Despite Mary's opening of her new store turning out to be a hit and netting her £18,598 in profit, way over her £10,000 daily target, the retail consultant still wasn't happy.
While customers complimented Mary on her designs and the impeccable customer service, Mary was more concerned that her best-sellers were out of stock and not being replenished, and rightly so with a long waiting list of women desperate for her Arora dress.
Worried that HOF's failure was causing her to loose money and people's custom, she complained to store manager Paul, who told her he didn't like loosing money too but that everything would come together. Another of Mary's issue she discussed with the store manager was the department store's badges her staff are made to wear.
'I really don't want name badges on staff', she moaned. 'It doesn't go with what I'm trying to create.'
Paul told Mary that there needed to be compromise and acceptance. 'The C word isn't in my vocabularly', an angry Mary replied, who was furious that HOF was turning her space into their own brand.
'It feels like when coming in it's not my store it's House of Fraser's', she said after finding HOF store card pamphlets on her till and hearing that her staff have been told to offer the card to every customer.
'You can cage the best, but you can't tame the beast', said Paul in response to Mary's attack on the department store.
Then Mary was given the news that her brand would be rolled-out to other HOF stores following a successful three to four weeks of trading in London. However instead of being happy, Mary cried that it wasn't about a roll-out as the store was her dream. She then exclaimed that she wanted stores in London, Paris and Milan, not Guildford, Kent, where she was sent to suss out the department store's clientele.
Surprisingly shoppers at Guildford pleaded with Mary to bring her designs to their store, after one forty something woman told her she was stuck in a style rut and needed help, which reassured Mary. So she enlisted the help of her team member Mark, who impressed her with his selling technique, to help her with the roll-out and ensure it would be a 'brand roll-out, not a bland roll-out.'
But while she had her team and the HOF big-wigs on side, her neighbours Spencer and Liz were angry at Mary for stealing their customers. To help them the retail consultant set them a challenge to dress her in their brand's designs, evening wear, while she would dress Liz in the clothes from her space, all filmed and aired on HOF's store TV channel. It's a good PR stunt she assured them as staff from the ground floor gathered around the TV to watch.
