Get the hottest business, financial, and money discussion from MyBrandinPublic!

So each year at the end of the season lots of the shops close down, stock is cleared away, floors are scrubbed, and up go the `To Let’ signs. And then a few months later the estate agents’ `Let Agreed’ boards go up and the whole process starts again, only this time with another hopeful soul ready to sink all they possess into a venture that has already proved itself a complete failure for countless entrepreneurs before. All very sad, but in my view, entirely avoidable.

If you are to have any chance whatsoever of succeeding as a retailer, whatever you’re offering must at the very least satisfy the following criteria:

1. Whatever it is you’re proposing to sell it must have immediate, or as near immediate, purchasing appeal as is possible. To put it simply, if what you’re offering isn’t more or less instantly saleable, the chances of ever seeing your browsers return again to buy are slim to say the least. Yes, you’ll get lots of very interested people wearing out your carpets, goodwill and patience telling you how great whatever it is you’re selling is, but unless they’re buying it there and then you’re not going to earn any money.