
A billionaire retailer whose shops had no stock - antongribok
https://www.bbc.com/news/business-51048617
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slugiscool99
Moves like these seem obvious in retrospect, but when you consider the
conditions at the time (no internet, horrible business climate), this woman’s
vision and execution is mind blowing.

Really shows how truly valuable ideas can succeed no matter what state the
world around them is in.

~~~
rwmj
There's also a survivorship bias. We don't hear about any Brazilian catalog
shops that opened in the 1980s or that didn't have an aunt and uncle who were
already in the retail business backing them. (This is not to say she didn't
work extremely hard, but there's also luck, good timing and family involved)

~~~
appleshore
Ordering from an online catalog wasn’t a revolutionary idea in 1996-1999 but
in 1992 it was very forward thinking. And obviously placing an ordering
terminal in a store at the time was revolutionary.

~~~
JackRabbitSlim
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Service_Merchandise](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Service_Merchandise)

Not exactly. Again, not saying she wasn't clever or didn't bust her ass but it
wasn't an entirely unique concept and luck/connections count for a lot.

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Waterluvian
How do you do any business when inflation is wildly high? Do you just work in
US dollars? I'd love some resource explaining in practical day to day detail
how it got done.

~~~
ash
I was living through 90s Russia. The inflation rate was 2500% in 1992.

Yes, businesses dealt in US dollars.

Prices for major things like cars and apartments were in so called
"conventional units" (у.е., условная единица), widely known euphemism for US
dollars. [1] Cash dollars were very common for these purchases.

For groceries, rubles were used.

For things like washing machines stores had prices in "conventional units",
with a daily changing definition of them.

If you could save, you would do it in USD cash. Exchanging between rubles and
dollars was very common and cheap. Everybody knew where cash currency traders
("валютчики") were, usually on the main city square. (I think trading
currencies outside of banks was illegal, but police looked away, due to
corruption and light/no punishment at the time.)

Salaries for domestic jobs were mostly in rubles, with disastrous
consequences. Middle class had almost ceased to exist.

[1]:
[https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/Условная_единица](https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/Условная_единица)

~~~
telesilla
Even into the early 2000s, when I used to visit Moscow more regularly, dollars
were preferred for many transactions. Is this still the case? It's been a long
time since my last trip there.

~~~
fr1tkot
Dollars aren't used for any transactions you or I would make, people do still
like making cash savings in Dollars or Euros if they can get their hands on
them.

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cvaidya1986
I fking love entrepreneurs! Always find a way out of a situation. Relentlessly
resourceful like PG says!

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1-6
Sounds like Fry's Electronics.

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smabie
Theoretically, inflation, even hyper-inflation, should not affect the economy
or businesses in anyway. The real problem is the uncertainty of inflation.
Practically speaking, even certain hyperinflation has costs: the prices rise
faster than people can react to them (reprice goods, update software, etc).
But I think certain inflation up to maybe 50%/year isn't that big of a deal.

~~~
viraptor
> should not affect the economy or businesses in anyway

What do you mean by this? Hyper-inflation completely changes the economy and
businesses. You can't save up money, which means no real investment. Whatever
you don't spend within days becomes close to worthless, so large transactions
become much harder. This is assuming you're also restricted from trading
currency though.

~~~
smabie
You can just buy inflation hedged assets: real-estate, food, gold, stocks,
etc.

