Learning retail by the book (From Basingstoke Gazette)

Learning retail by the book

1:22pm Thursday 2nd October 2008 in

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GO PAST BCOT’s campus in Worting Road, Basingstoke, and you will immediately spot the Blackwell bookshop that has just opened.

The shop is open to the public and inside you will find Blackwell staff selling academic books, novels, stationery, cards and all the usual bookshop things.

There are the offers you would expect, including a loyalty scheme, and you can also order any book you need.

But this bookshop is unique. It’s part of BCOT’s Retail Training Centre, offering retail students a valuable insight into the “back room” work of running a retail business as well as work placements.

BCOT and Blackwell (The Knowledge Retailer) have opened the shop to provide the real business experience required by employers of their staff and necessary for National Vocational Qualifications.

Locally available training of this quality is good news for Basingstoke’s retailers and customers.

When we think “retail”, we usually think only of a shop selling something and not the infrastructure behind that business or the professionals who manage the buying, logistics, finances, IT systems and property.

Blackwell, a national company with more than 60 shops that is based in Oxford, will introduce BCOT students to an exciting industry offering excellent opportunities to qualified and ambitious employees.

Alan Gwyer, director of business development at BCOT, sees this partnership as yet another step towards BCOT becoming a regional centre for retail training.

He said: “In just over two years since becoming a centre of vocational excellence for retail, BCOT now has two groups of Young Apprentices aged from 14 to 16 coming from schools across north Hampshire, a full-time Level 2 course in fashion retail and a foundation degree in management with a retail pathway offered with The University of Winchester.

“BCOT also aims to be one of the first colleges outside of London to offer the Level 3 in fashion retail and a member of the network of Skill Shops opening as part of the National Skills Academy for Retail”

For more information about retail training at BCOT, call 01256 306237 or e-mail business@bcot.ac.uk Alternatively, for a full list of all the courses available, visit www.bcot.ac.uk

• Blackwell’s, at BCOT, is open from 8.30am to 6pm, Mondays and Fridays, and 8.30am to 7pm, Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays.