Winning retailers lined up for first Top Merchants day

Corks Out, Arthur Rackham and Oxford Wine Company will be three of the keynote speakers at the first Top Merchants business day being held by Harpers Wine & Spirit and sponsors GIV at the Malmaison hotel in Birmingham on February 8.

The event marks the first in what will be a series of regional business seminars to be held throughout 2010 designed to give independent merchants the opportunity to share business ideas and experiences and gain advice on key business issues of the day.

The day will include presentations from three very different but successful independent merchants:

• Ruth Yates of, Corks Out in the north west will look at the challenges and opportunities of opening up a small network of stores

• Ted Sandbach of Oxford Wine Company will examine how merchants can look to expand their businesses away from retailing and into local and regional wholesaling

• James Rackham of Arthur Rackham merchants will assess the opportunities for family run merchants, and the opportunities for specialist chains and the Wine Rack stores he has recently taken on

Jeremy Beadles, chief executive of the Wine & Spirit Association, will look at what areas of legislation that independent merchants need to be aware of as well as suggesting ways they can be politically active in their local areas.

Christopher Carson of Italian producers GIV, and partners of the Top Merchants programme, will examine how important independent merchants are to the trade and wine producers in particular.

The day will also include a session examining the opportunities within social media and networking.

As this is the first Top Merchants event part of the day will be dedicated to discussing the issues and areas of support that independent merchants are looking for from the trade and its suppliers and how the Top Merchants initiative can help influence that.

Merchants will be invited to break into small discussion groups and feed back their findings.
The event is open primarily to independent merchants, with limited space for the wider trade. If you are interested in coming then please contact event organiser, Hazel Batchelar on This e-mail address is being protected from spambots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it .

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