Small Business (Barbershop)

The activities that the shop does enables it to reach its main aim, and that is the maximising of the profits.

e.g. nail care. Some customers come to the barbershop to have a haircut but when they find out the shop also has nail care, they might get their nails done.

Some changes cause the organisation to change its objectives, activities and maybe its aims. These could be internal of external changes.

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My small business is a small hairdressing salon and its location is chosen to suit the owner and to be attractive for customers. The location has to have the following:

• Stable local economy
• Low  competition rate
• Suitable premises costs
• Local government charges
• Suitable for workers
• Minimum crime rate

These will influence the choice of the location of a business. Some factors may conflict the other, e.g. a location with high crime rate will not be selected for its low rent rates, or an area with a high economic state will not be chosen to be suitable for workers that for example live far from it, instead new worker would be employed.

The state of the local economy is important concerning the average income of residents in the area. If the small business is located in an area with middle class residents that can afford to pay the hairdressing costs. If the hairdressing salon moves to an area with lower class population, the prices have to be lower and the profit will then be less. Low profits are not beneficial to the owners, and in this case more then one owner will have to share less profit because it is a partnership business.

Competition can affect a small business largely because; the owner may not have experience in the management of a business or the competing against other business in the same section. Lower competition rates are essential for a fresh starting business, so the owner has to search for a location with low competition rate. This could be done by searching for other hairdressers in the area you want to work in, if there are too many the owners have to consider looking for a new location.

Suitable premises costs are also important for a fresh starting business. The cost of the business has to be in proportion to the size of the business, because the capital and the businesses income are not certainly enough for pay the rent. If a contract is signed with the premises owners, problems such as the sudden decrease of the costumers can lead the business consider taking loans from the bank. The problem of taking loans could be high interest rates at that time and the unlimited liability of the partnership

The barbershop I have investigated is located in shepherds bush; a busy area in west London. It is mostly known by “the shepherds bush market.”

Shepherds bush is a cheap area (shop products are cheap)

This area has many restaurants like shawarma and falafels.

Most of the shops have many competitors because of the shepherds bush market.

There are some good and some bad things about having a shop in shepherds bush.

If you want to set a shop in shepherds bush, it would have to be a cheap shop because it is a low rent area. The people who come to shop there expect all or most of the shops to be cheap. This is why the barbershop is located in shepherds bush.

Shepherds bush is busy because: 

There is also two train station that are near the market and the barbershop.

There are also other things that make the barber open up a shop in shepherds bush, e.g.

• Distinct but poorly connected areas.
• A mix of activities including; the Concord shopping centre, mixed-use areas of local shopping, cafés and bars on Uxbridge Rd and on Goldhawk Rd, leisure and entertainment uses at the western end of the Green, and Shepherds Bush markets linking Goldhawk and Uxbridge Roads.
• The centre has been unattractive to new investors in recent years – and there are few national high street retailers.
• The centre caters not only for local shopping needs, but also for a distinctive ethnic food and goods market, which attracts shoppers from African, Caribbean and Arab communities over a wide catchment area.
• Growth in the evening economy with a number of themed bars and pubs opening
• The vacancy rate of shop premises has remained steady over the past few years - slightly higher than the national average. The vacancy rate in the market has increased.
• More about public transport: 
• New bus station on the Wood Lane frontage, improvements to bus network and contribution to bus priority measures on new routes.
• New West London line station at Shepherds Bush, with interchange facilities to the Central Line station