The Shop closing

[total nutter]

Apparently, after many years as a Phnom Penh institution, The Shop on St 240 (and perhaps the other location in Toul Kork) is closing.

Under the previous Dutch owner's management, it was a wonderful place, with prices clearly displayed and with very competent staff.

Then it was sold to a local.

Here endeth the lesson.

[Kammekor]

So what's the lesson you got from it?

[total nutter]

So what's the lesson you got from it?

Why must I learn a lesson from it?

Hopefully, the people that predicate business decisions based on greed will learn the lesson.

[xtreme]

So what's the lesson you got from it?

Why must I learn a lesson from it?

Hopefully, the people that predicate business decisions based on greed will learn the lesson.

Selling out is not greed. The lesson is the Dutchman could only find a local buyer.

[total nutter]

So what's the lesson you got from it?

Why must I learn a lesson from it?

Hopefully, the people that predicate business decisions based on greed will learn the lesson.

Selling out is not greed. The lesson is the Dutchman could only find a local buyer.

I think the meaning of my post went way over your head,

I was in no way criticising the seller. In fact, she was a friendly acquaintance.

Mismanagement based on greed after acquisition is the lesson. And it was a Dutchwoman who sold the business, after many successful and profitable years.

And she had several other options, but for various reasons, she chose the last. It's like the saying, 'whatever you are looking for it's always in the last place you look'. I hope you can grasp the relevance thereof, but I'm not optimistic, tbh.

You may be unfamiliar with the concept of owners who accept a reasonable profit and convenient time from their investment, regardless of who the buyer is.

And their acceptance of an offer indemnifies them of whatever unsound decision the new owner makes, as evidenced by the failure of the business. Should I explain it with accounting crayons?

Some people will always find a way to blame others for their mistakes.

[Stravaiger]

I saw this recently on Reddit

A lot of the Cambodian business people I meet (and especially now, post-COVID) are not actually business minded or have training or aptitude for business. A large portion are the children or nephews/nieces of the original founders (who had at least have/had the nous to scape a profitable venture together in the first place).

This is a particular strata - usually individuals from wealthy families who have connections to the party or a primary job working for the government - don’t conduct market research and they don’t hire experts (not even accountants), but they do copy what they see abroad and on the media, and listen to echo chambers of their friends.

[...]

When I’m feeling benevolent, I think of this as naïveté. When I am in a mood, I think of it as nepotism and corruption wasting money that would be better invested in ventures run by people who wanted to make money rather than wear a suit and call themselves a CEO.

Where wealth is concentrated among those who didn't earn it, they often purchase existing businesses in an attempt to gain 'status', although they will never be competent managers far less entrepreneurs themselves. It's mobster culture.

FTR the founder Griet Lorre is Belgian.

[Doc67]

So what's the lesson you got from it?

Why must I learn a lesson from it?

Hopefully, the people that predicate business decisions based on greed will learn the lesson.

Selling out is not greed. The lesson is the Dutchman could only find a local buyer.

I think the meaning of my post went way over your head,

I was in no way criticising the seller. In fact, she was a friendly acquaintance.

Mismanagement based on greed after acquisition is the lesson. And it was a Dutchwoman who sold the business, after many successful and profitable years.

And she had several other options, but for various reasons, she chose the last. It's like the saying, 'whatever you are looking for it's always in the last place you look'. I hope you can grasp the relevance thereof, but I'm not optimistic, tbh.

You may be unfamiliar with the concept of owners who accept a reasonable profit and convenient time from their investment, regardless of who the buyer is.

And their acceptance of an offer indemnifies them of whatever unsound decision the new owner makes, as evidenced by the failure of the business. Should I explain it with accounting crayons?

Some people will always find a way to blame others for their mistakes.

Did the local buyer work there when they bought it, or were they just an investor?

I am assuming the latter, and so the point I took from your post is the local buyer didn't properly appreciate what they were buying; a well designed and well managed food business by a conscientious owner. They thought they were buying a self-maintaining money printing machine that would continue with minimal input. Doing 14-hour days, 6 days a week was never part of the deal.

When business declines they have no idea why or the skills to understand what it will take to get it back on track, because they never appreciated what is was in the first place.

Is that a fair assessment? I'm not trying to pick an argument, I am just trying to understand the dynamics of this business failure.

[khmerhamster]

I haven’t been in the original shop for years but have been in the TK branch.
It didn’t seem to me that they were doing things massively different to before.

Remember in the early days there wasn’t so much competition for decent coffee, sandwiches, pastries chocolate. And there may have been more European expats around…
Different times - perhaps a bit lazy to put it down to lazy or mismanagement.

[IraHayes]

I haven’t been in the original shop for years but have been in the TK branch.
It didn’t seem to me that they were doing things massively different to before.

Remember in the early days there wasn’t so much competition for decent coffee, sandwiches, pastries chocolate. And there may have been more European expats around…
Different times - perhaps a bit lazy to put it down to lazy or mismanagement.

Perhaps the owner saw the writing on the wall or saw her takings decline so much she knew she wouldn't survive and off-loaded the business before things got too bad.

[Jerry Atrick]

I always thought that it was hideously overpriced

That said its over ten years since I last went there so probably the prices wouldn't seem so bad today

The brownies were nice

I thought that it closed years ago; this thread is the first mention I've seen of it since a long time ago