Early Days

Alan and Jack were so supportive in everything we ever did. If we made mistakes they let us fix them and helped us whenever we asked. We worked there because we loved working there. It was definitely not for the money! We worked 6 days a week and we worked l-o-n-g hours. I remember once in the early days working out an indent order for auto accessories from Japan and Jack came to me and asked very tactfully if my quantities were all correct as he felt the quantities and hence the value of the order was a bit high.

I told Jack that it was all correct and he never argued. However, it made me think hard about everything and I then went to Jack later in the day to revise most of the quantities downwards. But the thing was that Jack backed us 100% because he trusted us. Alan was the same and we all got tremendous job satisfaction working there in the earlier days.

There was never any price-fixing in those days but there were situations where we agreed with suppliers to sell certain items at an agreed price. An amusing thing I remember concerned our 10-page photo albums. Between Game and Clicks we owned that market and the albums were imported from Korea in those days, by the container! In those days the 10-page photo album sold for 98c and we made a healthy profit. Clicks sold it at 99c.

As the exchange rate worsened and costs increased, naturally the landed cost increased and it was becoming difficult to sell it at under a Rand. Pick ‘n Pay, Greatermans, OK and other stores were all well over a Rand, close to R2 an album but Clicks stayed at  99 cents and our price-point was 98 cents! This couldn’t carry on so one day I phoned Clicks head-office and spoke to the buyer and told him who I was and asked why he kept the selling price at 99 cents and he told me it was because we were at 98 cents! I told him we were at 98 cents because CLICKS was at 99 cents! We had a good laugh about this ridiculous situation and agreed to raise our prices on a set date to an agreed price!

Sam Brewer had joined us and was learning to be a buyer under my guidance for the photographic department. One day I took a call from the sales director of Frank & Hirsch, a major distributor of many items including Nikon, Olympus, Polaroid, Citizen and many other brands. He asked me what sort of game we were playing as he’d had a call from all the photographic retailers complaining about our advert that day selling the Olympus Trip camera at a heavily discounted price! I said I’d look into it as I didn’t know what he was talking about and called Sam into my office to find out more.

Yes, we were selling the Trip way below the normal price and yes, Sam knew we weren’t supposed to drop the price lower than agreed to but this was only if all retailers stuck to the agreement. He’d seen this Olympus Trip camera in Whysalls store window recently at a price much lower than the agreed price so he took it upon himself to react in the only way Game knew how by lowering our price significantly. (Whysalls is a major independent photographic retailer, still operating successfully today!) 

I then called the F & H sales director back and explained all this to him and felt quite proud on Sam’s behalf. After about an hour he called me back to explain that the Olympus Trip in the Whysalls window was a SECOND-HAND camera and not new!! There were new ones in the window but without prices. He asked for our assurance that we’d put our price up and when I asked Sam to do it he said assertively, “I go past Whysalls every evening on my way home and when I see the price of the new camera is at the higher price, I’ll change Game’s price – not before!” This comment was relayed to Frank & Hirsch immediately.

Sam then came in the next day with a broad smile on his face. He’d gone past Whysalls the previous evening and saw in the window a display of new Olympus Trip cameras all with the correct agreed-to selling-prices and a prominent note in front of the camera, “HELLO SAM”. I’ve become friends with Jeremy Whysall over the years and we still chuckle over this episode.

Alan had a unique style of doing things. One day he came to me and said we should start a records bar. In those days records (LP and seven Singles as well as Compact Cassette tapes and 8-Track tapes) were only sold in speciality stores as well as the big department stores. Other than my own personal collection of records, I knew very little else! Alan, Jack and I sat down and then after we’d discussed many things pertinent to records, strategy etc, Alan got up and said to me, “Put on your plain shirt and come with me” (We all wore those pink shirts then!)

Alan had changed his shirt already and the two of us walked across the road to the OK Bazaars and we walked straight to the record bar. Alan had a jacket and tie on and looked quite important and he looked at the manager of the Music dept and asked, “How are sales today?” She pressed some keys on the cash register and gave us this long detailed print-out of the day’s and week-to-date’s sales of the music dept!!! She thought Alan was from OK Head Office. As we walked back to our store across the road Alan just smiled at me and told me that we didn’t have anything to worry about from the BIGGEST records’ operator in the country.

Alan and Jack always maintained, rightly so, that the big groups could never be as quick to the market as we could be. By the time something new came out, got listed by the groups, Game had ordered, advertised and sold the products.

Because we never had anyone to refer to regarding what to buy and if it was going to sell, Alan always said that we should ask one question regarding a new product.

“Can it be described in a short, sharp phrase so that another person on the other end of a phone line will know exactly what it is?” That was key and it helped us enormously – especially with things like 4 grass place-mats for 9 cents! If it couldn’t be described adequately, it probably wouldn’t sell well.

Alan and Jack always encouraged learning new things any way available – books, training movies, invited guests, various courses and seminars. Their thirst for learning and discovering never ever stopped and I remember asking Alan about opening in Johannesburg and other cities and he always said that he never ever wanted to open more stores than the two we had – Smith Street and Ordinance/Brickhill Roads stores.

Jack was not your normal, narrow-minded Accountant. He started what is now Linen Game as well as Candy Game and Candy game has since gone on to achieve HUGE status in the Mass retail market. In the ‘80s, Game West Street received an international award from Wilson Rowntree for being the single biggest purchaser of their candy IN THE WORLD. The next best outlet for Wilson Rowntree was in Tokyo. Their big brands in those days were Smarties, Chocolate Log, Peppermint Crisp, Kit Kat, Aero and many more. Not bad for a department that was started by, and conceived, by an accountant who also kept the Game admin one of the best in the business!