What recession?
My family owns an "independent hardware retailer" in the Midlands.
In Summer 2007, one of our premises happened to be located a bit too close to the River Arrow when it flooded, so we've needed a new floor and shelving for a year and a half now.
The local shop-fitting company went bust, so instead of letting the insurance company make bad decisions for us, which had delayed us enough already, we took their money and went to a near-ish Woolworths and bought all their shelving.
A fucking lot of shelving.
For 10% what the refitters quoted us: £60k for our two shops (may as well do them both).
So on Sunday 4th we took all the family and some regular customers to Woolies with 4 commercial vehicles (2 of which we'd borrowed) and loaded/unloaded roughly 15 pickup-loads of metal, some of which we lost going round a roundabout.
It just so happened that their counters hadn't been sold, so another 2 truckloads later, we had counters that were worth £3,000 altogether for just £100.

So thanks to Woolies being shit, we saved £53,900.

Also, one of our competitors went bust so our takings are even better than before this so called "recession".

Oh, and we do locksmithing. Always lucrative when houses are being repossessed.
(EvilFred is investing in scuba gear., Thu 22 Jan 2009, 19:11, Reply)