Rabid reseller: Everything must go!

First, there comes a time when every reseller’s future takes a beating.

The sad realisation that the next generation just isn’t rising to the challenge, and you have nobody to carry on your life’s work. My nephew Sk8er Boi certainly has no interest in running a technology shop, despite the beatings. He thinks planks of wood with wheels underneath are the future of retailing.

The niece is nice but she’s already halfway through her PhD in “the reality of Facebook friends”. Nothing left but to sell up. Everything must go!

Next, there comes a time when every reseller realises their business isn’t worth anything. Fortunately, although sometimes dodgy, Uncle Tony knows a thing or two about money and his advice to buy the premises rather than pay rent means Rabid does have something worth selling.

We won’t go into the questionable persuasion methods he used to convince the previous owner to not only sell, but to also provide vendor finance. For some reason the guy still refers to our mortgage payments as rent – maybe he’s just old-fashioned.

Even if Rabid has no goodwill, which we still find hard to believe, at least we have the stock to unload before we can sell the empty shop. A quick stock take, reconcile with the unpaid invoices, and before you know it, repossession is looking like the best option.

How did this stuff end up being worth less than we paid for it? Oh, that’s right, the March of Technology. Ever faster, ever cheaper. Stupid Moore and his stupid law. Still, there’s no need for Sk8er Boi to start tweeting about steam punk computing.

OK, so we just won’t pay the invoices and the disties can come and collect their antiquated junk and that’s that. Shop fittings! Must be a dollar or two to be had there. A few ads on eBay and we’ll soon get rid of the lot.

Alright so we didn’t get as much as we expected. There were only two bidders and when they realised they both worked for the same movie studio the price stopped rising. Who’d have thought anybody would make a movie based in a 1950s shop?

So now we’ve got a completely empty shop, up goes the For Sale sign and we can start planning what to do with our retirement. Yes of course, we kept one computer so we could list the shop on the internet for all to see.

And we’ve already got a crowd coming this weekend for the first viewing. Always open to offers in advance of the auction of course. Why look! The guy we bought the place off is interested too! He’s just marched through the door with a couple of boofy blokes. Must be a rugby fan.

Say what? Rent? Yes, we know that’s what he calls it, but it’s really a mortgage and we’ve nearly paid it off. No, we haven’t heard from Uncle Tony for a while now. In fact, yes you’re right; it’s been a few years. Time gets away etc.

He’s where? He got busted for standing over people? What’s that mean? Being tall is a crime now? Rent? This bloke keeps banging on about rent and is convinced Rabid will soon be joining Tony “up the river”. So Tony’s really been on holidays all this time?

After we settle the misunderstanding with the rugger buggers and email the brick-kickers to advise the shop’s no longer for sale, we manage to get all the shelves and stuff back for a song. Seems nobody wants to watch a movie based in a 1950s shop after all.

And even the distributors are happy with us after we returned all the old stock and got a total write-off on the outstanding invoices, and they were happy to send a container load of new kit. We’re not so happy about having to keep paying rent, but we’ll take that up with Uncle Tony when he gets back from vacation.

Gotta go! Customers waiting!