Jake Smith

During this time, I have gained a lot of valuable skills, such as communicative skills, not only with customers, but with colleagues as during peak times, it could get very busy and it could be very stressful if you have no communication between the staff.

During this time, I was trusted with being a Relief Steward, when the Steward needed a break or went on holiday - This would mean I was in charge of handling the keys and dealing with daily management duties such as:

- Working a minimum of 12 hour shifts, split between the morning and evening

- Opening Store at 8AM.

- Greeting Cleaners

- Handling Deliveries/Stock

- Driving to Suppliers to pick up Stock

- Handling Payments i.e. Deliveries, Cleaners, Electricians / Labourers.

- Handling Rota Schedule amending with all employees needs/requests.

- Counting All Money from Tills / Machines to ensure we are keeping on track with all money and ensuring that the tills are not down and keeping ahead of all incomes and expenditures for the day/week.

- Locking Store and abiding by all security measures.

- Closing Store at 12PM.

Overall, my years working here were very beneficial to me for many reasons, not only did I get vital work experience, especially under busy and stressful circumstances, I also got managerial experience, and overall gained a lot of people skills.

Starting in July of 2022, while under covid restrictions/lockdown I began sourcing electrical items from online supplies and online auctions and listing/selling them online on eCommerce websites like eBay, Amazon, etc. Storing all sales data in an Excel Spreadsheet database and also physical prints of incomes/expenditures over the years, to keep on track with Income Taxes from the business.

Once covid restrictions had been lifted, I started going to a lot of physical / in-person auctions and buying a lot more items to sell. Majority of the items that I sourced were brand new, sealed items, however there were still a lot of occasions where I had sourced new items that were broken in transport from retailers, so I researched how to fix some of these items and bought the required tools/items to do so, over the few years I have learned to replace mobile phone screens, television screens, rewire broken cables or just simply sourced internal parts to replace and repair the items. I believe this is a good skill to show as it shows that I can adapt and learn, also I have learnt electrical wiring and repair skills.

More recently as of November 2024, I opened up a second eCommerce business - Designing and 3D printing my own items. I have always been pretty computer literate, however I have recently picked up new Design skills on CAD Design softwares, successfully designing and creating tens of brand new products, which have had hundreds of sales with entirely positive reviews from all customers.

For both businesses, I successfully package and safely secure all items to be shipped/delivered. If the item is very local, I will personally deliver all items myself - However, if the item being sold is being delivered out of the city, or out of the country I will source delivery myself, via Royal Mail, DPD, UPS, etc - So far I have had around 1,000 sales across both businesses, all of these being successfully secured and packed, either in boxes or shipping bags by myself with a 100% success rate and review rate from all customers across both businesses.

Over the past 3 tax years, I have successfully documented all Income/Expenditures and kept on track, filed and paid Income Taxes owed independently.