I called up Taj Mahal on Friday night to order some food for delivery. They were closed.
“You are closed?” I said.
“We are closed tonight.”
“Closed for just delivery or closed for everything?”
“We are closed.”

The strange thing is that someone was there to answer the phone to say they were closed. His wages certainly weren’t being covered that night. Ok, that’s a bit strange. Fast forward to Sunday. The craving for Taj Mahal hasn’t gone away. I call again. They are closed Sunday night as well!

Now, Friday and Sunday nights are pretty big nights to eat-out/order-out in America, and you know what – they are in Sofia , too. Taj Mahal has the keen sense to realize the plethora of business they would get from Friday and Sunday night operations so they wisely closed down. They are much more content to stay open on Mondays and Tuesdays – nights Kat and I had successfully ordered food from them.

Good job Taj Mahal! You set an example for the all of the restaurant industry (although, I will say the industry does a pretty good job in their own right).

As an addendum,
At the Thanksgiving Tex-Mex night I was talking to the chef at the make-your-own-fajita bar. I found out he was also the chef at Taj Mahal. He wasn’t Indian, he was Nepalese, but I guess in terms of the Sofia restaurant business they are the same. Apparently Nepalese also passes for Mexican on Tex-Mex night at Flannigan’s. Anyway, our theory is that on the nights he works at Flannigan’s Taj Mahal has to shut down because he is the only cook. It’s just a theory, but it may have some merit.

Share on Facebook

As a casual shopper I’m not going to make any impulse buys on something that requires me to go through the hassle of finding a salesperson (usually a whole blog story in and of itself) and asking them to let me see a few shoes from behind the counter. Of course, it’s also difficult to judge shoes based on just the design of the heel.

I know shoplifting in Sofia might be higher than the average European city, but not selling anything can also be a hindrance to the average business. Although, the more time I spend in Sofia, the more I realize that selling product is relatively far down in importance. A few things I have found to be more important than profit for Bulgarian businesses are:

a) Number of items for sale. Empirical evidence tends to show “less is better”.

b) Number of mannequins in the window. More is better on this one – ideally the entire storefront window should be packed with mannequins, even if they aren’t wearing anything.

c) Outrageousness of sales staff’s clothing and hair coloring. The “best” stores have sales staff in one-piece spandex zebra-print suits, knee-high boots and the brightest red hair coloring you can imagine.

These business practices amazingly seem to work. Businesses that never have any customers (as far as I can tell), but have only a few items in the store in the store, several undressed mannequins in the window and a crazily dressed sales person remain in business month after month. Perhaps there is some unique arbitrage opportunity related to mannequins that I am unaware of…

Share on Facebook

Anyway, I found my way to a Reebok store and found a pair of shoes I liked on the wall. I picked up the shoe from the wall and noticed it was my size. Great, I’ll just try it on to see how it looks; alleviating the need (at least initially) to deal with Bulgaria’s consistently lacking customer service skills. I pick up the shoe and look around. This is when I noticed that there was only two small chairs – not even chairs, two small elevated pads – to sit on in the entire store. There were three large walls full of shoes. There were at least 15 people in the store looking at shoes. There was two – and only two – places to sit to try on shoes. And (surprise, surprise), now that I wanted to try on my shoe, people were sitting on both of them. It wasn’t for lack of space. In fact, there was quite a bit of empty floorspace throughout the store.

I saw several people walk in, look at a pair of shoes, look at the line to sit on the stool to try the shoes on, then walk out. Luckily for Reebok I’m stubborn. I waited patiently to sit on the stool until it finally opened up. I sat down and tried on the shoe. It looked good. I liked it. Just to make sure I wanted to try on the other shoe and also try a half size bigger. I call over the store employee and asked for the same shoe only a half size up. “No more,” he said. “No size at all?” I replied. “Nothing” he repeated. I wasn’t surprised. Either they sold out or they only carried a couple shoes, lest someone actually buy one. I suspect the latter. “Ok,” I said, “then give me the other half of this display pair so I can try on the other one.” He pointed at the one shoe I had on. “No, the other shoe.” He pointed to my one shoe again. I repeated “No, the other shoe” in Bulgarian. Kat repeated “No, the other shoe” in Bulgarian. Still he pointed at the same shoe. He seemed utterly confused why I would want the second shoe when I had one perfectly fine shoe on now.

Finally I got the point across that I was going to keep bothering him, all day if necessary, until he brought me the other shoe. Now remember, they have the only shoe of this type in the entire store. So, what is the first thing he does before going in the back to get the other shoe? He checks the size of my shoe. There’s only one back there – you don’t need to check the size!

Finally I get the second shoe. The both look good. They both feel good and I’m ready to buy. As this was a Reebok outlet store on one of the most exclusive shopping street in all the Balkans – they actually took credit cards, or so they said. So, I give him my VISA card. He looked at the card like it had dropped from outer space. He’s probably never seen one before. Anyway, the concept seemed to hit him all at once and he rushed back to swipe the card on the credit card machine.

“It don’t work.” He replied.

“What?”

“It don’t work.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes, it don’t work.”

I figured either my card was shut off for some reason (which it shouldn’t have been since I told my credit card company I was moving to Bulgaria), he didn’t understand how to use a credit card machine, didn’t understand credit cards in general or just wasn’t the brightest bulb in the tree. Any or all of them would severely hinder a customer’s ability to spend money at the store.

Now here anyone but the most persistent shopper (or one looking to follow through on an interesting blog story) would stop, give up and deny Reebok their sale. I, however, went to the next card in my wallet – this one was my Bulgarian Bank’s ATM card. I was quite curious to see exactly how our Reebok employee would handle this one. Amazingly, this one went through just fine. It looks like our employee knows something about POS terminals after all.

Naturally when I got home I called VISA to figure out if there was a problem with my card. There was nothing wring with the card. In the exact words of the MBNA customer service rep, “We wouldn’t do anything to prevent you from using your $20,000 credit limit.” In fact, the rep said that no charges had even been attempted against the card. So, it looks like Reebok might want to train their Bulgarian employees how to use credit cards machines – since it does say they take VISA on the front door. Maybe they’ll even make a few more sales!

So, Reebok – I know this is Bulgaria , but you’re Reebok! Get with the program. Add some places to sit. Teach your employees to use credit card machines. I know Bulgarians must make it as difficult as possible for you to sell shoes, but you’ve got to overcome that. There is money waiting for you on the other side – I suspect lots of it. If you wish to use my consulting services I will visit every store you have in the region and write a detailed report on how to make them better.

Share on Facebook

First of all, credit cards are nearly unheard of. Bulgaria is essentially a cash only society. People pay their rents in cash, they stand in line at the local telecom to pay their phone bills in cash, cable TV – cash, fine dining – cash. Everything is cash. Companies even pay their employees’ salaries in cash. I guess it’s not entirely the people’s fault – banks haven’t really caught on to the whole internet banking phenomenon. All the banks have a website, but you can’t do much at the site other than read about what services the bank will provide if you stop by in person. They won’t even mail you a statement. You have to go to the bank, request a statement and pay for them to print the statement out.

Let me illustrate how all of this leads to a slugging economy. Now, say you decide to go out to the shopping district for a few hours. All of this is happening on Saturday because you work during week. By the time you get out of work the stores are closed, so the only time you can go shopping is on Saturday. Luckily, some business have graciously decided to remain open for those people that must work during business hours, so they can make money, so they can actually afford to buy stuff (many businesses do not follow this challenging concept). Anyway, you pass by a store and see a diamond necklace that you know your wife would love. The necklace costs 900 BGL (about $550, BGL stands for Bulgarian Lev), but you make decent money and think this one purchase will stop your wife from pestering you for at least a month. You want to buy it. The store wants to sell it. Sounds easy, right? Wrong. You only have 34 BGL on you and the store doesn’t even know what a credit card is – but, you do have a debit card. Oh, too bad the ATM machines will only let you take out 200 BGL at a time. Wait, you remember there are a couple ATMs in town that let you take out 400 BGL (strategically unmarked so they only way you know if it’s a 200 or 400 BGL machine is to you put your card in and try to take out 400 BGL). Also, 400 BGL (~$250) is the most any ATM will let you take in a day. So, even if you took out the maximum from the ATM, the earliest you could buy the necklace would be 3 days from now. Screw it – the wife will have to live with some flowers. …See what I’m talking about?

Then, to compound the problem, the ATMs only give you 20 BGL notes. That’s fine for diamond necklaces, but since food, beverages and taxis are so cheap, half the city won’t even take a 20 note because they can’t make change for it. So here I am with a fistful of cash, I’m starving and freezing, but I can’t buy a slice of pizza or get a taxi ride home. I spend no less than 10% of my waking hours trying to generate situations where I can break my 20’s. A 2 BGL note is the most coveted thing in my wallet because I can spend it anywhere.

All this leads me to open a local checking account because, a) I want to go to the bank and take out small notes and b) I’m tired of having to pay $5 to Bank of America every time I use the ATM (the fee they charge for overseas withdrawals). As I mentioned, everything is cash only so I have to go to the ATM a minimum of 3 times just to pay my rent. That’s a $15/month minimum charge from BofA – and usually $20, because I like to eat as well. It also means I need to plan a minimum of 3 days in advance to pay my rent. Of course, none of the coveted 400 BGL ATM’s are near my apartment so for 3 days prior to rent being due I find myself trekking all over Sofia. Anyway, I was tired of all this so it was time for a local account.

I go to a local bank – First Investment Bank, which came recommended from local Bulgarians as a good bank. Plus, it has an English name, which I like. The English name conjures up visions of English speaking tellers who will understand me when I want to open an account. Well, my first visit didn’t pan out quite how I had envisioned it. I finally found an English speaker (probably the only one there) who could help me. I told her I would like to open a checking account. She had no idea what I was talking about. I told her I would like to open a chequeing account (thinking that saying it with a British accent may get better results). Another blank stare. “I want to open some kind of account where I can use the ATM (“Bankomat” in Bulgarian) to take money out.” That got a glimmer of understanding. So we set up the account. Another limit to your ability to spend money in Bulgaria is a preference I had to elect. I had to choose the maximum amount I could take out of my account if I showed up in person at the bank and wanted my money. The highest I could elect is 3000 BGL. So, if I had 10,000 BGL in my account and I wanted to go to the bank and take it all out to buy, say, a used car (remember, cash only society – although for new cars I’m sure you can get a dealer loan). Nope. Sorry. You can only have 3000 BGL of your own money. Like I said – they make it hard to spend money here. Anyway, back to the account story. So I opened my account and the rep asked me how I would like to deposit my money.

Now there are some interesting peculiarities about the international banking system which don’t make sense to me. For example, if I want to electronically transfer funds from my Bank of America account to my new First Investment Bank account I would have to pay Bank of America a $40 international wire transfer fee plus $2.50 for a statement of that transfer (no, you can’t not elect to get the statement). Then First Investment Bank charges me €10 to receive an international wire transfer from Bank of America. To summarize – for a transaction with no human interaction, that is essentially free for both banks, I get charged over $50. Now, if I want to write a Bank of America check to myself to deposit funds – something that requires a bank representative to physically verify the check, photocopies to be made, special forms to be signed verifying First Investment Bank received the check, those forms to be verified by a bank representative, the check to either be mailed or scanned and emailed back to the US, someone (or some machine) at Bank of America to make sure the check goes to the right place, then, at the end of it, the money still gets wire transferred to First Investment Bank – all of that costs nothing. This convoluted thinking keeps me up at night.

Anyway, now I have a shiny new ATM card where I can withdraw funds from my new Bulgarian bank account. Whew!

Share on Facebook