Where, & when are you doing this Rehctub. Now I have my son basically settled, I was thinking of making a treck to the north, to renew acquaintances, & relive the glories of youth in the Whitsundays.

Drop me an Email with your program.

thanks everyone, its a tough world out there in retail, but I genuinely believe that the little guy is going to make a comeback, but only if they are good operators and provide excellent service.

My son is on board with me and im lucky enough to have been taught old school skills.

My location. It's a small country town on a very busy road inside a busy fruit shop and the rent's cheap which allows for decreased margins meaning great quality at affordable prices.

We will specialize in quality meats and great friendly service and thanks to the likes of Coles and Wollies, I recon this is just what consumers are looking for now as these two have made shopping so impersonal.

Best wishes to Rehtub and anyone else taking the plunge to bring back business service whether it is personally or even on line. I find the local IGA goes a long way towards serving the community in contrast to Coles and Woollies. A little dearer, but the contrast is marked. The moment the checkout queues start to lengthen there's a call for another person to staff a vacant cash point. Coles has long queues while placing notices on the idle cash points inviting you to "let us serve you" where there's a queue. Wherever you look in IGA there's a staffer near that you can ask for directions to a product. That's jobs for Australians and faster shopping for customers. Local delis have a role but can't cope with variety of produce to offer.

One thing that both IGA and Coles/Woolies have thankfully ended is the loudspeakers assailing shoppers' ears with piped Yank yowling and caterwauling. Blessed silence at least!

None of it can match the now vanished grocer where you could give a list and the grocer would fetch the items, add up the price and serve you direct. They have been defeated by the artificial proliferation of minor differences within and between brands blowing out a grocer's storage space.

For on line business I recently rang a Fremantle stationer for a supply of label papers. A real person answered the phone, not a computerised cyber-foboff. The item arrived at my address by courier next day. Unlike many Eastern States businesses (I have a widely advertised bookstore in mind) which use technology to avoid answering the phone and which send the goods via Australia Post to a distant post office for collection. Businesses that give decent service even once have got me as a customer for life. If Rehtub can make his new business pay he's a community benefactor/