Business Blog

20 April 2013 Last updated at 20:16 ET By Alex Campbell BBC News

Have you ever seen something you wanted in a shop, tried it, checked the price online on your smartphone, found it was cheaper, and walked out? Welcome to the world of "showrooming".

"The staff at Jessops would like to thank you for shopping with Amazon" read the sign in a shop window shortly after the British camera chain went into administration.

It was a dry reaction to a growing problem for "bricks and mortar"-focused retailers. Showrooming is said to have exacerbated the decline of high-profile brands like Comet.

Gadget stores, bookshops and the cosmetics industry are all losing sales to showroomers, but solutions have proved hard to find.

Kelly Buckle, 23, of Birmingham, sometimes spends more than £200 in a single shopping trip - but never actually gets as far as the checkout.

"I can go in and smell a perfume and then find it online for £30 less," she says.

Research by design agency Foolproof found that 24% of people showroomed while Christmas shopping - and 40% of them took their business elsewhere.

Showroomers are not doing anything immoral. But the process can still be embarrassing.

"I feel bad about it, especially when the staff have been helpful, but it's my money," says Buckle.

Bricks and mortar shops have to pay rent, bills and staff salaries. Online retailers can offer cheaper prices because they don't.

But the online giants get a benefit from the very existence of bricks and mortar shops. It leaves physical retailers in a quandary.

An Australian speciality food shop recently raised eyebrows by charging $5 (£3.37) just for browsing. And some shoe and clothes stores in America and Australia have also tried a "fitting fee". In all instances the fee is taken off the bill when someone buys something.

Victoria Barnsley, chief executive of HarperCollins, recently suggested the idea of charging a fee for browsing bookshops is "not that insane".

Steve Pritchard, 61, who runs an independent book store in Crosby, Merseyside, and has worked in the trade for more than 36 years, is not convinced.

"We see them in the corner with their mobile phones, scanning the barcode on a book and finding it cheaper. I can't blame them," he says.

"I can't see a way to stop it. Charging people to browse has been suggested but it's a daft idea because you still want people to come in.

"You've just got to make your retail environment pleasant, have people here who know what they're talking about and try to embarrass them out of doing it."

If you take a specialist running chain like Run and Become or Runner's Need you can see this process in action. Staff analyse a customer's running gait, often on a treadmill and "diagnose" a pair of shoes that will avoid injury.

Those £100 shoes might be markedly cheaper online, but the would-be showroomer has to have a very high embarrassment threshold to walk out with a straight face.

This approach may seem more realistic than either charging a fee for advice or placing other obstacles in the way of showroomers. There have been suggestions that resistance from retailers has included asking suppliers to subtly change the names of products to thwart internet searches.

Coaxing the customer into being willing to pay more is the way, says retail consultant Martin Philpott.

"Shops like Jessops need to become centres of excellence with a limited number of showroom stores in high profile areas, selling high end products.

"I'm a passionate cyclist and I go to a shop that is much more expensive than the internet. But they will build a cycle for you, watch you ride up and down the street or even ride out with you.

"By the time you've been there for an hour, their enthusiasm is so overwhelming that you really don't want to go elsewhere."

Strangely, online retailers have an interest in the survival of bricks and mortar shops. If web-based retailers lure so many showroomers, what will they do if there are no showrooms left?

Philip Beeching, 53, a web consultant and self-confessed showroomer, thinks online retailers may themselves turn to bricks and mortar - but not necessarily staff and checkouts.

"Online retailers do well out of showrooming and companies like Amazon may well decide that they need to open up showrooms," he says.

Retailer-turned-author Bill Grimsey, former chief executive of Wickes and Iceland, agrees. He believes the future lies in purpose-built showrooms in major shopping centres.

"Things are going to change a lot, the whole thing is about to explode," he says. "People won't pay to browse. It may start but it will die quickly. People will expect the service."

Grimsey believes that even out-of-town retail parks will quickly become redundant, with 20 or 30 huge shopping malls dominating retail by making use of showrooms.

A growing number of retailers allow customers to order online and check or collect their goods in store - avoiding the inevitable missed delivery cards and increasing the chances of them buying something else while they are there.

But for many, the most important factor is still the price.

"My wife asked me to get a new celebrity cookbook which I found in Waterstones for £27. Using my smartphone I was able to search for it and I instantly found it on Amazon for £15," Beeching says.

"If the price had been closer maybe I'd have done the right thing. But especially in times where a lot of people are strapped for cash - what do you expect them to do?"

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20 April 2013 Last updated at 07:35 ET

A minicab firm which started in London in the 1970s with one car has been sold for £300m to a private equity firm.

Addison Lee, which started in 1975 in south London and now has 4,500 cars, has been bought by the Carlyle Group.

Carlyle said it hoped to expand the firm into international markets and continue to transport about 10 million passengers each year in London.

Founder John Griffin will remain chairman of the company and his son Liam will be chief executive.

'Humble beginnings'

Mr Griffin entered the trade after he gave up his accountancy apprenticeship to help his father.

He founded the company with Lenny Foster and both will retain minority stakes in the business.

Liam Griffin said: "From humble beginnings almost 40 years ago, Addison Lee has grown to become a well-known brand."

In a statement, Carlyle said: "The focus for Carlyle's investment in Addison Lee will be to drive business expansion both in the UK and internationally."

20 April 2013 Last updated at 14:10 ET

Russian businessman Alisher Usmanov has topped the Sunday Times ranking of the wealthiest people in Britain and Ireland with a fortune of £13.3bn.

The Surrey-based tycoon, 59, who has a 30% stake in Arsenal football club, owns iron ore producer Metalloinvest.

Warner Music's Len Blavatnik comes next in the 25th annual list with £11bn but steel magnate Lakshmi Mittal's £10bn sees him drop from first to fourth.

The 1,000 richest people in Britain and Ireland share a wealth of £450bn.

The highest British-born person in the list is the Duke of Westminster in eighth place with £7.8bn from property. He is the only person to make the top 10 of the list in each of its 25 years.

Sir Richard Branson, founder of the Virgin brand, is in 19th place with £3.5bn and Chelsea FC's Russian owner Roman Abramovich, who made his fortune in the oil industry, is down two places to fifth with £9.3bn.

In third place are Sri and Gopi Hinduja, of the London-based global conglomerate Hinduja Group, with £10.6bn.

Former Miss UK Kirsty Bertarelli shares her £7.4bn pharmaceuticals fortune with husband Ernesto, the same amount as last year, but they have slipped three places down the list.

There are a record 88 billionaires in the list - compared to 77 last year and just nine when the rich list started in 1989, and the Queen was placed top.

Her then wealth of £5.2bn included the Crown Estates and the royal art collection but since 1993 the Queen has been valued only on personal worth for the purposes of the list.

The combined wealth of the top 200 people in list is £318.2bn which is more than eight times the figure 25 years ago.

Mr Usmanov started his business empire with the manufacture of plastic bags.

His interests now include Russia's biggest iron ore producer Metalloinvest, a stake in internet business mail.ru and a holding in mobile phone operator MegaFon which became listed on both the London and Moscow stock exchanges last year.

Mr Usmanov owns Sutton Place in Surrey, the former home of the late oil baron J Paul Getty, as well as a £48m mansion in north London.

Mr Blavatnik saw the biggest rise in wealth among those listed with an increase of £3.4bn over the past year.

The Russia-born media mogul, who now holds US citizenship, sold his stake in Russian oil and gas giant TNK-BP for £2bn last month.

Mr Mittal, who topped the list for the past eight years, was the biggest faller in wealth terms after his 40% stake with his wife in steelmaker ArcelorMittal plunged from a peak of £28bn to just under £6bn.

Earlier this month former Beatle Sir Paul McCartney was revealed to have topped the Sunday Times Rich List of musicians with the £680m fortune he shares with his wife Nancy Shevell.

Sir Paul, whose American heiress wife is said to be worth £150m, has topped each music list since 1989 when he was worth an estimated £80m.

Andrew Lloyd Webber was second with £620m and Irish rock band U2 were third with £520m.

19 April 2013 Last updated at 18:04 ET By Kevin Peachey Personal finance reporter, BBC News

The UK shivered its way through the second coldest March on record. So there has been little motivation for gardeners to fetch the tools out of the shed and start digging and planting in their beds and borders.

As a result, staff at some garden centres have given gloomy reports of custom so far this year.

Tammy Woodhouse, of the Millbrook Garden Centre in Gravesend, Kent, says that typically half their sales for the year come in March, April and May. This year, takings are 35% down on the norm.

"It has been tough," says Mrs Woodhouse, a spokeswoman for the Garden Centre Association.

Bargains

For many garden centres and growers, the bad weather has led them to throw stock away.

In the short term, that could mean bargains for gardeners, with items heavily discounted before being dumped.

Primroses are being sold for 99p and pansies are being offered at knockdown prices.

"Some plants have had to be thrown away. They've been affected by the cold and by the frost, and they have been damaged too much," says Mrs Woodhouse.

"Some prices are coming down. There are discounts to be had. We'll always discount before we throw away, and some of the suppliers are offering us discounted products just to make space."

But in the long term, Mrs Woodhouse warns that prices could go up and some garden centres and growers could be pushed out of business.

Her parents started in the business 35 years ago, and now have three centres, but the family say this is the worst start to the season that they can remember.

Like many other centres, they have been relying on alternative sales, such as gifts and refreshments, and are hoping for a good summer.

Gardens network

Gardeners may face the threat of rocketing prices in the long term, but they are already used to seeing costs rise steadily.

Official figures show that the cost of gardens, plants and flowers rose by 0.6% in March, compared with a year ago, typical of much of the past year.

The good news for gardeners is that this remains lower than the overall inflation rate - the rising cost of all good and services - which stood at 2.8% in March.

And the Office for National Statistics data shows that the cost of tools and equipment for the home and garden has actually fallen, down 1.9% in March compared with a year earlier.

Community spirit

Many groups of enthusiasts who get green-fingered on a strict budget can be found in the network of community gardens across the UK.

Often funded with the help of local authority grants and run by volunteers, they are designed to improve the wellbeing of residents in low-income areas.

And those involved hope the low costs mean that things look healthy for their finances too.

The Coplow Street Community Garden in Ladywood, Birmingham, has 26 plots where members of the 500-household community can grow fruit and vegetables.

The site was transformed from old garages on the estate in 2009, and began with some soil-filled builders' bags.

For a membership fee of £10 a year, residents now get a small custom-built bed to grow their produce, and access to seeds and plants at cost price.

Co-ordinator Chris Blythe, part of the North Summerfield Residents Association, says it is terrific way to build community spirit as well as encouraging the grow-your-own culture.

It also gives a chance to people living in flats, or with only small yards, to get outside with their families and involved in affordable gardening.

"It is an inner-city area. This is a great way for people to just have a small space to grow vegetables and fruit to benefit their health and their family," he says.

There are also social events and educational days organised by the group.

"It is a great way of getting involved in gardening. It is not just about growing, but getting people together as a community and supporting each other," he says.

Plant tips

For others with access to a little space, but without much money to spend, what are the top tips for gardening on a budget?

Alys Fowler has written a number of books on gardening and has presented Gardeners' World on BBC Television.

She says it is vital not to start too quickly.

"Go to lots of car boot sales. You can get fantastically good old tools. They will be really well made and you can pick them up for about a fiver," she says.

"You just need a spade, a fork, a hand trowel, a hoe and a rake. That will be all that you need. You don't have to get everything out there."

Other gardeners are often generous with cuttings and some vital equipment, ranging from plastic to bricks for the garden, are simply discarded by other people, she says.

But one item that is worth investing some funds in, she says, is good soil.

"If I was going to spend money anywhere, I would spend it on the best-quality compost that I can buy. For everything else, just use the cheapest seed trays, recycle all the labels. I make my own out of lollypop sticks," she says.

So those inspired to get out in the garden, to an allotment, or to their local community plot, may find it is easier than they think to control the budget.

It is just a shame that the same cannot be done with the weather.

19 April 2013 Last updated at 18:32 ET By Alex Hudson BBC Click

With new devices allowing two photos a minute to be taken automatically, critics warn that over-sharing could be mean people become unwitting subjects of surveillance.

"People are using more and more technology and hardware devices to track their lives," says Martin Kallstrom, co-founder and CEO of Memoto.

His company has produced a device which clips onto clothing and automatically takes geotagged photos two times a minute, producing around four gigabytes over an active 24-hour period.

If worn for 12 hours each day, that is 10,000 photos a week.

"Lifelogging", as it is known, means that entire lives are becoming not just a series of memories but a series of photos, videos, tweets and status updates.

Though people share some strange things online.

"Um serious question! I'm doing my taxes how do I claim my cat as a dependent?!?!?!?!?! I need to know by tonight!"

Photographic memory

The phrase "information overload" has been overloaded into articles fearing the worst - about the death of privacy, of personal security, of remaining anonymous or even being able to find anything worth viewing.

But some businesses are capitalising on the fact that people now want every special moment to be recorded so it will never be lost.

Microsoft is already selling a device called SenseCam which takes photos every 30 seconds in a similar way.

The list goes on with Google Glass for video that can be streamed along with photos, Twitter for instant written updates and a large number of others for nearly everything that could be thought of.

But the small size of Memoto has caught the imagination even before its launch.

Promoted as a "searchable and shareable photographic memory", it raised money using the crowdfunding site Kickstarter.

In a bid for $50,000, they raised $550,000 (£360,000). It seems like having an "always-on" attitude to photography intrigues a large number of people.

Could it be that too much information for some is just enough for others?

"Memoto is something on the frontier right now and it will take a couple of years before there is any mainstream potential for it," says Mr Kallstrom.

"People will find what is the appropriate level for themselves. Some people take a large number of photos and keep them for family and close friends. Some want to share it with everyone."

The photo is taken, stored online and only shared when the user chooses the photos to make more public, reducing the risk of anything regrettable appearing online.

TMI?

Attitudes towards sharing have definitely shifted since the advent of social media. But what is so bad about being public if it just your friends reading it?

"We're now at a moment where mass observation is a global phenomenon," says Henry Jenkins, a media scholar at the University of Southern California.

"We are recording aspects of our lives for each other, and God knows what the next generation of historians would be able to do with the sheer number of pieces of data we've collected through lifelogging and these other phenomena.

"We've seen our culture become more exhibitionistic but we've also seen people become more uncomfortable with too much information. That's the tension that we're going to see playing out over the next decade."

If on Facebook you share posts with friends of friends, an average of over 150,000 people can read it, according to Pew Research Center.

Around 25% of people on Facebook do not make use of the privacy settings at all.

"You can choose to broadcast your life but the bystanders around you don't choose," says Sarah Downey, analyst at the online privacy group Abine.

"The disconnect is that you're wearing these sorts of technology, you end up being a vector for surveillance. Everyone around you is your unwitting subject."

Continuing with the theme of overload, rarely a new way to share content launches without some reference to the principles of George Orwell's Big Brother.

As a proof of how prevalent and how easy it is to be Big Brother now, I searched for an 18-year-old picked at random from a Twitter search.

Within an hour, using only information in the public domain, I had his home phone number, postcode, school he attended, views on gender discrimination, his approach to casual homophobia - even golf handicap and the club at which he plays.

Nearly half of teenagers questioned in a BBC survey said they had or knew someone who shared something online they later regretted. Of those "oversharing", one third thought it damaged their reputation.

But there are a number of positives of recording what is happening around you.

"When someone in a position of power can select certain material from a surveillance camera, the selection they make can be incriminating but you can still be innocent," says Mr Kallstrom.

"There is a movement called 'sousveillance', which instead of government watching from above, people are watching from below."

This means offering a personal viewpoint instead of just what people are shown by traditional sources. This is shown from recent big events where thousands of photos were recorded.

What this could mean though, privacy advocates believe, is that what is recorded changes because people know they are being watched.

"You can live forever through your digital records and through your online footprint," says Ms Downey.

"Everybody wants to live forever. You can do that very easily now through data.

"Without privacy, you can't live a full explorative, uncensored life, the kind of life you should be able to live. People act differently when they know they're being watched. You check and censor yourself."

But it is the moment that would have been lost that Memoto are hoping people will cherish the most.

It's the thing you didn't realise at the time was important that could become the most significant.

"Months after it happened, you realise you met a person some time ago, you can look it up and remember it," says Kallstrom.

"It might be someone you met and maybe now in a relationship with. These photos would never be taken otherwise."

For more technology features, visit the BBC Click website.

19 April 2013 Last updated at 18:24 ET By Bob Howard Reporter, Fast Track

The classic sounds of Los Endos by Steve Hackett, formerly of Genesis, and Close to the Edge by Yes pound out from the stage as musicians who made their names selling millions of albums back in the 70s play in front of their adoring fans.

"Phenomenal," said Terry, from Ontario, who loved what he saw and heard. "Rub shoulders with a few celebrities, see them perform up close. You can't buy those tickets nowadays."

But this is a concert with a difference. Musicians and fans are all on board the 3,000-passenger cruise ship Poesia for a five-night rock cruise through the Caribbean.

The fans are being enticed on board by the lure of sharing a trip with musicians from a number of veteran British rock bands.

This year, musicians from the Moody Blues, Genesis, Yes and Emerson, Lake and Palmer have all played concerts on cruises from Fort Lauderdale in Florida to the Caribbean.

The last of the series was called Cruise to the Edge - echoing the title of the celebrated 1972 Yes album, Close to the Edge.

Between performances, the ship called in at Grand Cayman and Ocho Rios in Jamaica, giving the fans and stars a chance to explore ashore.

Meeting the musicians

The gigs have attracted prog rock fans from all over the world. They have each paid from about $800 to several thousand to be on board.

For this they get five nights of concerts in an intimate setting, along with special events for those fans who buy a VIP package.

These include meet-and-greets, where they get a photo with one of their heroes and a chance to hear rock stars talk about the inspiration for their music.

On board is Scott Richards, a psychiatrist from southern California. He has seen Yes in concert more than 100 times already and this experience alone must have cost him several thousand dollars as he opted for the VIP package.

Prog rock fans are not normally known for dancing but Dr Richards was so entranced by the occasion that he stood up to whirl along to the music.

The cruising experience was clearly new to many of the musicians. The guitarist playing with drummer Carl Palmer was unsure if the giant food plates provided for passengers were in fact trays.

'Cruising with their band'

Being on a cruise ship threw up its own musical challenges. A massive ridge of low pressure that had settled south of Florida meant stormy weather and rough seas.

On some nights, anything not taped down on stage, including the performers, was in danger of sliding back and forth precariously.

Yes guitarist Steve Howe was less than amused to see his slide guitar continuously sliding across the stage, though a few nights later he was able to see the funny side.

Most of the bands on board played two concerts, varying the set list so passengers did not see exactly the same performance twice.

Drummer Carl Palmer, of Emerson, Lake and Palmer, says the idea of playing on a cruise had obvious attractions for the fans and the musicians.

"They're on holiday, cruising with their favourite band. That's what they get out of it. There we are in the morning and you can see us having breakfast."

The stars also benefit from the sale on board of merchandising, such as T-shirts, CDs and DVDs. Palmer was also showing to prospective buyers works of art he had helped create.

Star experiences

One night the former Genesis guitarist Steve Hackett was woken by the sound of his TV falling off its arm and crashing to the floor. Jokes followed about stars in their 60s now being too old to trash their hotel rooms.

Hackett said that in the past he would very much have guarded his privacy but on experiences like these he accepted he was effectively public property.

Fans regularly asked him for pictures and photos during breakfast in the buffet restaurant.

Lee Donovan, from Pittsburgh, believes the price of his cruise ticket was money well spent.

"I'd never taken a cruise before. I honestly think the concept of the theme cruise is really something which will catch on.

"Your friends would never believe you're eating 10ft away from Steve Hackett from Genesis."

These niche cruises are helping to maintain growth in the sector. The industry says it has averaged about 7% per annum in recent years.

Globally, about 20 million people go on a cruise every year, with the majority of passengers coming from North America.

William Tatham, vice-president of cruise shipping and marina operations at the Port Authority of Jamaica, says cruise lines and charter companies have been aware for some time that there is money to be made from catering to customers' interests.

"They've continued to be innovative and reinvent their product, being able to go from general cruising to be able to now start focusing on the interests of their passengers."

Industry innovation

Michael Vanderbeek, business development director for Port Everglades in Florida, one of the busiest cruise ports in the world, agrees that the customers are now being given a choice of cruises that may be targeted at their interests.

"There's really a niche market for everyone."

"If you're into music, there's jazz and rock. Dancing with the Stars also appears on sea cruises, and you have culinary cruises and sports - baseball, football, soccer."

Larry Morand, from the company On The Blue, produced the Cruise to the Edge. He also helped organise this year's Monsters of Rock and Moody Blues cruises, which also started at Fort Lauderdale.

He is confident that prog rock fans will want to repeat the experience.

"I think it will help rejuvenate the progressive rock style of music. We'll be back on next year in April 2014."