Episode 7

Purchasing

This week we were provided with a list of items to purchase for the least possible price. We were also asked to sell one of the items for the highest possible price. The team that came back with the most money would win. I was in the winning team!

Simon split the team and the list of items. He worked with Tre and Naomi while Jadine and I worked together. Simon, Tre and Naomi managed to secure an average 42% off the price of their 6 items while Jadine and I negotiated an average of 52% of our 4 items. Click here for the full breakdown.

I thought Simon was an average PM. Overall, I found him to be very excitable, nervous and a bit scatty (or "a bit erratic" as he puts it). He's very intelligent and he goes at a hundred miles an hour but he doesnt always communicate his thought process logically which is frustrating for his team.

Jadine and I work well together. We balanced each other out, delivered the results and had fun doing it. The rabbit and the dustbin were tough items to purchase. The rabbit had to be 80% white, female and younger than 16 weeks. The dustbin had to be a particular high end brand and a certain capacity. Both these items were difficult to source as we had to find an independent retailer who would allow us to film in their shop. Larger chains are very strict and would not let us film in their premises. We spent a LOT of time on the phone to Waitrose, Robert Dyas etc before trying the independent retailer route.

However it was the nigella seeds that were the most difficult item. We didn’t know what they were and after some phone calls we were led to believe they were flower seeds. This unfortunately took us up the 'garden path' and we struggled to find a shop that had such a large quantity. It was not till later in the day that we tried the health food/spices avenue which proved to be successful! Despite being Indian, I've never heard of nigella seeds and always though the seeds on naan bread were onion seeds!

If you've watched the unseen footage on the BBC website relating to our search for the nigella seeds, Jadine is unfairly blamed for trying to trick the supplier and pretending to be working for Kristina. That was my idea - I suggested it to Jadine and she followed.

We decided to sell the bay tree as we felt that it would be the easiest/most generic item to sell and it had a decent mark-up. Simon instructed us to ask everyone we spoke to if they wanted to buy the bay tree from us even before we'd bought it! This way, when we had bought it, we would have a confirmed buyer for it!

This led to two hilarious scenarios all day.. 1) we would be calling shops to see if they sold rabbits, unicycles, leather trousers etc and would then have to end the call with an attempt to sell the bay tree (most shop keepers were very perplexed after our calls!) And 2) we would often get asked about the bay tree and we had to make up dimensions, quality, the type of pot it was in etc! We tried everything - florists, hair salons, bars, furniture shops, clothes stores etc. Jadine and I found that most shops were confused about why we were calling to sell them a tree over the phone, so we even pretended like we were moving house and didn’t have space for the tree in our new place! In the end Naomi sold the tree to a seafood restaurant.

Lohit Kalburgi