investment adviser says we need to grow into a chain before we can float. We’re slightly worried about all these maritime terms used by the brokers — we don’t want to end-up with an anchor that sinks.

No time like the present so we’re leaving the nephew in charge while we scout around the neighbouring suburbs for suitable takeover targets. We’re thinking we should be investigating other computer shops but there are more customers in the kebab shops. Maybe that’s just hunger. OK, now we feel better, and the coffee was needed. Ah, there’s one now — owned by some bloke called Harris. Big shop. Let’s make an offer.

There really wasn’t any need to be that rude. A simple ‘No thank you’ would suffice. And why do they still have Harris on the sign if the shop is owned by Myer? Plenty more shops in the malls.

This one looks interesting, and they’ve got the right name for the Yellow Pages listings.

AAAAAArdvark Computers is catchy, but they’ll soon get used to the Rabid Reseller logo. And they seem keen to talk about a takeover.

Whoa! You learn as you go in this acquisition game. Who would have thought that asking to see the accounts would get that sort of reaction? Really, there was no need for the baseball bats, or the cousins from the Pacific Islands.

How did they get so big eating seafood? Perhaps we shouldn’t have asked about the GST either. That seemed to cause a frenzy of comings and goings before we ended up going.

Oh look there’s a Wastefi eld Mall, so they should be a lot more civilised in there. What sort of name is Takeover Technology? Never mind, the owner is positively gagging to sell the place for around 10 times their turnover.

Already we’re thinking like two shops instead of one. Say how much? Colour us surprised and spank us with a loofah. Well, maybe later.

Alright so that one was a tad out of our price range. Who’d have thought they could shift so much kit from such a little shop?

The owner did keep banging on about location or position or something but we could hardly hear a word he was saying over the noise of the trolleys being wheeled out of the supermarket next door.

You’d want a discount on the rent having to put up with all those people swarming past the shop all day. Very distracting.

Next on the list is this small shop called The Pleasure Principle.

It seems a bit dark and they really should change those red lights to something a bit brighter. However, they’ve got wall-to-wall video booths so there must be a lot of computers under the desks.

Very attractive sales staff too, but they don’t seem to have had time to get dressed this morning as they’re all in their underwear.

Very friendly, but they don’t have a clue about technology, so we won’t be adding this one to our chain. Feeling relaxed after the massage, which we admit we’d never thought of offering as a service at our shop. Speaking of which we’d better get back there before the nephew makes someone an offer they can’t understand.

Hey! Who changed the name of our shop? Just when did we agree to become a branch of Takeover Technology?

Has anyone seen the nephew? He drove off in a Jaguar, you say? How did he pay for that? Gotta go, lawyers waiting!