Late payment 'Hall of Shame' entries 2004
Tesco
Every little helps. In November 2004, every little extra that suppliers could pay towards the cost of air freighting following stock shortages would help too. In a list of demands Tesco also said that suppliers holding 12 weeks of stock and giving 12 weeks notice if they stopped stocking a certain product line wouldn't hurt. The consequences for not meeting the demands would be refunds for loss of profit and loss of sales at full retail value.
 
Robert Dyas
The good folks at Robert Dyas the ironmongers wanted to celebrate their sale to Change Capital and the consequent expansion plans, but how would they do that? "Aha!", thought some bright spark, "Let's get the suppliers to pay for it!"
 
They demanded a 3% increase in margin for promotional and range", a 1 percent increase in ‘general advertising allowance rate‘, a 1% increase in ‘turnover rate' and 1% of turnover for their new store opening programme. According to the letter informing suppliers in April 2004 "…now is the time to demonstrate your commitment…" .
 
Poundstretcher (became '...instore' in 2007)
What a forward-thinking firm Poundstretcher is! On closing their Newport Pagnall warehouse and moving activities to Cross Green and a new distribution centre in Huddersfield they would save their suppliers a small fortune in haulage costs. It seemed only fair to ask suppliers pay a 2.5% discount from invoices for goods received after March 2004.
 
TJ Hughes
TJ Hughes informed suppliers in March 2004 that after its management buy-out from JJB Sports it was "…reviewing areas of business with a particular focus on working capital management". This has to be one of the most creative ways of saying squeezing suppliers!
 
They more than doubled payment terms from 28 to 60 days from the end of the month. They also announced that for being such a good customer and paying on time (albeit 32 days later than before) they would be increasing the percentage they deducted for prompt payment from 6 to 8% of invoices.