According to research published in the Daily Mail, 40% of British small business owners want to leave the European Union. The research by Close Brothers Finance claims to show increasing unhappiness among many business owners about continuing EU membership. Of the 40% who want to leave, 45% are concerned that struggling EU member states could bring the UK down with them. 39% say our economy would be better off.
Mike Randall of Close Brothers Asset Finance says: ‘When we joined the EEC 40 years ago we thought we were joining a large, prosperous nation but the benefits are being questioned. What is clear is that firms across the UK are seeking stability and reassurance that their best efforts to recover won’t be thwarted by a greater force.’
Of course, this means that 60% of small business owners either would like to stay in the EU or don’t have an opinion. That’s a fairly sizeable majority. The free movement of goods and services among the EU members free from tax and duty was cited as the number one advantage for small businesses in staying a part of the EU.
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This is set to be on the political agenda for many years to come. Uncertainty will rule.
Absolute nightmare for attracting inward investment. Not good for jobs.
It currently costs us 40 million euros per day to stay in. that’s a lot of money the government needs for other issues within the UK. Get the hell out I say.
Firstly never ever believe anything you read in the Mail that tries to pretend to be fact based information.
It is not and generally they have an overt agenda and long ago gave up any pretence of being a ‘serious’ newspaper that seeks to inform.
Under Dacre it has degenerated into a Sun clone targetted mostly at a female readership.
pip pip
40% want to leave. So 60% don’t.
Only the Daily Fail could make the 40% THE story. :-/
its one world we cant afford not to trade with anyone we can
Chris can. He is retired and an ideologue.
I must say that even though I sell quite a lot to EU countries I would definately vote to leave.
It’s just not worth the cost paid in democratic accountability and bonkers regulation.
My dear Cornish ‘friend’ you can indulge in cheap insults as much as you like but your arguments wouldn’t pass muster in our local primary school.
I am quite happy with my IQ thanks and it has served me very well to date including travelling and selling to countries worldwide over several decades.
If you seriously think that selling a few mouldering & remaindered books about railways to the Commonwealth is some exemplar of why most businesses would be better off out of the EU then you really need to wake up and smell the coffee as the great leader once said.
Most businesses have to sell hard into the UK, then the EU and also outside if they can just to keep growing & profitable and to remain competitive.
A part time niche activity flogging niche books into niche markets to help keep a few charities going is worthy and to be applauded but it does not represent the reality for most SMEs here in the UK.
Which is why your arguments are based of a completely false set of assumptions and your lack of experience about the real world of business is all to plain to see.
pip pip
“mouldering & remaindered books” You certainly do have a peculiar definition of “New Books”. I will agree that some of my New Books are Remaindered. However many are hot off the presses. A couple of days ago I listed one title only hours after the Publishers had taken delivery of it from the Printers/Binders and long before the majority of stockists nationwide had received their stocks. In case you think that this is a once in the lifetime occurrence it is in fact a fairly normal occurrence.
As a matter of interest while I have a strong and long lasting interest in Railways I do not just sell books about Railways.
In the World of SME’s and ebay there are many sellers selling a legion of differant products. Books are just one such product. You seem to look down on Books as being somehow not proper. I would therefore wonder just how many Books you have at home. There were some statistics quoted years ago about how many Books there was in the average home. I cannot remember the number now but I seem to remember at the time thinking that I had as many as the average small town. However the same statistics had a frightening number of homes where there was not one Book. I would suggest that this probably includes your home.
Again I enjoy reading a good book. It does not have to be on Railways. Indeed I think that amongst my books(those that I own and have collected over the years rather than the ones I have in stock at any one time)Railway Books are probably in the minority.
However if we are comparing our experience before ebay or in my case before I became a full time Bookseller(because for years I was only part-time having other jobs as well) if I could be bothered I would dig out a copy of my CV from years ago. In it you would see such as Group Internal Auditor of a large company when I was in my early 20’s and Company Accountant a few years later etc before I decided to follow a Full Time Career in Book Selling(Wholesale and Retail). So while my career to date may not satisfy your asperations I have been reasonably happy with it.
Before this discussion gets far too involved I should explain what a “Remaindered” Book is in case anybody like Cambridge_Blue is not certain.
When a Publisher publishes a New Book they should have an estimate(based upon the sales of similar books over the years) of just how many they are going to sell. Unfortunately these estimates are often not completely accurate. If they sell more the publisher may very well do a reprint. If they sell less the publisher has a big pile in the Warehouse taking up space that may be needed for the next new title to be published. So they decide to get rid of some(a partial remainder) or all(a full remainder) of the remaining books.
There are specialist Remainder Warehouses who will buy all the books to be remaindered(at a knock down price). The Remainder Warehouse will then sell the books to such as myself. However while the Remainder Warehouse may buy a thousand copies of one title I will tend to buy in much smaller quantities. There is a saying in Book Selling “The average Bookshop sells of the Average Book – 3 copies”. This saying used to annoy me when I was a Book Wholesaler. The number of Book Buyers in Bookshops who would order in 3’s. The reason well they expected to sell 3. However I would go into a Bookshop in say Taunton and they would buy 3 copies of a Book on Taunton and 3 of a book on Aberdeen. Common Sense would tell you that they would sell more on Taunton than Aberdeen but the saying told them to buy just 3 of each.
However the Books that the Publisher is selling off are NEW they are not faulty or damaged. They are just New and have not sold at Full Price. The Remainder Warehouse reprices them. Years ago it tended to be half price. So a Book had an original price of £19-95 Now Remaindered at £9-99. But today the remainder prices tend to be less(often much less) than half price.
But the Books are still New. They are identical to the New Books that the Warehouse was supplying to a Full Price Bookshop only a few days before. So if you know what you are doing you can obtain a real bargain. Indeed with a Partial Remainder where the Publisher continues to sell at Full Price those books that they have retained you can have the situation of a Full Price Bookshop on a High Street selling the Book at Full Price while a few doors down a “Bargain” Bookshop will have the same Book at a much lower price and the Books are identical.
Thanks Chris, fascinating.
This thread has drifted off topic and is getting a bit bickery, gentlemen.
Don’t forget this is a business forum and it’s preferable to conduct yourself in a businesslike manner.
And too, remember, we can limit your posts/prevent you posting as an act of mercy on other readers.
Dan