BUSINESS NEWS

TUPNews was going through some old receipts in my wallet this morning when a particularly garish back-of-a-receipt advert caught my eye. I’m surprised that back-of-the-receipt adverts are still going, as they must be the most easily ignored adverts outside of the web. I was also surprised to find myself taking a second look at this one, based solely on the fact that it featured a very colourful, psychedelic swirl design, but the content surprised me even more. The advert was for The Magdela, a pub about ten minutes down my road.

I checked the front and found it was a receipt from my local Somerfield Market Fresh on Lordship Lane. Somerfield must, therefore, employ someone to sell back-of-a-receipt advertising to local merchants – local as in within two miles of a specific store location. Amazing!

I can’t see how they make any money from it, though. You go from just buying millions of yards of generic receipt paper and sending it out to whichever store asks for it first, to printing thousands of individual batches of different receipt paper, and employing people to make sure that the right batches go to the right stores. Local merchants must have a lot of faith in the penetrability of back-of-a-receipt advertising.

If you’re interested, the Magdela (on Lordship Lane, past the police station) is offering two for one pizzas every Tuesday, including takeaway. I’ve eaten pizza in the newly-refurbished Magdela, it was excellent and affordable. They have a decent pub quiz on a Sunday night as well. Unfortunately TUPNews can’t go back there for a while, after drinking all afternoon and heckling the quizmaster with such witty barbs as: “What’s the capital of Bolivia?” “Your mum!”

UPDATE!

On the subject of receipts, check your receipt the next time you use one of those self-service checkouts. At Somerfield at least, the receipt will say something like:

"YOUR STORE MANAGER IS JASON BUTTS
YOU WERE SERVED TODAY BY ROBOT ANGELA"

It's a nice touch, but I can never help but wonder whether Angela is the name of the till-girl who got laid off when they brought the self-service machines in.