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Opinion : Testing the market when starting a new business

| September 8, 2016

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A few days ago my good self was sent a Tweet mentioning the National Youth Market that took place on King Street in Manchester on Friday 2nd and Saturday 3rd September 2016.

Upon further investigation the National Youth Market seems a very good idea. It gives young traders looking to start a business an opportunity to try out their business idea to see if it’s viable.

At this years event thirty young entrepreneurs took advantage of the opportunity to test their marketing skills and try to sell to the public.

Wouldn’t it be a great idea if there was something similar in Wycombe for traders of all ages?

Over the years many large nationally known High Street businesses started on markets for example Poundworld.

Starting in business is often so difficult, opening a shop requires not only a large capital outlay but there is so much red tape to get through before the shop door can open for the first day of trading.

Surely a market stall is the quick, easy and cheap way to see if one’s business idea has potential?

When my good self was a young man, many years ago now, I myself contemplated the option of trading on a market stall. Quite often yours truly still dreams of hiring a stall for a day and selling items directly to the public.

Trading on the market in Wycombe as a casual day trader is cheap, as you can see at the link here it’s just £28 per day. However before you can trade you will need public liability insurance which can be obtained by joining the National Market Traders Federation for £122 a year.

Wouldn’t it be great, for those starting out, if rather than purchasing a years public liability insurance you could just purchase a week? Wouldn’t it be great if you could just make one payment to one organisation and turn up and trade just to try things out for a day or two?

In my opinion trading on the market is a good way forward for those wishing to test their business idea.

Rather than having stalls open to the elements why can’t there be the option of hiring an enclosed tent so customers can shop indoors?

Perhaps Wycombe should consider building a covered market? Indeed until a few years ago there was a covered market in Aylesbury but that has now closed. The upstairs of the old Woolworths shop in Castle Street would be a most suitable location.

Once upon a time there were two market areas in Wycombe, one in the High Street and another in the area between Lilly’s Walk and supermarket in the Octagon shopping centre.

Rather than buying the empty shops with public money should Wycombe be looking to develop businesses through encouraging people to trade on the market?

As far as I can see the only downside with the market in Wycombe are the food stalls that cook food in what appears to be an oil drum with a chimney welded on the top so the smoke bellows uncontrolled over the public as they walk by.

Maybe it’s time the food stalls that cook on site were banned so as to make the market a nicer place to be?

What do you think?

*My blogs are published every Tuesday and Friday evening around 8.00pm here on the WycombeToday.com website.

You can also follow me on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/ivor.wycombe or on Twitter at https://twitter.com/Ivor_Wycombe.

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